#16 - Take a Kayak Trip.......

I may not have finished it, and I may not have paddled as far as I intended, but I DID take a kayak trip, so I'm counting it as fulfilling one of my 50 Things to Do. I did the whole sleep in the gym, get up at the crack of dawn, try to figure out whether to eat breakfast or pack or dress or fill up water bottles first, work hard all day, finish up very very dirty, do it all over again routine. I never said #16 on my 50 Things to Do List would be "complete the entire Paddle Georgia trip." Maybe I hedged just a little.

I didn't really feel guilty for coming home early, because my philosophy is generally not to have any regrets. Make a decision, come to terms with it, and then go on with life. I did wonder, though, if the trip improved significantly today, if Rozmo would be calling me and saying, "Girl, you went home too soon. It's getting good now!" But I didn't fret over it. Even the realization that I would have to cook the rest of the week didn't dampen my excitement over being home instead of on the river.

Just as I was folding the laundry from the trip (did I mention how FILTHY kayaking is?), Rozmo DID call. She asked if I would come get her tomorrow.

In her defense, it isn't JUST that the paddling didn't get any better today. She has plumbing problems at home and a family member with a dire need for a root canal (unrelated to each other, I assume), so she felt obligated to go home and take care of things. It was interesting, though, how much better her coming home early made me feel about MY coming home early.

I have a few pictures to document the fact that I did indeed take a kayak trip. Or at least part of one.

Rozmo and our little corner of the gym. While my part was still neat. Rozmo's is ALWAYS neat.

The gym where we "camped" for two (or three) nights. You've gotta love the irony - this gym is at the school where I taught for nine years. This gym wasn't there when I was there, though. They had pictures on the wall of all the athletes from that school who have gone on to the next level, both college and professional. I got a kick of counting all the kids I had taught.

Our initial launch site.

On the second morning, just finding my blue kayak among the gazillion other blue kayaks was my toughest challenge. To that point.

This is how it looked at the beginning of the day's paddle. After a little while, the paddlers got strung out along the river more, but we were almost always in sight of other paddlers, both ahead and behind.

We often had to create our own "pit stops" at sand bars along the river. This sign let us know that this particular location was off limits, and everyone respected it.

A self portrait. I call this my "goober hat," and that was BEFORE I saw that I had it on crooked. (Almost) Always a rule follower, I kept my life jacket on at all times on the river.

This is what most of the trip looked like. Brown water, green trees.

That is what I call a tire swing.

This is Drew, firing his water gun at Rozmo and Deb.

Rozmo, probably hoping I wouldn't run my kayak into hers, like I did with my bike.

An overpass that I travel across every time I go to a gymnastics meet. Or pretty much anything else on campus.

Rozmo and me clowning around with some bronze statues at the State Botanical Gardens. I kept seeing these statues appear on my screensaver, and I couldn't remember where they were from. Katydid and I took pictures of them on BRAG 2009.

Deb wanted in on the clowning around too.

This dragonfly perched on the bow of my kayak for a long time. Later there was one on my deck bag, much closer to me, but he flew away as I was getting my camera out of the dry box.

Passing under a train trestle. I don't know if this one is still in use or not.

We had to get out of our kayaks as we approached this dam. Although there are two openings in the dam, allowing water to pass freely, the force of the water at those two openings was too great for us to go through either of them. A line of volunteers passed our boats along, and we crossed over the dam on foot. The take-out location was just on the other side, so we then walked our boats across the river to leave them for the night.

Hard to see, but perhaps a double-decker tree house? Lucky kids....

The take-out location for portaging around the dam, about which I wrote in yesterday's blog. You can see the old power plant behind the kayaks. I'm not sure if it's still in use or not.

And this is why we had to portage around the dam. I have no idea how high that drop-off is, but it's pretty high. Drew said, "Shoot....we could have done that." I agreed, "Yeah....50-50 chance of landing upright!"

The power of water is simply awesome.

The view from where I had to go..... make a pit stop. The cows didn't seem to mind.

Rozmo in her umbrella hat. It was the time of day when we would do anything to break the monotony.

I'm not sorry I went, and I'm not sorry I came home early. I have a lot more empathy now for folks who try BRAG and don't come back. Or go home in the middle of the week. Some things just aren't for some people. I'll be a lot more understanding the next time someone says he or she doesn't see the point of riding a bicycle across Georgia. I now feel that way about paddling. I'm not going to give it up for good, and I still made sure I tied the kayak down securely enough this morning that it didn't blow off Hubby's truck. For me, though, kayaking is something I'll do for a couple of hours and then go home. I don't need 106 miles of it.

Paddle Georgia Day Two.........

Remember those little bitty "rapids" I wrote about yesterday? The ones that scared me to death? Yeah, I would have KILLED for some of those today. The trip today was nothing but paddle, paddle, paddle, paddle, paddle, paddle, ad nauseum. Look at the brown water and lots of trees, go around a curve, look at more brown water and some more trees. Paddle, paddle, paddle. For 15 miles. For approximately 7 hours.

We had to portage around a huge dam this morning. (Pictures forthcoming.) The cue sheet mentioned that if you failed to follow directions and head to river left, you might go over the dam, which would result in almost certain death. Lovely. I had an irrational (maybe?) fear that I wouldn't have time to make my way to river left and the current would suck me over the dam. It wasn't that close a call. There was plenty of time to get over, and there were a gazillion warnings about approaching the dam.

The portage process was a tedious one. The spot to get out of our boats was very small, so we had to enter it one at a time. Did I mention there are 300 people on this trip? Then we had to drag our boats to a trailer, where they were loaded to be hauled around the dam. We had to take anything off the boat we didn't want hauled on the trailer (phone, camera, GPS, water), and then we had to hike about half a mile through mucky wilderness and wait for our boats to arrive. This process will be repeated later in the week, when the organizers will portage us around two lakes, eliminating about 45 miles of flat water paddling. Thanks, guys.

I said yesterday that it was too early to make any sweeping statements, but after day two I think I can safely say that this is not for me. It's too much sameness, too little activity. Too much sitting on the bum, especially with the way my hips have been hurting. Although tomorrow is a shorter day, and Tuesday is ONLY 8 miles, the last two days are 20 and 22 miles. And after two days, I've had enough. Hubby is picking me up in the morning. And I'm not even going to apologize for quitting.

Paddle Georgia Day One............

Buses took us from the school this morning to our launch site. Much like BRAG, there was little fanfare or ceremony at the beginning. Just get in your boats and go. It wasn't even difficult to figure out which way to go, because we just went with the current. We were kind of bunched up at the beginning, but just like the bike ride, pretty soon the masses thinned out.

Keep in mind this is NOT white-water rafting. We went over some very mild, Class 1, rapids, and I was scared to death. I became acutely aware of my very limited paddling skills. I remained upright, usually going forward, but that is probably more due to blind luck than any level of skill. We stopped at the Botanical Gardens to have our sack lunches. (Part of the meal plan we wish we hadn't purchased.)

One thing these folks do that BRAG doesn't is check names off as we enter the river and again at the end of the day. I guess it makes sense, since it's not likely that someone is going to venture off down a different river. If he or she doesn't show up at the end of the day, it's likely bad news.

Another big diffence between this event and BRAG is the distance. When I first saw that we would be paddling 12 miles today, I wondered "What are we going to do the REST of the day?" Ha!! We didn't get back here until around 3:00. The last two days are 20 and 22 miles. Yikes! Check with me in November when I finish those.

I heard a story about a kid who had never kayaked or canoed before, and at mile 4 today, a snake fell in his kayak. We've been told to check our boats for snakes before we get in them tomorrow.

It's only been one day, so I'm not going to make any sweeping statements yet. Suffice it to say, though, that if there's a snake in my boat tomorrow morning, he can have it.

Paddle (Yawn) Workshop......

Today I attended a paddle workshop offered in conjunction with Paddle Georgia, which starts tomorrow. I felt obligated to attend the workshop, since I am AT BEST a novice paddler, and I've had my kayak in the water a grand total of ...... ONE ..... time this whole year.

Thirty-three people signed up for today's workshop, and twenty-four of them were smarter than I was. They didn't show up. There were only nine of us there for the workshop (which was free), and five of those were from a single family.

I wouldn't call it a COMPLETE waste of time. I did learn two new things: a better way to get in the kayak than depending on a wing and a prayer, which is how I've operated up to now; and using my torso to get more power from each stroke. Oh good.... a NEW body part to hurt.

I think the trip will be fun, but as I told Rozmo this afternoon, I don't think I've ever lost so much sleep over an adventure that's supposed to be FUN. I have thought of something new to worry about every single night. Rozmo and I are going to keep a list of things we would have done differently if we had known better. We already know we shouldn't have bought the meal tickets, and we should have left a car at the ending location. The paddling trip actually ends next Friday, but we have to spend another night and come home Saturday morning.

I won't be able to upload pictures every night (because I did such an EXCELLENT job of that on BRAG, didn't I?), because I'm only taking my iPad and not my laptop. I hope I will get some good photos, though, and I promise to post them when I get home. If they're good. Which my BRAG pictures were not (much).

Happy weekend!