When one watches The Travel Channel quite a bit, as I do, one sees several commercials by various tourism boards encouraging you to come to their country/state/city/region/etc. Asheville, NC has jumped on the bandwagon and is now airing ads encouraging people to check out the greater Asheville area’s many wonders. These ads show quick vignettes of people enjoying various activities…
Rafting on the Nantahala River.
Hiking in the Great Smokey Mountains.
Checking out Biltmore Castle.
Playing around at Sliding Rock (Scroll down to the bottom of the page to see a pic). :smack:
For those of you who don’t know, Sliding Rock is this rock formation wherby a little creek spills over a giant slab of rock at about a 50º angle. The rock is about 15 feet wide and about 25 feet long. The water rushes over it and spills into a pool at the bottom that’s about six feet deep, thereby enabling visitors to slide over the rock and into the pool. Great fun, huh?
Actually, no. Sliding Rock should be dynamited and the road leading to it should be closed. Sliding Rock is pure, sadistic torture. If you want to replicate the experience of Sliding Rock at home, simply have one friend pour ice water on your head while another friend beats you on the ass with a wooden paddle.
So to the Asheville, NC Tourism Board: Please encourage visitors to come to your area by highlighting the fun things they’ll want to do, not the naturally-occurring torture devices. Advertise that freakin’ Sliding Rock on The S & M Channel.
Ah yes, good old Sliding Rock–an instrument of torture from my childhood. Every time I went there with friends, someone in the group would end up hurt. It was inevitable. Of course, the injuries were usually the result of stupid dares like, “I dare you to go head-first with your eyes closed!” and that sort of thing.
I was never one of the injured ones though, because I too am a big old wuss.
Ah, the joys of sliding down slightly-smooth rock before plunging into forty degree water can not fully be put into words. You must experience it yourself.
Took me only one time to decide, “Fuck this shit.”
Well hell, Zette. If you’re actually gonna go to Sliding Rock, you need to have the alternate experience to compare it with. I can bring my own paddle. :puppydog wistfulness:
And be very careful to stay on the wetted slippery portion of the rock. I knew one girl whose slide drifted onto dry rock - afterwards, we nicknamed her “Blue Moon”.
This reminds me of a childhood story that maybe belongs in that thread about crazy things you did when you were little but wouldn’t tell your mom. I grew up in a very rural area and a babysitter told me once about a rock slide out in the woods. For years I looked for it and when I was about 11 or 12 I finally found it. It was very very long and a cursory glance at the bottom didn’t seem to raise any danger flags. So I find a good starting point and jump on. I started accelerating very quickly, much more than 9.81 m/s2. (I think the rock had some Clark Griswold lubricant on it) When I reached the bottom 0.03 seconds later my tailbone slammed into a rock at the bottom. I think I rolled around for about 2 hours before I limped home.
Future attempts included holding a BB gun that was tied to a tree by a 30’ rope to stop me before reaching the bottom. {buzzer!}
My grandparents have a mountain cabin in Boone and we used to go there as a kid - I don’t ever remember going to Sliding Rock (although now I think I’ll have to go next time we’re there), but we used to go tubing on the river there - in a small area of rapids - not big at all because we weren’t allowed to go past the swimming hole. We’d usually end up with cuts and bruises all over our legs from pushing ourselves along and getting our asses stuck on rocks. And it was COLD…we’d come out shivering.
My dad once decided to go past the swimming hole in his tube. Didn’t know there was a 5 foot drop about 100 yards past the swimming hole. That was funny:D.
I’ve got a similar beef with the Illinois Tourism Board. For political reasons, its ads feature many downstate locations that no one from out of state would ever travel to see. Let’s face it - with a few exceptions, there ain’t much to see in the Prairie State outside of Chicago that’d be worth a long trip. (I acknowledge that the Shawnee National Forest area, Starved Rock and the Galena/Eagle River area are exceptions. There might be one or two others.)
Most of the ads are a waste of money. Advertise Chicago. People actually will travel here for that.
Of course, the Illinois Legislature insists that every part of the state be boosted. Arcola Corn Broom Festival, anyone?
