Tubing on the "Hooch"

I got out of the city on Saturday to float down the Chattahoochee River. After years of singing "Way down yonder on the Chattahoochee..." I finally learned that the song is about a river in Georgia...who knew? I thought it was about some redneck part out west! My friend Becca (pink shirt, far right) organized the trip for a bunch of the girls in my class. We drove about two hours north of the city to Helen, GA--a really cute tourist town made to look like an alpine village. After loading into our big tubes we headed upstream in the stylish bus seen in the photo, then floated down for a couple hours. The river was pretty low because it's been so hot; we got stuck on rocks a few times. Although it was no comparison to Oregon's North Umpqua River, the "Hooch" was still pretty cool. Plus, we even got to go on the waterslide for free...the advantage of traveling in a group of ten girls (the young, male, lifeguards let us in).