An Urban Boychick Takes on the Outdoors

Contrary to the title of this posting, we did not set off to find the source of the Nile.We didn't even explore the head of the Anacostia. From the map it looks like you could paddle quite a ways upstream from where we put in, though it looks like just above where we put in the Anacostia splits into two rather narrow ditches running through developed areas - not great paddling. So perhaps we could make the claim that we explored the head of the part of the Anacostia that anyone would care to explore. As a claim it's not up there with finding Dr. Livingstone at Lake Tanganyika, but it'll have to do. Six of us (Tall Tom, Jim, Larry, Susan, Rob and me) launched from Bladensburg Waterfront Park (a.k.a. the head of the part of the Anacostia that anyone would care to explore) on Memorial Day morning and headed downriver. In doing so we followed in the footsteps of Capt. John Smith, who explored the area in 1608. Man, that guy got around.  The Upper Anacostia The Anacos...

Let me tell you a story about three kings who travel from afar guided by an unnatural light. I'm, of course, talking about the Pirate Kings of the Pirates of Georgetown paddling out to Thomas Point lighthouse. But the day didn't start with the paddling trip, and the paddling trip didn't start as the paddling trip, so let me rewind a little. One of our PoG regulars, Jim G., owns a house down in Chincoteague. Back last year Jim hatched the idea of going down there for a spring kayak trip. He invited Tall Tom, Larry and me (the afore-mentioned kings) - and we even put a date on the calendar for it; however, as the day approached the weather forecast looked terrible - high winds and heavy rains. So, after much gnashing of teeth we decided to postpone the weekend. Since we had all already planned to take Friday off (well, Tom and I did; the other guys are retired) and Friday's weather looked good, we decided we instead would do a significant day paddle. But wait, it was ...

This past weekend was the 18 th annual Chesapeake Paddlers Association SK102 kayak symposium. I have written about this event before and so I’ll provide only highlights. I got on the road a little after 10AM on Friday. As I merged onto the Beltway I noticed a familiar site out of the corner of my eye. I was driving next to the coordinator of the club, easily recognizable in the “big white truck” with two kayaks on the roof. We continued in parallel for a while until I got off at Springfield for a grocery stop. Friday was the tail end of Passover, a period when Jews are not supposed to eat “leavened” items – which includes pretty much all breads, cakes, pasta, and breakfast cereal as well as beer. This had added a little challenge to provisioning food for the trip, as I didn’t have much around the house in terms of fresh bread, and so at the supermarket I loaded up with bread, muffins and granola to enjoy over the weekend once I could eat them again. I arrived at Lake Anna at around...