MAMILs are an international plague.

This, from the Daily Mail (in the UK). The article is spot on. The only thing about it which makes me sad is that the "middle-aged" people pictured in it look to be fifteen years younger than I am. If they're middle-aged, what does that make me??

Please Don't Answer.

Speaking of old men riding, last weekend my sixty-something friend Chris and I did a nice loop between Cape Henlopen State Park and Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. He initially dressed in full MAMIL regalia - loud orange jersey, matching socks, and black Lycra shorts. When he saw that I was dressed in baggy bikes shorts and a regular t-shirt he ran back into his bedroom and changed out of the orange jersey and socks. A small victory for the normally-clothed! Chris did admit that he feels a little self-conscious about the way his belly looks when he wears tight-fitting jerseys. Truth be told, he's in really good shape for a guy in his mid-sixties and has nothing to worry about - particularly in comparison to a lot of other MAMILs I've seen out on the road.

Chris is also an all-out roadie. When I bought my gravel bike, with its wide, grippy tires, he gave me a hard time about how slow I was going to be for road rides. So when I went to visit him this weekend I made sure to show up with skinny roadie tires on my bike. And then he grabbed his fat tire hybrid and took me on a route made up primarily of packed gravel trails. 😒

Here's the Strava of the ride.

Pungo Party!

The Wilderness Systems Pungo is an extremely popular recreational kayak. Twelve feet long, wide and stable, and with a big cockpit, it's perfect for many casual kayakers.

Sea kayakers sneer at the Pungo. It is not a "real" kayak, and our impression is that it's mostly paddled by yahoos without any regard for safety who survive their outings only because the Darwin effect isn't 100% reliable.

Last weekend we visited our friends A & S out at Bethany Beach. Imagine my excitement when S suggested that we spend Saturday kayaking in his and his friend Gene's Pungos. S had previously mentioned that he had bought a kayak and liked to paddle around "the pond" which made me expect a couple of hours of putzing around a scummy little pond. Truth be told, I had intentionally *not* brought my kayaking stuff so as not to encourage such an outing.

The three of us launched from the dock at their development (cool!) into what turned out to be a lovely salt pond. Gene and I did wear our PFDs.  S, who had belittled my suggestion of wearing a PFD when I had mentioned it in the past, was true to form and used his PFD to cover his legs against the sun. I had a Chesapeake Paddlers existential crisis moment  - what do you do when your host refuses to wear his PFD?? What is the proper etiquette when you notice your host is paddling with his paddle upside down?

Safety and etiquette notwithstanding, I quickly realized that this was actually going to be something much better than bobbing in a a pond. S is something of an Energizer Bunny in everything he does. When we cross-country ski at White Grass, he wants to be skiing non-stop. He is loathe to, for example, take a break at the lodge and enjoy the delicious White Grass soups (I, on the other hand, consider a break in the lodge a pleasant part of the overall White Grass experience). Kayaking was no exception to his MO. No putzing around for him - he took off, with a real paddling outing in mind.

It turns out that the salt pond onto which we launched is connected via a series of canals to Little Assawoman Bay (yes, there is a Big Assawoman Bay too - does this Bay make by Assawoman look Big?), where we explored the marshy channels. Assawoman is a wildlife refuge and so it's pretty and relatively un-despoiled by development. Poking through the marshes if fun - trying to find channels to get you just a little bit further, backtracking when they don't pan out, trying again.

Finally, after hitting about our hundredth dead end, we decided it was time to turn back. I actually enjoyed the trip back much more than the trip out through the canals. I like having a plan, and so it didn't sit well with me when we were just heading out kayaking with no destination and no idea of how long we were going out for. Once we turned around I had a firm idea of how much paddling we had to do and could relax and enjoy it.

I wasn't running a GPS, but from the map I estimated we covered about seven miles - not bad for any outing, and certainly a mega-trip by Pungo standards. A a good time, despite my boat snobbery and the uncertainty of the trip. And, y'know what - for exploring marshes, the Pungo is a great boat.

Little Assawoman Bay

This weekend our wonderful friends Gail and Chris invited us to spend the weekend at their camper at Tall Pines, near Rehoboth Beach, DE. The camper experience was interesting in itself; the last time I had stayed in any sort of RV was probably almost thirty years ago when CJ's family had one. It's kind of like a cruise ship cabin in that you've got this cute, efficient but definitely tight living quarters. It's also kind of like camping in that once you step outside your "cabin" you're at a camp site, complete with fire pit, screen room, etc. It was a perfect fall weekend - no bugs, but still warm enough to comfortably hang out outside.

Great Minds Think Alike

Gail's life and mine have been intertwining for about a million years and the two couples have known each other for quite some time. As you can see from the composite photo of our cars at left, we obviously share some common thought processes. Overall, it was a great weekend not just "4 2" but "4 4".

On Saturday Valerie and Gail headed for the outlet malls while Chris and I headed for the water. I had brought my boat with me (conveniently already on the car from Thursday night paddling). We drove down to Coastal Kayaks in Fenwick where Chris was able to rent. Since he hadn't had wet exit training they wouldn't give him a full decked boat but at least they gave him a fairly decent rec boat, a 14 ft Pungo.

They warned us that it was a little bit choppy out and truth be told, once we were out of the cove where we launched I was surprised that they were even renting that day. The conditions weren't a problem for me but the wind was blowing out of the north at 15-20 MPH which, given the shallow water of Assawoman Bay, was kicking up some decent waves and even some whitecaps. Chris and I headed north into the wind, and stayed pretty close to shore as we worked out way up to the top of the bay. I was a little worried about an inexperienced paddler in a rec boat in those conditions but Chris is a good athlete and had no problems throughout the trip.

In the marsh

We headed through the narrows between Miller Neck and Fenwick Island then spent some time exploring some marshes where we saw abundant herons, egrets, and cormorants. Paddling through a marsh involves twisty exploration of little passages, some of which dead-end and some of which take you into new areas - and you're never quite sure where you'll wind up. In this case, when we finally popped out of the marsh back into the bay we were considerably further north than where we had gone in.

We had the wind behind us on the way back and so it was a quick ride. I've already mentioned that Chris is a good athlete, but I think it was wind assist that allowed him to maintain 5 MPH in a rec boat with relatively effort :) A little under 7 miles all told, pretty good for a windy day.

As I was loading my stuff into the car at the end of our trip I felt the twenty dollar bill I keep stashed in my PFD for emergencies fly out. By the time the event registered and I reacted the wind had picked the bill up and taken it away - I didn't see it anywhere. "Well," I thought, "I hope some lucky person finds it." However, a minute or so later one of the people from the shop (might have been Mitch Mitchell himself) walked over and handed me the twenty - he had seen where it had gone and recovered it for me. I suppose that at that point I should have spent it on some tchotchke from the shop, but I just thanked him and packed it back away in the PFD. And now I feel guilty ...

Our track

A quick Florida trip

I did an overnight business trip to Florida this week. I cleverly arranged my first day's meeting so that I found myself free and at Indialantic Beach at about 4 PM on Weds. I started my beach visit by indulging in an ice cream from Coldstone, both because ice cream at the beach just feels right and because it assuaged my guilt at leaving my car in their parking lot. I then took off my tie, rolled up my pants, and switched from shoes to Keen sandals. While I'm sure I was quite the sartorial oddity I didn't care - it made me beach ready and away I went. I spent quite a while strolling the beach (even picking up two geocache finds along the way). Boy, it felt good - the sun, the waves, the sounds. Finally, as the sun started to get low I headed back to the car. I would have liked to have stayed through twilight (a pretty time at the beach) but I knew I had an hour's drive back to Orlando and I didn't want to be doing it too late.

The next morning I figured I needed to work off my food excesses of the day before which included, in addition to the ice cream, a pastrami sandwich and a black & white cookie. I mapped out a 5K loop starting at my hotel and as soon as it got light out the door I went into - wham! - the unexpected heat and humidity of an unseasonably hot Orlando October morning. Man, it was like August in DC. I was huffing and puffing after about a quarter mile because of the heat, but then I started to acclimate and I completed my loop - up Research Parkway then through the UCF campus, finally returning along Alafaya Trail. I'm sure I was quite a sight as I staggered, dripping with sweat, into the hotel breakfast room and started downing diluted orange juice.

Having made a spectacle of myself in two Florida cities in two days, I returned home. Oh, and along the way I got to see an incredibly cool technology briefing facility and tour a high tech mobile command center.