adventures forks
Published February 9, 2009 | 
Yosale & crew have come to the end of part of their South American adventure. After 65 days (49 on the water) at 1800 km they were faced with the decision to continue on another 10 days as was their original goal or take the rewards so far, and go explore some new destinations. You can read more about that right here. What an amazing adventure they’ve been living these past months. Congratulations on a fantastic trip and on surviving it, friendships intact. Yosale is on his way to do a bit of river paddling and the other 2 guys are heading to the Amazon. Enjoy!
wink of an eye
Published February 5, 2009 | 
You got to live, / You got to love,
You got to be somebody, / You got to shove,
But it’s hard, / It’s really hard,
Some times I feel like going down
– lennon
Today’s picture is a self-portrait I took less than an hour after crashing on a volcanic rock shelf, just days after cracking a rib. It was raining on and off, everything I owned was wet, my 3 piece kayak’s latches were bent. I wasn’t missing any place I had left or looking forward to anywhere I was going. I didn’t crave to talk to anyone or to be heard. I just was. There, on the beach feeling cold, in pain and very isolated. Before I went and tried to get the wet sand swept out of my tent, I walked down the rough beach and tried to record the moment. Lastly I held up the camera, pointed it my direction and snapped off a couple shots. Of course, those moments pass in the wink of an eye. . usually. Continue reading
Harsh Treatment for the Great Lakes
Published February 4, 2009 | 
Look what they done to my song, ma
Ma Ma look look what they done to my song
You know they tied it up in a plastic bag
And they turned it upside down ma
Ma Ma look at what they done
Won’t you look at what they done
Look what they done to my song.
- Melanie Safka
Google Earth’s new oceans upgrade is not doing the Great lakes any favors. In fact, it looks as if they had the six year old child of one of their developers just paint over everything with the simple instruction to stay away from the edges. One can only guess why Google could manage to show the bottom of the Atlantic but not Lake Superior. The Great Lakes in fact seem to be in a nether land between a body of water like Baffin Bay that while shallow still shows underwater topography, and smaller lakes that default to surface areas only. Maybe they intend at some point to add the underwater view of the great lakes? Hard to tell. While at the moment you can still see the detail close to the shoreline and around the islands, one has to say that in general the new treatment of the Great Lakes just looks rather harsh.
drifting
Published February 4, 2009 | 
Here is the other place in my part of the world where you can still find open water. It’s a hydro-electric dam in a city called Sauk-Prairie located on the Wisconsin River. The waters below the dam are popular with fisherman looking to hook monsters as big as their boats, Bald Eagles who have found this open section of river to be a lifesaver in the dead of winter, and of course the occasional desperate kayaker looking for a bit of a wave.
California Riviera
Published February 3, 2009 | 
The Salton Sea is the largest lake in California covering around 400 square miles and averaging around 50 feet deep. The lake exists nearly 228 feet below sea level and like the Dead Sea in Israel, is a body of water so high in salt content that the land around it seems pale, white and rusty. The Salton has one other thing in common with the Dead Sea, it’s dying. Once thought of as the “California Riviera”, the Salton is now simply a salty, smelly, stagnant mess. Not an obvious choice for a paddler.
customer will decide
Published February 2, 2009 | 
I remember many years ago when I worked at a restaurant and bar outside of a skiing resort. It was mid-afternoon and I had just punched in. I had just finished cleaning up the bar, making the days batch of margarita mix and wiping off the counters. My boss, a big, tall, boisterous monster of a man, was watching the television. He pointed to the TV and said to me something like, “Look at that idiot”.
Everybody I know has to face the trains
Everybody I know makes the same mistakes
– the vapors
One of many life experiences most of us share is that of walking the railroad tracks. Often walking the rails is simply a quicker way to get from point A to point B on the hoof. Sometimes the tracks are just thankfully new scenery on the way to getting to the same old place. Sometimes the tracks are simply a place to walk off the demons of the day. On a few occasions while walking the tracks I’ve had to climb a poison oak laden slope or crawl through bramble to get out of the way of an oncoming locomotive. From a position of safety I could just watch the train go by. In real life we are hyper-focused on the subject of the day, the walk. Meanwhile all sorts of little things flash by us in the windows of the passing trains. They flicker by us so fast our conscious mind has little time to itemize what we are seeing through the passing glass. Then hours or days later we suddenly realize something obvious that we should have seen right off. . . “Was that goat in the window wearing a pink tie”!!?
Continue reading →