Posts Tagged ‘lake michigan’

I’ve got a phone conference with a client coming up in about an hour and all sorts of other businessy bits to deal with today… so all you get for stopping by today (at least for now) is this photograph of my Rockpool Alaw Bach waiting to take me on an early morning paddle up the Lake Michigan coastline toward the Point Beach lighthouse.

Sometimes a photograph is almost like being there. Sometimes a photograph just clarifies where you really are.  Oh well, you know what they say, “Visualize the future you desire, then  make it happen”.  Nothing like a Thursday morning platitude to get the day started.  On the other hand I can’t help but remember what Emerson said, “When there is no vision, people perish.”  Emerson, all the inspiration, none of the BS! And with that… Have a flippin’ fantastic day…

“Reading made Don Quixote a gentleman, but believing what he read made him mad.”
– George Bernard Shaw

I’m still catching up on photos from the last couple weeks.   I’ve just uploaded a gallery of images from Kayak Week in Two Rivers.   I’m sure you know by now my eye gets drawn into the strangest places sometimes.  On the way up we were detoured through this little town with the most dramatic of little cemeteries.  The Wind farm in the background just made it seem all the more surreal.  And then there was the “World’s Biggest 6 pack”.. Distractions, distractions!!! In addition to our gallery, check out the gallery at the NE Wisconsin Kayaker’s website as well.  Now oddly enough we are heading back up to Two Rivers this Saturday…. to find a cemetery.. Strange.

* Just a note on the gallery. You’ll see a little box at the very right of the slideshow gallery tool bar. Click it to go full screen.

I’m sitting in a big comfy checkered couch at Schroeder’s Red Bank Coffeehouse in downtown Two Rivers, Wisconsin.  We managed to leave home yesterday at noon exactly as planned.  What was not planned was our drive down to Rutabaga to impulsively buy a new P&H Scorpio.  The Scorpio is the plastic version of the Cetus and a perfect addition to our small fleet!

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Theres always something happening
And its usually quite loud
– madness

Alright. It’s 5am and we’re about 7 hours away from launch. The plan is to be pulling out of the driveway at noon today for the 3 hour trip up to Point Beach State Park near Two Rivers, Wisconsin. All that big stuff that you always remember to pack, is packed. Today we have to remember all the things you always forget. You know.. the stuff you find out later you really, really needed and should have never forgotten in the first place. Oh and by the way, our title today is the chord progression from the song “Our House” by the 80’s band, “Madness” which just happens to be appropriate this morning…

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Here’s a one of a kind kayak.  It’s an NDK Appaloosa.  Well, no.  It’s a Romany. A very old Romany that still says, “Designed by Nigel Dennis & Aled Williams.  (Aled as you may know moved on to form Rockpool with Mike Webb and then moved on to form Tide Race Kayaks… Confused?) This poor Romany has been around the block a few times.. and under a tree at least once.  You see, a tree fell on it.  Crushed it.  The story goes that one of the guys down at Rutabaga saw it sitting in a yard all busted up and offered to take it away.  He put it back together.  Much like the The Talosians from the Star Trek orignal series pilot he did the best he could but…  Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve got to admit it’s getting better
A little better all the time (It can’t get no worse)
I have to admit its getting better, it’s getting better
Since you’ve been mine (Getting so much better all the time)
– beatles

“Paddling is more fun when you do it in a group.”, says the Northwest Indiana Paddling Association. (“You don’t say!?” ask the ancient Romans in the audience.) Well, I say whatever tips your canoe! One thing is sure, we certainly need folks like the NWIPA who are visionary enough to take on the task of nurturing environmental restoration projects on the southern bow of Lake Michigan. Not to mention promoting the area as a sea kayaking destination. It’s certainly not a place most of us would likely have on our list of top paddling places.

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So why’d you come home to this sleepless town, It’s a lifetime commitment, Recovering the satellites, All anybody really wants to know is… when you gonna come down? – Counting Crows

The symposium came to a quiet, contented and sleepy end. Everyone scattered back to their homes or to other events, some to homes just minutes away and others to far flung destinations such as Florida or Newfoundland. I passed the lighthouse on the Muskeegon breakwall one more time as the high-speed ferry jolted out into the darkness to take me home. . . .

So, I got back to Wisconsin in the wee hours of Tuesday morning, carried across the momentarily calm inland sea we call Lake Michigan. After days of sun and blue skies, winds and rain, cormorants, shipwrecks, lighthouses, sand dunes, students, teachers, music, wine, and automated weather reports, I find I’m still disconnected and out of focus. I am awkwardly working to slip back into daily life of phones, deadlines, engine noise and shopping malls with limited success.

I have galleries coming from our trip and from the West Michigan Symposium. Hopefully I will post them this week. Maybe even later today. I am also working on writing down the stories for journal reports in the coming days but for the moment I just want to thank everyone in Michigan for their warm welcome and support as I navigated my way through this first multi-day open water trip and busy symposium to follow. Thank you!!

More to come. . . .

dm.