March of the Kayakers

I was getting a little worried about March. I try to paddle at least once per month year-round. This year, despite the unusually cold and snowy winter, I managed to get out there in November, December, January and February. March was somehow slipping away, though. Unusual - March is usually when kayaking picks up steam. Well, I corrected that today.

I met Tall Tom and Suzanne at the Brown's Bridge put-in on Rocky Gorge Reservoir, a spot chosen based on being equally inconvenient for all of us. By pure chance Tom merged onto I66 in Virginia just as I was passing by and so without having meant to the two of us wound up caravaning there.

After a taste of 70-ish degree weather on Saturday, the slightly raw low 40's temperatures of Sunday felt mighty cold. That's the other reason (besides location) I chose Rocky Gorge - it's pretty well protected from the wind. Unfortunately, the reservoirs make for pretty uneventful paddling so I have not much to report: we did see a bald eagle and an osprey - the bird life is returning. Plus, this was the test trip for the new Greenland paddle I recently completed. It felt pretty nice. I'll have to keep testing it and eventually roll with it, but so far so good.

The GPS took me home a different route than I had used on the way up there. Perhaps the most surprising part of the whole day was discovering the diversity of churches along upper New Hampshire Avenue: Ukranian Catholic, Ukranian Orthodox, Seventh Day Adventist, Catholic, a variety of iglesias, Lutheran, Muslim, Christ Fellowship, some Asian religion (no sign), Baptist, Cambodian Buddhist, and more. Who knew there was this kind of religious diversity in Colesville, Maryland?