Archive for May, 2009

You load sixteen tons, what do you get
Another day older and deeper in debt
Saint Peter don’t you call me ’cause I can’t go
I owe my soul to the company store
– Tennessee Ernie Ford

I’m off to Rutabaga this morning to begin teaching a 2 day progression course. 2 days is a good amount of time to spend with one group of students. You can get a lot done, but what’s more is that you have the time to actually let some of the learning set in. Hopefully as the day goes on the rain will taper off.

So anyway, I was looking through our class paperwork a while back and I was reminded of that bit about instructors arriving a half hour before class to prepare. I thought to myself, “Heck, we’re preparing the night before!”. What am I saying?? Some of us have been preparing for years, and continue to prepare in one way or another everyday of our lives… Half hour..? Wouldn’t that be something!

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Train pulled out said my goodbyes
Sky blue
Back on the road alone with the sky
Sky blue
Theres a presence here no one denies
Sky blue
– Gabriel

I woke up to a dark day and heavy rain. A day when I had to make my way north to the little town Mauston on the Lemonweir river. The drive took me through miles of rain soaked fields, low hills, sandstone cliffs and all sort of slowly collapsing barns and tattered sheds. Each crumbling structure I passed reminded me of an old forest log crumbling back into the earth.

Like a passenger on the Amtrak train that shadowed me most of the way north, I was simply passing through on my way from one point on the globe to another, a passenger catching dream-scape glimpses of a foreign place more imagination than reality.  Read the rest of this entry »

Lots of trees create a shaded path

Adventures large or small are always similar in one aspect… they take us away from home. For some of us that means lots of things left undone waiting for that perfect “home and garden” day which will never come. A perfect gardening day is after all, a perfect paddling day as well! Well, yesterday I decided to get stuck into a job I was dreading; fixing a blasted corner garden that had been devastated by broad leaf sprays. (A hazard of proximity to a farm).

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Marshall, Will, and Holly
On a routine expedition
Met the greatest earthquake ever known.
High on the rapids
It struck their tiny raft.
And plunged them down a thousand feet below.

To the Land of the Lost.
To the Land of the Lost.
To the Land of the Lost.

It started simply enough. It started because many years ago I, and a friend from Carbondale, Illinois, tracked down these cool waterfalls when we were LTE’s for the DNR, the location of which I had forgotten. It started because I came across a name on a topo map and mistakenly thought these were the falls. It started because I found the falls cross referenced on a Whitewater website as a class III-IV run. But mostly it started because I couldn’t make the WMCKA symposium and really needed to just be outside and distracted by a little adventure.

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And Daniel he heralded the boat
and directed her well
across the wind and waves
– waterboys

A couple days ago I took Mary down to Rutabaga in Madison to test paddle the P&H Cetus. Mary owns a Romany but does not paddle often so it feels a bit wild when conditions get rough. I had a feeling the Cetus while longer than the Romany, might fit her needs better. It was certainly worth a go. Meanwhile since I was there anyway it seemed like a good time to try out the P&H Capella 163…

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Anything you want it can be done
How did you go bad?
– radiohead

I’m very thankful for the sponsors I’ve had in the past and of course for our future search of all things “Nessie”. Experience has also taught me that sponsorships are two way streets. If you ask companies these days they will tell you they are buried in requests from paddlers who have no clue why they should be sponsored other than they are going somewhere. We write about that quite a bit. You need to know what you are asking for and why they should help. Fair enough. But keep in mind that a paddler with their act together is not a beggar either. They are potentially offering a lot of value in very meaningful and sometimes unexpected ways.

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Our ‘prentice Tom may now refuse
To wipe his scoundrel Master’s Shoes,
For now he’s free to sing and play
Over the Hills and far away.
– traditional

Welcome to Wisconsin! Soon to be buzzing like a trodden ant hive with Memorial weekend holiday makers!! Come one, come all!!

Where we live there are plenty of lakes to explore by kayak. Of course living here we’ve explored them so much that the real challenge is finding any bit of water we’ve not paddled. (And where we won’t be squashed by power boaters enjoying the high life with $2 beers)  Well, we may not find a new spot but we can certainly find a place where power boats can’t go.. and where we’ve not been in a very long time.  A place like that swampy-marsh thing by Lake Wisconsin just south of our home here in Baraboo. Read the rest of this entry »