Kiptopeke Kayak Symposium

I haven't done any kayak skills training in a long time and as a result not only haven't my skills advanced, they've actually deteriorated. In the wake of the the Maine trip misfire I decided to take steps to address this problem by signing up for the Kiptopeke Kayak Symposium, an event  focused on intermediate to advanced skills. I didn't try to draft anyone to go with me, knowing that I'd know some people there (at a minimum, I knew a few of the instructors). Once I signed up, though, it seemed like everyone I mentioned it to was also going. Susan G2, who was also a Maine trip dropout, had signed up and had chosen the same classes as I had for two of the three days. Pastor Pete (Peter H3) was going to be there to do ACA certification. Lorah, who I met on the Manhattan circumnav, was going to be there. Randi from WKC Meetup was going to be there. And so on, and so on.

I got out of work later than planned on Thursday and with rush hour traffic it took me five hours to get from Shady Grove to Kiptopeke State Park. By the time I got there (9 PM ish) not only had I missed the introductory shpiel, but almost all of my lodge-mates had turned in for the night. Fortunately one person (Alexis) was up and was able to tell me which room to go to (the bedrooms weren't numbered). I dropped my bag in my room and met Jason, my roommate, who had just gotten into bed for the night. I spent some time sitting in the living room and read for a bit to wind down from the stressed out buzzy energy of driving before tip-toeing into my bedroom and slipping into bed, doing my best to avoid disturbing Jason.

The next morning, as everyone woke up for breakfast, I discovered my other lodge-mates. Three instructors: Brian (no surprise there - I had recognized his car when I pulled in) and Jay (local experts) and San Diegan uber-paddler Jen Kleck. The lodge also housed six students: Alexis and Shana, two young women (a couple, I believe); Barbara and Erica, two friends from New Jersey; Jason and me. It's interesting to see everyone's breakfasts. A healthy bunch, for the most part, epitomized by Jason's daily breakfast of four small slices of multi-grain toast topped with hummos, bab gannoush and vegetables, with fresh berries on the side. Marginally less healthful, perhaps was Brian's oatmeal with peanut butter, washed down with a full  eight cup pot of coffee. I stuck with my camping breakfast of grits, trail mix and yogurt - leftover unused Maine supplies.

My class for the first day was "Life on the Edge", taught by Tom Noffsinger. Mostly stuff I've learned before, but a good refresher nonetheless. Tom had some interesting teaching techniques - kayaking blind-folded, for one! I capsized a couple of times while trying to aggressively edge the boat (this is a good thing - it means I was properly testing my limits). The good news is that I successfully rolled back up each and every time, even when we were in somewhat rough conditions, which was a good test of my roll.

Friday evening I went out for dinner with some of my housemates and Susan G2. We went out to a restaurant in the quaint nearby town of Cape Charles. I had salmon, but the most popular item at our table was fried spot - not someone's pet dog, but rather a local fish.

Saturday's class was Greenland techniques with Alison. This class was held on the bay side where we were in the shadow of a row of concrete ships which had been intentially scuttled there after World War II to create an artificial barrier to protect the harbor. The ship hulks provide a pretty striking backdrop. The bay side is ostensibly calm, but it was a pretty windy day and so we were getting blown around. In Alison's class we again covered strokes, bracing, edging, and such, but from a Greenland perspective. With the Greenland paddle you do things slightly differently - for example, extending the paddle out, and the path you want the paddle to make through the water as you stroke. I only capsized once in Alison's class - and was again able to roll back up. Since Alison was wearing a leaky drysuit (no neck gasket) she didn't want to demonstrate anything that involved putting her head underwater and so she asked me to demonstrate something called chest sculling. That's one of those techniques where you have the kayak up on it's side and are basically lying down in the water. At the end of the class we spent some time swapping and trying each other's paddles. It's amazing how different they all feel!

A picture I stole from a blog of the concrete ships*

Saturday night everyone gathered up at the main lodge where we were first treated to a slide show of kayaking in Baja. Spectacular scenery and good stories with a little bit of a marketing pitch from Rick Wiebush and Jen Kleck. Then we had the "low country boil". By any standards the meal was something less than a feast, but since I had to avoid the main course (a dish containing shrimp and pork sausage) I was left with mac & cheese and salad. Fortunately, I was expecting this and had eaten something at our lodge before heading over to the event.

Susan and I were both a little nervous about Sunday's surf class and were both kind of edging (no pun intended) towards dropping out under the guise of being too worn out for a third day of instruction. We both sat on the lodge porch after dinner hemming and hawing and clearly hoping that the other one would pull the trigger on dropping out, maybe even encouraging each other a little with talk of how tired we were - but neither of us dropped. Further, a Baltimore paddler named Carol, who had taken the Intro to Surf class the prior year, encouraged us to go for it - and so we did.

Sunday morning it was back to the ocean side for surf class with Ed and Ken. Ed runs a kayak shop in Virginia Beach. Ken was down from Rhode Island - complete with New England accent and that wise guy Northeastern sense of humor I miss so much. As an aside, another of the event attendees was Ted, a fireman from Staten Island. Ted was a quintessential New York character. How I miss that kind of personality in Virginia!

My nervousness about surfing had come from visions of being slammed by big breaking waves out on the water. But here's the truth about surfing: you do it really close to shore. In fact, for a good bit of the class we were in water shallow enough to stand in. Ed and Ken were standing in the water and we were paddling around them. When you capsized you couldn't roll back up because the water was too shallow - the biggest risk in a capsize was hitting your head on the bottom!

The surf conditions weren't great that day. I got a couple of good runs but hadn't quite mastered how to brace when the wave broached you at the end, and so I got knocked over by waves at the end of my runs quite a few times. Fortunately I chose to wear my wetsuit (as I had the previous days) and so kept warm despite being wet all day. Unfortunately, after an hour or two the waves started to die out and so we took a lunch break on the beach. By the time we finished the surfable waves near shore were all gone, though we could see a couple of other classes bobbing around in some serious waves far out from shore.

Back from surfing, still wearing my Great Gazoo helmet

The most exciting part of the day came when one of those advanced groups sudden;y came barreling to shore. We thought they were just coming in to take a break but then one of the leaders started yelling out to us to help. It turned out that one of their group had repeatedly capsized and was having trouble getting back into the boat in the heavy conditions. As she was climbing in, waves would break over the kayak, filling it with water. A swamped boat tends to be unstable and so she'd capsize again and the whole cycle would start over. Finally, they towed her in her swamped boat to shore. Fortunately, after a break she was OK. Oh, and the person in trouble turned out to be Carol, the same woman who had encouraged Susan and me not to skip the surf class.
Anyway, with no good surfing waves we decided to head back,the paddle back was fairly uneventful, though we did have some waves behind us as we crossed the bay and so got to practice technique a little.

I got into my car to begin the long drive home and immediately realized how bad I smelled. Not to go into too much detail, but we had spent the day in an environmentally protected area where urinating on land was prohibited, and a day's worth of peeing in the water leaves one smelling less than lovely. So, I stopped back at the bay side parking area at Kiptopeke Park, and made use of the shower in the public bathroom. Washed and with a nice cold Diet Coke from the vending machine in hand, I headed home (from Virginia to Virginia, via Maryland and DC), eager to find opportunities to try out my new skills.

*The photo is from http://www.mondovacilando.com/the-recap-part-one/

September 11th Sky

A pretty evening on the Potomac. Somber undertones in memory of the September 11th attacks - flags at half mast across the lagoon at the Pentagon, Rosslyn towers draped with flags as well.

Another Maiden Voyage

On my upcoming trip to Maine it is likely that a majority of the kayakers will be paddling Wilderness Systems Tempests - certainly it will be a plurality. It's just a nice, well-balanced do-it-all boat. It's the Honda Accord of kayaks*. Not the fastest, not the most maneuverable, not the roomiest, not the easiest to roll or the most playful in surf, but just a good balance of every characteristic. The other nice thing is that it comes in three sizes, so it can fit just about any paddler: there's a sixteen inch height range among the Tempest paddlers in my circle.

Test Drive at PoG

I own a Tempest 165 (the "Baby Bear" size) in plastic. Great boat, but being plastic it's heavy, slow, and has developed a serious "oil can" dent in the bottom. I always keep my eye out for good deals on fiberglass 165's, but they don't come on the market too often. More often you see the "Mama Bear" 170 size, which is tooooo big for me.

So, when I recently spotted a fiberglass Tempest 165 for sale in New Jersey I pounced on it. After a little head-scratching over how to do the deal without having to drive ten hours I discovered that by serendipity my son David was heading for New Jersey - just 30 minutes away from the seller - to attend an event. I made him an offer he couldn't refuse, and he agreed to go get the boat for me. He got home with it late on a Sunday night. We took it off the car, I put it in the backyard with a cockpit cover on it, and then really didn't look at it for a couple of days. It was only when I opened it up to adjust the thigh braces and seat that I realized that (I'm pretty sure) it's actually the kevlar layup. Certainly the feel when I pick it up seems to say kevlar. So I think I got an even better deal than I was expecting.

Anyway, I took it out for its maiden paddle last night and it was wonderful. Just like my other Tempest, but even more Tempestuous! Rolled it and the hatches stayed dry. All is good.

It is, in addition, the twin of Tall Tom's kayak, except that he has the "Poppa Bear" Tempest 180 size. Same red color. Same layup. So we look like twins when we paddle now. I expected to get some "mini-Me" jokes, but Tom came up with a better one: I am his "Skinny me".

*Reggie calls it the Toyota Camry of kayaks but he is wrong.

SUP'ing in the Park with Ted

Another SUP outing with Ted today. We made from Key Bridge Boathouse up to Fletcher's Cove. The roughly two mile trip took us about and hour, at least twice as long as it would have by kayak. Admittedly, it was into the wind and only my third time on a Stand-Up Paddleboard, but still ...

Ted has been doing a lot of SUP-ing this summer and definitely showed me up in terms of speed, balance and skills.

I still feel that stand-up paddleboards would make sense only in a world where canoes, rowing craft and kayaks hadn't been invented, but they sure are popular! While there was no wait at KBB for kayaks, we had to wait on line for paddleboards, as the whole fleet was in use. The line was even worse by the time we got back - I'm glad we went early.

Well, even on a goofy non-kayak watercraft it was a nice outing on a beautiful summer day. Eighty degree August days is a kind of climate change I could get into!

The Hepcats at Westover

An outdoor gig counts as an outdoor adventure, right? I had a great time sitting in with the wonderful band JC & the Hepcats last Saturday at Westover Beer Garden in Arlington. JC arrived a little late, and so for the first set we were just The Hepcats (or perhaps Jesse & the Hepcats).

I think I played well; however given the mixture of 5 Hour Energy and IPA in my system, I may not have been judging things clearly. I had never tried those 5 hour energy things before. Holy cow - I didn't even drink the whole little bottle and was buzzing for 12 hours. This was fine for the first eight hours, but the midnight to 4 AM part was a drag.

Manhattan Circumnavigation 2014

New York is a city of extremes. On the one hand it is America’s truly world class city, as evidenced by the many metonyms associated with the city: finance in America is “Wall Street” and advertising is “Madison Avenue”. On the other hand, New York is also a chaotic Mad Max world where everything is jury-rigged, broken, the place is over-populated, everyone is trying to scam you, and behavior seems flat-out crazy. I wasn’t sure which of these New Yorks I would encounter when went up to participate in Jerry and Steve’s Manhattan Circumnavigation. Certainly the eleven pages of instructions indicated a high level of organization. Still, I expected a motley flotilla of fishing kayaks, canoes made from hammered out hubcabs, and who knows what else when I showed up early Saturday morning. The launch site at the end of Dyckman Street in Inwood (a.k.a. Tubby Hook) is not in itself particularly remarkable – it just looks like a spot along the river where someone forgot to build a building; however, it was abuzz with well outfitted kayakers equipped with mostly very high end boats. Quite the opposite of what I had envisioned, and I felt like a schlepper for having shown up with a plastic boat. Shortly after Tall Tom and I arrived a guy did show up with a Mad Max New York contraption: a recreational kayak onto which he had bolted a trolling motor, but he turned out not to be part of our group.

At the Launch

The morning started out with some “hurry up and wait”. We got there at 7 AM as directed, checked in, parked the car, and then hung around. We chatted with some of the other people launching, including a surprising number of people we knew from the DC/MD/VA area. I smiled as the New Yawk accents washed over me. I wound up walking back to the car to retrieve the water bottle I had forgotten, then again for my sunglasses. I didn’t mind the wait. I was already happy. We had spent Saturday night in New Jersey where we had dinner at one of my favorite kinds of places, a NY style pizza place (eggplant parm hero & minestrone) and breakfast at another: a New York diner (french toast). I also enjoyed discovering on a post-dinner perambulation that Teaneck, NJ is a pretty frum town: had they been open (it was still Shabbos) we could have eaten at restaurants including Shalom Bombay kosher Indian, The Kosher Experience, and Glatt World. Toto, we're not in Virginia anymore. Last, I was happy that the event was happening at all - it had been delayed a day due to rain, and the weather early Sunday morning had been looking iffy.

At about 9 AM we got into our boats and soon thereafter started down the Hudson River. We were immediately introduced to the sound of Steve’s voice over the VHF radio, which would be our main guidance throughout the day. Well, that and occasional contradictory direction from the safety boat that accompanied us. About thirty kayaks had launched in an early “slow, meditative” group. Our guides did a pretty darn good job of getting the roughly 70 people in the main group out and moving down the river in relatively short order. The river had a pretty strong current and we were moving at 6-7 MPH as we passed under the George Washington Bridge, our first landmark.

Hudson River: By the Cruise Ship Docks and the Intrepid

The trip down the Hudson was fast and I was so excited by the sights - the GW bridge, Grant's Tomb, the Cloisters, Midtown, the Empire State Building, The Intrepid, the cruise ship docks – that it seemed like we were at our first stop in no time at all. In fact, it took only about two hours for us to make it down the west side of Manhattan to Pier 26, where we met up with the meditative group. This was also our first break opportunity; however the procedure to take a break was so cumbersome (wait on line to get your chance to get out, get out at the dock, carry your boat off the dock, take a quick break, carry your boat back, wait in line to launch, launch) that I decided to forgo the break and just bob around in the river with many of the other paddlers, checking out the view of the Freedom Tower (the new 1 World Trade Center). This was a good chance to socialize and I caught up with some of our DC/MD/VA paddlers as well as chatting with the locals. I talked with Peter G., who is active in the Greenland paddling community. He admired my laminated wood paddle. I told him I actually didn't like this paddle very much since it tended to flutter in the water more than my other GP's. He responded with an impromptu Greenland Strokes for Dummies lecture, instructing me that I need to make sure my blade entered the water at an angle to minimize flutter. I'm sure he intended to be helpful, but this response somehow annoyed me. I hadn't said, "Gee, Peter, I have no idea how to use this paddle. Would you help me out?" I have over ten years of experience using a Greenland paddle and from that experience I know that I don't particularly like. This. Particular. One. Get it??

Sometimes I think I'm touchy when people offer help.

I will also point out at this juncture that the architect of the Freedom Tower is Daniel Libeskind who is both a Cooper Union alumnus and an accordion virtuoso. My kinda guy.

DC/MD/VA Group at Pier 26 (I'm on the left)

One of the purposes of the Pier 26 stop was to get everyone grouped up for our trip around the Battery (Manhattan’s southernmost point) which had to be carefully timed and choreographed around ferry schedules as well as tides and currents. Because it took so long for the kayakers who had landed to get back on the water we missed one window and so had to wait another thirty minutes. We almost missed the next window 30 minutes later too, but Steve’s repeated exhortations to us over the radio to “Paddle! Paddle! PADDLE!” got us all to the right place in time.

Dodging the Staten Island Ferry

The trip around the Battery was indeed something for the organizers to have been anxious about, primarily because of boat traffic. The Staten Island Ferry. The Ellis Island Ferry. The Statue of Liberty Ferry. Ferries to New Jersey. Water taxis, The Beast. It was like the TIE fighter attack on the Death Star. "Look out! Ferry coming in on your right" "Paddlers in the back, large wake about to hit you!" "Paddle, paddle, PADDLE!" Then, as we got around the point of the Battery we were in front of the New York Heliport. The helicopters were no threat to us but they added to the noise and confusion. Plus, the lower East River is a choppy mess,  I guess caused by a combination of boat traffic and mixing at the confluence of the two rivers (n.b.: the East River is actually a tidal strait). This was part I had been looking forward to the most. I'm a fan of the East River bridges, particularly the Brooklyn Bridge, and so it was really cool to pass under it and its ugly duckling sisters the Manhattan and Williamsburg bridges. Unfortunately I didn't have much time to savor it. I barely even had time to take a picture. The current was moving us along very quickly (yes, the East River flows north when the tide comes in) and the leaders were setting a very fast pace, I guess to get us out of that heavily-trafficked area as quickly as possible. Between the current and our paddling we came close to hitting 8 MPH, about double the normal speed one would expect to move in a kayak). Soon we were past the Watchtower (now with website: jw.org! Does that mean they don't knock on doors anymore?), and up towards Queens. We attempted to group up for a photo in front of the Long Island City Pepsi sign, but as we had already discovered when trying for a group photo in the Hudson, aligning a large group of kayakers in moving water is close to impossible. We did the best we could.

 

Approaching the Brooklyn Bridge

We continued up the East River, going around the east side of Roosevelt Island, heading for our lunch break. Past the UN. Passed under the 59th St. Bridge, where, trust me, no one was singing, "slow down, you move too fast" - we were still moving pretty quickly. Shortly after the 59th St. Bridge, I mean the Queensboro Bridge, I mean the Ed Koch Bridge, we made a hard right into Hallet's Cove, which is a crazy Mad Max New York place. It's not a marina. It’s barely anything. The beach appears to be just some silt that built up outside the sea wall which has been discovered by the small boat community. There certainly wasn't room there for 100 kayaks. The first wave of people to land grabbed beach spots while a volunteer who had been waiting for us there shouted at us to leave a pathway to the stairs up to the street. He also got into an argument with the trip leaders as to whether all the boats needed to be brought up onto the street or not.

"You gotta bring awl these boats up to duh street! When the tide comes in awl these boats are gonna float away!"

"We know abouw dit. We do dis every year. We tie all duh boats up and everyting's fine!"

"I'm tellin' you, there ain't gonna be no beach by the time you lawnch again!"

"Don' worry abouw dit. It's fine!"

In the end, we left the boats that had landed on the beach and carried the rest up, lining a block’s worth of sidewalk with boats. Passersby were asking us what was going on. Everyone seemed to like the idea that we were circumnavigating the island.

Bumper to Bumper Traffic at Hallet's Cove

The boats on the beach were all packed in next to each other and so it was only with some contortions that I was able to reach into my day hatch and retrieve my lunch. Adjacent to where we landed there's a city park, a sculpture garden in fact, and so we had a lovely place to spread out and have our lunch - world class New York. But crazy Mad Max New York reared its head again - the park has no rest rooms and so we all had to sneak into the Costco up the block to use the restrooms. Interestingly, the restrooms were not guarded (restrooms in New York are usually guarded against the public like they were King Tut's tomb).

Our lunch break was fairly short (maybe 45 minutes?) then it was back into the boats. Launching was even more chaotic than landing. People were bringing boats from the sidewalk down to the beach without any consideration for whether there was even room for them. You had to keep ducking and dodging as boats went by. A local wise guy who had been biking past (and who is himself a kayaker) volunteered to help carry kayaks. He asked if I'd watch his bike and we bantered about my selling it once his back was turned. As we were pulling out of Hallet’s Cove another group, in sit-on-top doubles, arrived to land. Steve's voice came over the radio shouting "Circumnavigation kayakers clear the beach immediately! There's another group coming in!"

After the chaos of Hallet's Point we entered a calmer section of the trip. After regrouping at the lighthouse at the northern tip of Roosevelt Island we dashed across the East River (Paddle! Paddle! PADDLE!), avoiding the complex flow of traffic in the spot where boat traffic from the East River, the Harlem River and the Long Island Sound all come together. We continued around the west side of Ward's Island and past the Triborough bridge (excuse me, the Robert F. Kennedy Bridge) and into the Harlem River. This is a much smaller river than the Hudson or East but it is still an active commercial river with plenty of boat traffic. Our guides kept yelling at us to keep to one side. 

Harlem River Scene (I'm talking to Lorah, just ahead and to the right)

Unfortunately they had switched "point" person (the kayaker who was designated to be the lead for the group) to "Alex" at the lunch break but had never communicated who Alex was or what he looked like (I had mentioned this to Steve as we launched but he didn't do anything about it) and so we had some trouble keeping order, wandering to both sides of the river and getting ahead of the point man. It was, in fact, only once we were in the Harlem River that I figured out who Alex was.

Harlem River Selfie

Toward the top of the Harlem River we made our final stop at the Peter Sharpe boathouse. It was only my second time out of the boat all day and it was nice to stroll around a little bit and explore the boathouse area and the very pretty adjacent park - world class New York on display again.

In the Harlem River (me again)

Back into the boats and it was time to finish our trip up the Harlem River, past the Columbia University boathouse, through the unexpectedly calm Spuyten Duyvil (the "Devil's Whirlpool"), through the Spuyten Duyvil swing bridge, and down the Hudson a little bit to get back to our starting point.

Hauling the Boats Up Dyckman Street

When we landed we found ourselves still enmeshed in the contradictions of New York. The previously quiet Tubby Hook launch was filled with people hangin’ out. More significantly, early in the morning we had ignored the launch’s next door neighbor, La Marina, as it was closed and quiet. Well, it turns out that La Marina is a current New York hot spot, name-checked in rap songs and frequented by celebrities (world class New York). Oh, and just three weeks ago one of the club’s security guards had been shot in the neck while attempting to break up a fight (crazy Mad Max New York). The police had the whole block cordoned off in anticipation of the night’s crowds, there were security guards wanding everyone on the way in, and the street in front of the launched had been turned into a parking lot, I guess for the club. There was no way Tom and I were going to get the car anywhere near the place. We came to the realization that the best way out of there was to carry our kayaks the three blocks to where the car was parked. So, still dressed in our paddling gear we grabbed the two boats – I got the bow end, Tom the stern, and started walking. With close to 150 lbs of kayaks and gear, it took us a while to walk the three blocks to the car (I think this was the most strenuous part of the day!). But here’s the good thing about crazy, Mad Max New York: nothing is out of the ordinary. Not a single person did a double take as we passed by, though a few asked us if we had enjoyed our time on the waw-duh. We got to our car and discovered that the area where had parked had also been transformed from early morning calm to a happening scene. We were right in front of the streetside tables of Mamajuana Cafe, a Dominican restaurant/hookah bar/nightclub and its neighbor, a Brazilian steakhouse. Both were teeming with people and security guards. A trio of musicians, perhaps waiting to play at one of the places, hung out and discussed different gigs out on the sidewalk. Again without raising any eyebrows we plopped the kayaks down on the sidewalk and began loading our gear and then the boats onto the car.

After we finished load we went back down to the water where the Inwood Canoe Club was hosting a post-paddle party. The party was pretty mellow, the setting overlooking the river was beautiful and it was nice to have a chance to chat with our fellow paddlers. I had a burger and some sides and downed several large cups of Diet Coke to help keep me awake, since we were planning on driving home immediately thereafter.

Sunset at the Inwood Canoe Club

The New Yorkers who paid us no mind when we had walked by earlier toting two large sea kayaks did take notice of us when we were getting ready to pull out – parking spaces being perhaps an even more valuable commodity than bathroom access. Speaking of which, one of the guards came up to us and asked, “Are you getting out? Can you wait a minute while I get my car?” I said, “Sure, but I’ll tell you what. If we wait for you, can I use the bathroom in the restaurant in the meantime?” Hey, I had a whole lot of Diet Coke sloshing around inside me and a long drive ahead of me. Tom, being a country boy, had raised the idea of just using some bushes along the riverside bike trail, but the last thing I wanted was to finish my trip with a public urination citation from one of the many cops keeping an eye on the neighborhood. So instead I made my deal with La Mamajuana.

The drive home went quickly. I think we were driving fast enough that relativistic effects began to creep in, shrinking the distance we had to drive. I crawled into bed at about 1 AM having completed a "to-do" item that had been on my list for a long time - not just the circumnavigation itself, but to paddle, paddle, paddle in my home town.

GPS Track

Alaska: Part 5 (which is really Portland)

Mon,7/14

On the flight down from Juneau I read a review in The Atlantic of a book called, "Twee: The Gentle Revolution in Music, Books, Television, Fashion and Film". This was either the best of worst possible thing to read on the way to a city that seems to revel in whimsy. Needless to say this book was also featured at a major Portland bookstore so the hipsters who rode there on their single gear "fixie" bikes could revel in irony as they browsed the books and twirled their whimsical 19th century mustaches. Perhaps I am being too harsh on Portlanders - they are more laid back in their quirkiness than New York hipsters, though in addition to fixie bikes I did see more 35mm film cameras than I had seen in years - carried slung over the shoulder to leave the hands free for iPhone use.

Whether the hipster designation (condemnation?) is valid or not, other Portland stereotypes certainly ring true. For one thing, Portland people sure take their environmental concerns to heart. I awoke on my first morning and looked out the window to see a truck from a "sustainable Mexican food" caterer drive by. Sustainable in what way? Are the tortillas made from recycled cardboard? Do they have a scheme to capture any methane produced during digestion and use it to generate electricity? I noticed that the ice cream place we stopped in one day used metal tasting spoons - no disposable pink plastic a la Baskin Robins. The Indian restaurant we ate at (more on that later) dispensed water from a metal container with a "lifewithoutplastic.com" logo. Oh, so green. I'm glad (and a little surprised) I didn't have to hand-crank the elevator in our hotel - not that that would have made it much slower.

Anyway, we had left Alaska with a boat load, so to speak, of dirty laundry so we started a load of laundry (the hotel had coin-operated machines) then went and partook of the gratis Embassy Suites breakfast  which was served in one giant mutha' of a breakfast room. V was feeling tired (I think she was starting to get sick at this point) so she took an after-breakfast nap while I finished up the laundry and relaxed. By mid-day V was feeling better so we irresponsibly burned some fossil fuel and drove over to the west side of town where we went to the Portland International Test Rose Garden. The garden was huge and gorgeous, particularly on what was a beautiful bright sunny day. We also visited the nearby Japanese garden, which was serene and quietly pretty. It was there that we ran into a guy taking pictures of his stuffed platypus, Ducky. Apparently he blogs about his travels and Ducky always figures into things. What was most remarkable about the whole affair was that we have exactly the same stuffed platypus (ours is named Giuseppe). The other notable thing about the whole affair is that the guy, who naturally was in town for a conference on renewable energy, was a rather serious sour-puss of a fellow - not the kind of guy you'd expect to be out on the town snapping photos of his stuffed platypus visiting Portland landmarks. While we were at the park I also made sure to find a geocache so I could add Oregon to my list of states.

Me at the Rose Garden

A rose at the Rose Garden

V at the Rose Garden

 On the drive back from the park we started feeling pretty hungry and so stopped at a pizza place (Hot Lips Pizza). We began to notice that Portland has a lot of pizza places. And micro-breweries. And coffee bars. Considering that pizza and coffee are among my favorite food items, and beer is pretty high on my list too, I was really starting to like this town. All the city needs to add to meet my full spectrum of food needs is a breakfast cerealitarium - though I wouldn't be surprised if there already was one. From there we went to the famous, enormous and wonderful Powell's Book Store, where we passed quite a bit of time browsing. When we met back up we realized that neither of us had much more than scratched the surface of the place and so we decided that if we had time we'd come back again during our visit.

Our hotel was right near Chinatown, and so for dinner we walked over to a restaurant called Good Taste. I think I've already mentioned that Portland has a large homeless population. Well, Chinatown and its environs are dense with homeless, at least in part because the city has set up designated homeless safe sleeping areas (complete with Porta-potties and security) in that neighborhood.

The food at Good Taste was OK, though nothing to rave about (note to self: next time eat at "Great Taste" instead), and when we got back to the hotel I had something of a stomach ache so we just settled into the hotel for the evening.

Tues, 7/15

By Tuesday morning I was feeling better and I was antsy over not having "really" exercised for almost two weeks. Yes, I had been hiking and kayaking almost daily and had rowed once, but I felt I had been a little short on real cardio. On Monday I had scoped out the hotel's fitness room and had noticed a sign there describing a nice outdoor running loop along the Willamette River. Despite the fact that I didn't have any running gear I decided to go out and try it. I put on a pair of shorts and my light hiking shoes, the only sneakers I had with me, and headed out for a run.

Early morning in Portland - on my walk down to the river I spotted a young couple sleeping in the back of a Nissan Sentra. They had folded the rear seat down and were effectively sleeping in the trunk with their heads sticking out into the back seat area. I also thought I'd swing by a spot where I suspected there was a geocache, but there were too many homeless people sleeping there for me to look around for it.

I ran on the promenade alongside the west side of the Willamette River, up and over Steel Bridge with its metallic smell of train tracks, down the east bank, back over Hawthorne bridge, and back to start. Between the shoes and the fact that I hadn't run in a while I was moving slowly and so I was surprised at how quickly I finished the 3.5 mile loop - until I realized I had crossed back a bridge too soon and so had only run 2.5 miles. The run once again made me appreciate the Potomac. The promenades along the Willamette are nice enough, but the riverfront is fairly industrial and ugly.

V near Pioneer Courthouse Square

When I got back we ate breakfast and headed out to Pioneer Courthouse Square, a sort of central hub of the city. There we strolled around, browsed in some shops including a pretty awesome crafts shop, watched a band, and visited the visitors center. We went across to check out the stores in the Pioneer Square mall, but it turned out to be a lot like the Tysons Galleria - too many high end luxury retailers. We checked out a few shops and moved on. I also went into the downtown Target to try and get a prescription refilled - to no avail.

Another thing Portland is known for is food trucks. In fact, there are areas where there are big clusters of all kinds of food trucks. Since we hadn't eaten lunch we decided to visit the biggest of these, which features food trucks all the way around a whole block, and then some. The trucks don't have to leave at the end of every day - they are parked on what is essentially a block-sized parking lot and at night they lock up but stay put. After inspecting the whole block (Indian, Mexican, Vietnamese, Ethiopian, BBQ, Thai, Middle Eastern, ...) we settled on something we'd never eaten before and split an order of Georgian mushroom dumplings, which turned out to be a delicious choice. The dumplings came with instructions from the vendor on how to eat them: hold them pinched side down and eat from the top so that the juice doesn't spill out. We repaired to an adjacent park and followed the instructions.

Portland Food Trucks

We then strolled back up through the Pearl District, which I would describe as Portland's quirky, artsy neighborhood except every neighborhood in Portland seems to strive to fit that description. We browsed in vintage clothing stores where I discovered that the polyester togs I wore to my bar mitzvah are worth a pretty penny (or bitcoin) to hipsters. V went to a yarn shop, etc., etc., Eventually we wound up back at Powell's books for our second round of book shopping (we didn't really buy anything on either trip since books are heavy to carry home).

For dinner we went to the widely hailed Bollywood Theater Indian restaurant in the Alberta Arts District. First of all, I should know by now that "Arts District" is a euphemism for "gentrifying area". Think of Williamsburg (or maybe now Bed-Stuy) in Brooklyn, or Del Rey in Alexandria, VA. The place was in a hipster enclave of a transitional neighborhood, next door to a similarly hipster ice cream shop with flavors like goat cheese habanero. The line for the restaurant was out the door, but it's an order at the counter sort of place so it moved reasonably quickly.

Bollywood Theater

I'm torn about Bollywood Theater.  I liked the food, which was indeed different stuff than your average Indian restaurant. Papri Chaat, something I had had only once before when my Indian neighbors served it at a party. Wraps. Samosas. Fried curried okra. V was not as thrilled with it, but thought it was OK. I had no problem with the hipsterish crowd (young daddies with their long hair in top-knot buns, there with their babies in Snuglis). It's just that, well, I read in an interview that founder Troy MacClarty wanted to recreate the Indian food he experienced as a student in Berkeley (the menu fudges it a little bit and says he wanted to recreate the food he experienced on his first visit to India - though in the article he says that he had the restaurant idea first and only then decided to visit India). I guess I'm just used to Indian restaurants being run by Indian people, not people who discovered Indian takeout when they were in college. But what the heck - the best bagels in Arlington are baked by Egyptians, and there's a chain of Italian restaurants in Virginia run by a Lebanese family, so why shouldn't a Southern California dude earn a living making papri chaat?

Weds, 7/16

I think one of the reasons V didn't like Bollywood Theater is that she was really starting to get sick. By Wednesday morning she was sick as a dog. I did what I could to help her out, then when she headed back to sleep I decided to occupied myself by going off kayaking. I had spotted a kayak rental place among all the tourist info - only 15 minutes away on a section of the Willamette River just outside the urban area, a nice, residential area of Portland. Well, actually, the shop is not quite on the river, which is interesting. The shop is on a main avenue, and then there's a park between that street and the river. So, when you rent a kayak there they give you a set of wheels and you walk the kayak down the street for a block, then down a side street, into the park, and through the park's parking lot to the boat ramp - about a quarter mile in all. I felt a little strange doing this but I didn't get any looks - I realized after a bit that there must be a steady flow of people out strolling with kayaks and paddle boards and so the locals must be used to it. The outfitter rented excellent boats at low prices. They rented me a composite Nigel Foster Legend for $15/hr. Key Bridge Boathouse charges the same amount, but for the money you get a crappy plastic rec boat. Interestingly, they provided the boat, paddle and PFD but no skirt, no pump, and no paddle float. These west coasters are far more lax on safety gear than we are in DC.

Walking a Kayak Down the Street

I paddled downriver a bit and looked at some permanent houseboats (small houses built on floating platforms). Then I paddled back upriver towards the city. I spotted an eagle sitting on a branch just above the river. I tried to get a picture of it but for some reason my camera wasn't focusing right so I unclipped it from my PFD (can you guess why I'm mentioning this detail?) to play with it. I couldn't get it to work right so I just jammed it back into the PFD pocket, forgetting to re-clip it (have you figured it out yet?). When I was paddling past the marina adjacent to the boat ramp - yes, the last 100 yards of my last outing on the last day of my trip - I pulled the camera out again to get a picture of a cool-looking sailboat and blip! It slipped from my hands and into the river. Gone in an instant. Fortunately this was my little point-and-shoot and pretty much all of the meaningful pictures I took on the trip were on my other camera, which was safely back in the hotel room. The only ones I regret losing are some of me in a kayak in front of the Mendenhall glacier.

I paddled back to the boat launch and found myself taking the whole thing pretty calmly. Strangely, I wasn't beating myself up as I ordinarily would do. Still, it must have been subconsciously affecting me because I was acting uncharacteristically spaced out. Returned the kayak and left, forgetting to take my car keys. Went back for my car keys and left, forgetting to take my water bottle. Retrieved my water bottle and left, and only later realized I had left a banana in the day hatch of the boat. I hope they noticed it before too long.

By the time I got back, about 2 PM, V was feeling a little better and we went to a restaurant called Mothers for lunch. The place had a Portland interpretation of Jewish deli food, and it helped V to have some comfort food - chicken soup. For my part I had a salmon sandwich which was actually better than anything I had gotten in Alaska. A truly superb piece of salmon. After lunch V crawled back into bed and I went for a walk. I again tried unsuccessfully to get my prescription filled at Target (they hadn't gotten the expect shipment of inventory). I tried on Stetsons at a Western store. And I finally got coffee at Portland's famous Stumptown roasters. A truly delicious, winey latte that made me realize anew that Starbucks is the McDonalds of coffee bars. I poked my head into Voodoo donuts, another Portland landmark, but I'm not really a big donut fan so I settled for the experience and left without a donut. One of their outlets is near our hotel and we had marveled at the lines out the door in the evenings, much as we shake our heads over the mob at the DC cupcake place in Georgetown.

Coffee from Stumptown

I think I have mentioned that Portland prides itself on being quirky. Our hotel had a list of Portland's offbeat museums, which include a vacuum cleaner museum and a bathtub art museum. I was delighted to discover that included on this list for some reason was a perfectly normal (at least from my perspective) museum, the Lincoln Street Canoe and Kayak Museum. Yes, there's some guy in Portland who builds meticulous recreations and replicas of traditional kayaks based on drawings and actual artifacts collected by early western explorers. His name is Harvey Golden ... wait a minute ... Harvey Golden? I know him! We met at the Delmarva Qajaq Festival in 2004 and I know that he's very active in QajaqUSA (for readers who aren't aware of this, the folks into traditional Inuit kayaking often use the "Q" spelling).

With V still snoozing I hopped into the car and drove back into East Portland to Harvey's Museum. It turns out he's built so many boats that he's run out of room to store them in his house, so this being Portland he bought a storefront up the block from where he lives and opened it as a kayak museum. He's got several dozen of his creations, plus smaller models and related artifacts, on display. He even had a self-guided tour - little booklets with descriptions of the various items. I think that for most people a visit to the kayak museum would be good for about 10 minutes, but I was there for close to an hour and had a blast! It's largely a one man operation and so Harvey was there working on his next book (Kayaks of Alaska) and minding the store. He and I chatted for quite a while and of course dropped some mutual names - kayaking is a small world. While I was there V called me - back among the living yet again - so I bid farewell to Harvey and hustled back to the hotel. V and I grabbed a quick dinner at a nearby Thai restaurant then we packed and Thursday it was off to home.

Lincoln Street Kayak Museum

Teddy picked us up at the airport and when we got home we found he had straightened the house and had even made our bed (which we had left unmade). A good kid with a good surprise for us to end a good trip.