Counting Geese
Published December 13, 2011 | 
It’s a good thing that I only have a couple more days left on my 100 mile paddle at Devil’s Lake State Park, the amount of open water on the lake is shrinking each day. For the moment, the massive number of Canada geese hanging out at the park seem happy with the expanding ice. Geese are commonplace around here of course, and it’s not hard to find someone who hates them for the noise they make and the messes they leave behind. Still, to my mind, anytime we can witness such large numbers of animals in the wild is really a gift. We’ve been there before; bison, passenger pigeons, cranes, just to name a few. It’s just too easy to deem animals as pests and let the hunt begin.. Honestly, I could never imagine humans wiping out Canada geese.. I mean… Seriously?? But history tell us that we should never be too sure of ourselves…
The Story of Stuff
Published November 3, 2011 | We were talking about how tough (or not tough) newer kayaks are these days, which brought up a reference to the popular “The Story of Stuff” video. If you’ve not seen it before, take a moment. Better yet, share it. This all fits right in with the point I’m always trying to make about gear; The number one selling point should always be, that it will not need to be replaced in a very long time!
Posted in Kayaks, More Gear Reviews, Outdoor Recreation, Paddle Gear, Paddling | 
Enviroment, quality, Sustainability | 
Leave a commentLumix Crash Test
Published October 12, 2011 | 
So, I’ve got to share this story with you. The other day I was just packing up after my regular paddle around the local lake. I was going through my habitual process of putting away my gear, changing clothes and what-have-you when a woman came walking around my Jeep and started asking me questions. She had traveled around the US and had just arrived for 10 days here in the Baraboo Hills. She had all sorts of questions about trails, paddling, biking, where to find vegan food and about a hundred more questions. In the distraction, I got out of my routine. I left my Lumix DMC-Ts3 sitting on the back of my jeep. Continue reading
Backyard Adventure
Published September 19, 2011 | 
What amounts to a dream anymore?
A crude device; A veil on our eyes
A simple plan we’d be different from the rest
And never resign to a typical life – broken bells
It’s raining this morning and not quite 60 f. The weather seers say that the day will turn warm and sunny… eventually. Oh well, if I’m going to get my paddle time in today, I need to do it right away this morning. This will count as day two of my “100 miles to winter” paddle to celebrate the 100th anniversary of my local state park. I think it’s cool that in a month of days I’ll be able to see the world pass from the greens of summer, through the jubilant colors of fall and then in the end, to the charcoal sketched environment of late fall, all from the seat of my kayak. It should be a fun little backyard adventure, only requiring an hours paddle time over about 35 days. For the most part I’ll be posting the log over at devilslakewisconsin.com. I fear many über kayakers will find it a bit silly, a bit “quixotic” if you will, but I look forward to having an opportunity to spend the next month talking about paddling and our amazing state park with folks may not yet suffer the addictions. 
OK, time to head out for day 2.
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Posted in Enviroment, My Paddling, My Weird Life, Outdoor Recreation, Paddling, Quixotica | devils lake, wisconsin | 1 CommentWisconsin River Pics
Published September 18, 2011 | 
Now, the thing is.. we probably could have stopped to climb Ferry Bluff yesterday. I mean, we did actually did make the boat landing in Arena long before dark. On the other hand, it’s hard to guess how much time it will take to get from one point to the next, especially this time of year. That’s just the way it is on the lower Wisconsin. Will the river be flowing fast, making our planned day trip take only a couple of hours? Will the river be low and slow causing the same distance to take most of a day to cover? I think we were in the middle this time around. Everyone scraped bottom from time to time, but not quite everyone actually had to get out and walk!
As we always seem to say, everyone had a great/spectacular/fantastic time, and we did. Nature has a way of making that happen. You start with a bunch of strangers getting safety instruction on a beach and then within a very short time on the water, you find the participants quickly forming into social sub-groups that will happily keep themselves entertained throughout the day. Of course, it helps when the group is mostly women… (Guys often take a lot longer to break out of their shells.)
Anyway, let me stop rambling and share some pics…
The Devil’s Work
Published September 15, 2011 | 
This Sunday locally we host the annual Devil’s Challenge Triathlon at Devil’s Lake State Park. I’m a bystander. The 5k run and the 15 mile bike ride would be fine.. the quarter-mile swim on the other hand, would not. I actually didn’t learn to swim realistically until well after I learned to kayak. In fact, one of the reasons I started kayaking was that it allowed me to indulge my love of water WITHOUT needing to swim. In fact, learning to roll is pretty good simulation of snorkeling. You simply put on the dive mask, roll, see the world, then roll back up. Over the last couple of years I’ve started to swim laps at the pool. Who knows, maybe we’ll do that triathlon next year.. OR we could just tell them to dump the swimming and replace it with a kayaking section… I mean let’s face it swimming in a cold lake in September is the devil’s work!!
Better Than Leaving The Bike At Home
Published September 12, 2011 | 
I don’t care where we go
I don’t care what we do
I don’t care pretty baby
Just take me with you – prince
O.K. I know what you’re thinking. Dogs are meant to pull humans, not the other way around. What’s worse is the perception that you treat your dog like some sort of 4 legged diva. Well, there is a reason for this.. and I certainly don’t advocated dogs as pint-sized debutantes. On the other hand, sometimes you find yourself in situations you’d never thought of before. Take this summer for instance, where we found ourselves giving up on family biking when on vacation because we had no place to leave the dog. Continue reading
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