Flash Fiction Follow-up

This week I participated in Cherie Reich's 2nd Annual Flash Fiction Blogfest.  This was my first time participating in anything like this and I am so happy that I did it!

Thank you to everyone for the kind comments.  You all know how to make a girl feel good.
I am also thankful for all of the new followers that I have met during this process.

For anyone who missed my entry, you can find it here

Now, it's time for a little confession...

I realize this was a Flash Fiction blogfest, but my story actually came from a real experience.  I was the "Andi" in my story.  The event happened much like I described in the piece, but I wasn't alone as it implied.  To keep it under 300 words, he sadly had to be left out.

This took place on the Nantahala River in NC, a river that I have kayaked many times before.  Usually I was with a group of other Florida kayakers.  Our leader, Mark, was the owner of our local canoe/kayak shop.  It was always nice to know he was there, as well as the others, for times like the one I described.

That particular day I was with an old college friend, Richard, who was kayaking for the second time ever.  He was renting a kayak and this was our only day on the river since we had both traveled there to meet up as part of a joint vacation.  We only had a few hours left.  We knew the skies were getting dark and it was already foggy when we got on the river, but against our better judgement we decided to go anyway.

The name of the rock I hit is Delebar's Rock.  Every time I had run the river with the group, Mark had told us to be careful of the rock.  I remember always thinking that was an obvious statement!  Most of the time you can't miss seeing it, but due to the fog that day I couldn't see it.

The Nantahala River is dam controlled and the water temperature is in the mid-50s.  When I flipped over, Richard got to the shore but didn't feel comfortable enough to get out of his boat to help me.  I can't say I blame him.  He was stretching it as it was.

The Nantahala is pretty populated in the summer months so there were many other people on the river at the time although by this point, most of them had resigned to the banks to wait out the storm.  I was very thankful when one lone paddler stopped to help me out.

The river is surrounded by trees so there are only a few places along the way to gain access in or out.  Since we had just launched at one of these places, the next one was at the end.  I HAD to keep going!  I'm glad I did because I would have hated to leave my experience feeling defeated.

I had kayaked this river successfully several times.  Here is a picture of me going over the falls at the end of the run.  This time I was upright :)

So there you have it, my confession and an explanation.  I will try next time to make the piece true fiction but this is what came to mind with the Lightning Flashes prompt.