An Urban Boychick Takes on the Outdoors

I established long ago that outdoor music gigs are fair game for this blog. Saturday I played my first gig with Magnolia Blue , at a small festival called The Hometown Getdown up in Clarksburg Maryland. I got there at about 11:30 AM, at which time things were kind of slow. To tell you the truth, it looked kind of like a refugee camp for displaced Millenials. I wandered up to the camping area and found the band members who had been camping there. Katie's tent had been slashed. Another woman's tent had been rifled through. I've heard this kind of stuff happens at the big festivals. It's never happened to me - perhaps because I only go to old fogey festivals like Clearwater - and I'm surprised it happened in an intimate little festival like this. One more data point showing the Millenials are scum. I was kind of wondering what I had gotten myself into and was wondering how strongly to wave off the friends I knew were coming. But it wasn't all bad. It'...

Lately some sort of seasonal asthma has been making it hard to exercise hard outdoors. I have aborted several runs, and even biking up hills is hard. Well, if all I can do is walk, then walk I will! This morning I drove out to Scotts Run Nature preserve and had a great hike on a pretty morning. The falls The Potomac Strava track:  https://www.strava.com/activities/724534059

We've been having a lot of nice sunsets lately ... Taking out the trash at home On the Beltway, on the way home from the Adirondacks Merging onto I66 West, on my way to band practice

Day 6 (9/15) OK, where did I leave off in my last posting? Oh yes, we had just arrived back at Jen’s. Upon our arrival Jen set to work going through the arcane and lengthy process of feeding her cats while the rest of us showered (individually). Somewhere around step #257 of the process Jen took a break and got a shower in as well. We got some laundry started and otherwise just relaxed. After four nights of camping, a big meal, and a couple of drinks, it wasn’t long before each of us crawled off to bed. The rock/paper/scissors outcome from the first night held and I once again fell asleep in a real bed listening to the Darth Vader/ocean wave sounds of Rob’s CPAP and Tom was once again cruelly consigned to the uncomfy couch. We knew that we didn’t have much paddling to do Thursday and so we took our time in the morning, exploding all of our gear across Jen’s house and lawn to sort it and dry it out. I am coming to the conclusion that life in the Adirondacks must be pretty lonel...

I recently went on a kayak camping trip through the Adirondacks with four friends. The trip had two parts: a)       Traverse the three lakes in the Saranac chain of lakes (Upper, Middle and Lower), and b)       Paddle Lake George This entry is about Saranac Lakes portion of the trip. A map showing our route can be found here . 9/8 through 9/10 (Trip Days -1, 0 and 1) The saga of the trip begins the day before the trip when, due to a pharmacy mix-up at the Seven Corners Target and my arriving 3 minutes after the pharmacy closed at the Merrifield Target (who knew they closed two hours earlier than Seven Corners?!), I was unable to pick up a new prescription.  I was left with two choices: swing by Target at 9 AM the day of my departure, or skip the prescription. Well, it was for an inhaler which is only for exercise and on a nine day kayaking/hiking/camping trip, what are the chances that I'd be exercising? Plus, knowi...