SK102

Ahhh, SK102, a tradition in my life (on and off) since 2001. I took a long break after my first few visits, but have been a regular attendee as an instructor since 2013 - except, of course, for last year which I had to skip for health-related reasons. This was the 20th SK102 and over the years it had grown from a handful of people to a rather large event before being intentionally scaled back in size last year. While the raw numbers aren't that different (maybe 10% reduction), the smaller size did feel more intimate. Also, with the passage of time there's been some turnover of the volunteer crew and it to me it seemed a little strange strange to not see some of the old familiar faces there: Greg and Jenny, Rich and Sue, Dave I., Rob, Tom, Frank, and so on. Another thing that seems to have fallen by the wayside is what I call the CPA letterman jacket. In years past, CPA would give out little kayak-shaped patches known as "rockers" to people for various kinds of volunteering. People would sew these rockers onto jackets  and the instructors walking around SK102 would look very impressive, like senior military officers festooned with medals (or Eagle Scouts - take your pick). In any case, I brought my jacket this year but didn't see a single other old-school CPA jacket.

My CPA jacket, with one unique patch

I arrived at about 2 PM on Friday, having gotten a later start than anticipated and having hit some traffic. I bring lunch and usually stop along the way to eat, but on this trip I felt I was running behind and so to save time I did something I usually hate to do: I ate my sandwich while I drove. There are a number of reasons why I don't like eating meals while driving: I think it takes away from the mindfulness of eating, it's dangerous, it's sloppy, and in an all too frenzied world it's a step beyond the level of multi-tasking I find acceptable. Needless to say, drive-through windows don't get a lot of my business.

Upon arrival I found the property set up slightly different than in the past - a new owner (a gay couple, if I understand correctly!) is building a house next door and so we couldn't expand into the adjacent property as in past years. Plus, the Porta-potties were situated in one spot near the top of the property rather than being split up in the middle of the property. The combination of the two (less space plus people not wanting to be too far from the bathrooms) led to everyone squeezing their tents together in a fairly tight area. The morning was cool and damp and so I deliberately chose a shadeless spot to pitch my tent, figuring any sun which came along later would help keep me warm. To prevent David and Theresa's yard from getting chewed up by vehicular traffic (as has happened many times over the years), you weren't allowed to drive down to drop off your camping gear. I had anticipated this and had purchased a very cool folding beach wagon, which made moving my gear from the car to my campsite relatively painless, at least compared with my past approach of multiple trips schlepping big blue Ikea bags filled with gear. Over the course of the afternoon the instructors and then the students trickled in. Soon the place was filled with tents, with all of us cheek to jowl. Some folks set up a pop-up canopy pretty much right in front of my tent, which proved to be a bit of an issue (more on this later).

Friday night at SK102 several things happen in rapid succession: the instructors' pot-luck dinner, the instructors' briefing and then the evening paddle. Dinner was quite yummy - a large selection of salads, vegetarian pasta and quinoa dishes, plus various meat-based dishes and desserts which I avoided. The instructors' briefing was the same as always - maybe a little more detailed than usual since planning for the event fell behind this year and so there was more to cover last-minute - but we each got two thank-you gifts for instructing rather than the usual one! Woo hoo! The two gifts were a headlamp and a mesh duffle bag (good for carrying wet gear). I volunteered to be one of the leaders for the evening paddle. It was a beautiful evening and my group (the medium speed group) got a nice four mile paddle in, returning just as it got dark.

Oh, I almost forgot - just before the evening outing I stopped to do a quick Friday night Shabbos kiddush with Ron K. Ron, perhaps the only other Jew there, is observant enough that he wears a kippah and does Friday night kiddush on all the trips I've been on with him (plus he brought kosher chili for the pot luck), but doesn't seem to have a problem with kayaking on Shabbos. While this seems a little inconsistent, I guess that most Jews except the ultra-Orthodox pick and choose from among the religion's zillions of rules (like the rule prohibiting wearing of garments that contain both wool and linen), so who am I to question if his subset is different than mine?

Returning from the evening paddle

Once back from the paddle I could finally dip into the alcohol. I enjoyed a beer and shot the breeze with various folks before heading for my tent a little after 10 PM. I mentioned the problematic pop-up shelter earlier - it turned out that it served as a gathering and evening party point for a group of people who I think all knew each other from one of the kayak meetups. They hung out and talked loudly until well after 11, but fortunately my childhood experience of having to sleep through the noise of subway trains going by all night long serves me well to this day and I fell asleep quickly despite the conversation (the 9.2% ABV beer I was drinking might have helped as well). I slept pretty well - waking once to use the restroom, which got me outside to experience the gorgeous bright light of the almost full moon.

Saturday morning I made my usually camping breakfast of instant hot cereal, plus was able to have a yogurt thanks to the cold-keeping ability of my awesome Yeti cooler. The event provides morning coffee; however, they understandably don't brew decaf and so to get my usual morning hot and barely caffeinated beverage (I've been almost totally off of caffeine since my surgery) I mixed up a Starbucks decaf Via brew and added a splash of the provided coffee. We watched the mist on the lake and had those half-awake sorts of early morning conversations.

Instructors and students assembled at 8:30 to begin the day's activities. Brian gave his introductory talk, which I have heard often enough that I can almost recite it by heart by now - including the Porta-potty instructions (put the lid down after using) and accompanying joke ("Ladies, please remain seated for the entire performance. Gentlemen, please stand close; it's shorter than you think") though this year Dubside ad-libbed an additional joke ("Hey Brian, why are the sinks in the porta-potties so low down? I had to really bend over to wash my face"). Who knew Dubside has a sense of humor?

Instructors on Saturday morning

I assisted teaching Kayak Design, Basic Strokes, and Wet Exits (the most basic class) with Jim Z. Jim is a very skilled and knowledgeable kayaker but in the on land part of the class he was whizzing through material at what I thought was too rapid a pace and advanced a level for our beginner students. While Jim would have preferred that we divvy up the topics, instead I let him lead and interjected where I thought appropriate to clarify what he was teaching. Once we got on the water Jim did an excellent job of teaching the basic strokes while I demonstrated and talked through what I was doing. We finished the class with wet exits - making everyone dump out of their kayaks so they know how to do that safely (to lessen the risk of getting stuck upside down in the boat should they ever capsize). Every other time I've ever taught this class the students have had to do one wet exit. Jim makes everyone do three!

After morning class came lunch break, then everyone headed back out for the afternoon session. In previous years I found teaching morning and afternoon, then hauling music gear, then playing music, then packing and loading the music gear to make for an exhausting day and so requested relief from teaching in the afternoon (one of the reasons I volunteered for the Friday evening paddle was because I felt I needed to make up for teaching only half the day). I had before never been ashore while classes were out on the water. It's amazing - when it's time for afternoon classes all of a sudden the place goes from the hustle and bustle of lunchtime to being a ghost town. I used the time by myself in camp to rummage through everyone's tents for valuables.

Kidding!

I used the time to take a brief siesta in what was at that point a rather sweltering tent (remember, I pitched my tent in a shadeless location and Saturday afternoon was sunny and warm). Then I slowly (using my cool new cart) hauled my music gear down. Finally, I went out for a brief paddle on the lake, returning at around 4 PM - the same time as the afternoon classes.

The time between the afternoon session and dinner is an unstructured time of schmoozing, playing around in boats, Dubside's rolling demo and in my case, drinking bourbon with Cat and Bill W (in this case, being a friend of Bill W lead to increased drinking). Eventually I staggered down to the waterfront and got dinner - a veggie burger, couscous, veggies and fruit. Once again I showed self control and ignored the chips and home baked sheet cakes. As folks finished dinner, presentations were made honoring our hosts (who have been putting up with us for 20 years) and Cat (who has been organizing the event for the last five years). Then the bonfire was lit and the music started. Unfortunately, the good lord does not like me playing music at SK102. Last year he made that fairly emphatically clear by smiting me just weeks before the event. This year he delivered the message in a still-dramatic if less life-threatening way via a rogue thunderstorm cell. Just a few songs into our set we got word that a brief but intense thunderstorm was headed our way. The day had been clear and sunny. The night and the following day would prove dry. But out of nowhere popped up one little rain cell - maybe 45 minutes of intense downpour - to break up the party. As the breeze abruptly picked up we hustled to pack away our instruments. One trip up the hill with amplifier and accessories. Another, with the first raindrops falling, to retrieve my keyboard and stand. By the time I made my third trip back down the hill to retrieve my camp chair from around the fire pit, it was pouring and everyone was gone; mine was the last chair left. I returned to my campsite, quickly threw everything under cover, and retreated to my tent. After the rain stopped I came out and walked around, but no one was out. The rain had ended the evening's socializing, except of course for my noisy neighbors who had a raucous party involving Almaden wine, gummy bears and some sort of card game. I had just enough cell phone connectivity to stream Netflix, so I put in my earphones and tuned out the noise. Fortunately they broke up fairly early (maybe 10:15?). By the time I finished an episode of House of Cards, they had quieted down for the night. Y'know, if they had invited me (sitting an arms length away) to join them I would have been more tolerant of them, but no, I didn't get so much as a hello.

Performing for the crowd

Sunday at SK102 is a mixed bag. There are classes, but they're a little more informal. For example, Brian gave people an introduction to using a wing paddle, Paula taught how to deal with emergency incidents,  and a class on packing a kayak for camping was taught. For a lot of people, it's more time for schmoozing, messing around in boats and slowly packing out. I was in the latter category.

After a cold but restful Saturday night I dragged myself out of my sleeping back and went down for morning coffee (my decaf Via brew with a splash of regular concoction again) and chatted with the assembled folks - including getting an update from Bill W. on the Washington Canoe Club's endless struggles with DC and the Park Service. I felt a little bad about having left Valerie for the weekend (she had had a bad day Thursday) and I wanted to get home, so I decided to skip any Sunday activities and head home on the early side. Still, it's hard to get out of SK102 quickly. After extricating myself from the coffee group and eating breakfast I broke camp and loaded the car, however that was interspersed with lots more conversation as I ran into this and that person. I talked with Ed S. for a while (including heart ailment talk), spoke with Cat some more, said my farewells to Susan and to my band mate Manuel, and so on, loading gear in between conversations. It was pushing towards noon by the time I got on the road, happy from another good SK102 weekend.

Geocaching trip with Ted

I just looked at when I joined Geocaching.com: Christmas Eve of 2006. That seems about right - I started doing it as a way to get outside with Teddy and David way back when. I've been away from it for a while; other than picking up one or two while traveling, I haven't really cached since 2015. Ted has persisted more with it, including finding some really ingenious geocaches out in West Virginia. He's been saying for a long time that he'd like to show me some of these clever caches, and we finally found the time to make a trip out to West Virginia.

I picked Ted up at around 7 AM. I figured I should drive - riding as a passenger with Ted on Friday the 13th would have been tempting fate a little too much! It was one of those anomalously warm 80 degree days in April, and the sun was shining as we headed for Martinsburg, where our first stop was the Visitor's Center, located in the historic home of famed Confederate femme fatale and spy Belle Boyd. The center wasn't open yet and so we walked through the town to find some other nearby geocaches. Let me tell you, the people walking around downtown Martinsburg are the ones who had no place else to go - the kind of folks who would have been rejected from "People of Walmart" for being to odd and rednecky. This was a good thing, actually, since it meant that the things we did as we searched for geocaches - crawling around on all fours, rummaging through bushes, and sticking our fingers inside birdhouses - didn't stand out as odd in any way. As an example of the people we ran into, while walking down the main street we saw a guy - maybe late 20's, with shoulder-length bright pink hair, walking with an elementary school-aged girl. His daughter? His child bride? His abductee? All of the above? We weren't sure.

I mentioned birdhouses; let me explain. Most of the caches we found were created by a geocacher named "WVTim". Usually, the challenge is just in finding the geocache - they're often very cleverly hidden in odd places. In contrast, many of Tim's caches are out in the open, often disguised as birdhouses. The fun of his geocaches is that you have to interact with them in some way to solve them. Heck, he's got his own Youtube channel about his geocaches. There were electronic caches - like the one where flipping up the false front of the birdhouse revealed a custom electronic trivia game - computer screen and all. Only once you answered all ten questions correctly would the logbook pop out of the cache. There was one that was a game like Simon, one where you had to stick a balloon into a hole on the side and inflate it to release the latch, and so on. All very cool and extremely clever. Apparently, geocaching is a form of tourism the area encourages - many of these caches are located at local businesses rather than the usual in-the-woods sorts of locales. I have to admit, as a form of economic boost for the local area, it works - we ate lunch at a local restaurant, and spent money at two of the local farm markets the caches took us to.

Of course, along the way we saw the evidence of all sorts of redneck West Virginia stereotypes. The "gentlemen's club" advertising midget tossing. The young woman heading into the quick mart open carrying a pistol in a cute pink holster. A pickup truck with the license plate "RDNKLIFE". The Confederate flags - which, incidentally, make no sense, since West Virginia was part of the Union. In fact, West Virginia was a part of Virginia that broke off to stay in the Union when the rest of Virginia seceded.

However, let me interrupt my snooty comments about about West Virginia to admit that in Virginia - even NOVA - we're not that distant from our "cousins" in West Virginia. The day after this trip, Valerie and I were drinking coffee outside our local Starbucks, right in downtown Falls Church. While Valerie talked to me about how nice a day it was - the warm sun, the breeze, the birds chirping - behind her I watched a guy, pistol protruding from the waistband of his shorts - cross the parking lot and go into the Starbucks. I bet he and the pink holster girl would have gotten along just fine.

Hanging with Ted

Anyway, Ted and I had a good day. Most impressive was how well he had organized the whole outing. Ted can be a little bit of a space cadet, but he says nursing has really taught him how to prioritize and be efficient - and it really showed in how he had planned out this outing. A good day!

VASA Ride

The Vasaloppet is a famous ski race in Sweden. It has absolutely nothing to do with bicycles, and so naturally every spring since 2007 the Swedish embassy in conjunction with the Washington Area Bicyclist Association (WABA) has hosted the VASA bike ride in tribute to the Vasaloppet and the coming of spring.

Yes, it makes no sense.

Unfortunately, it's a tradition that's coming to an end. After last year the Swedes decided they could no longer host the event (no reason given - perhaps diplomatic ties have frayed). This year REI stepped in to host one final VASA ride, so my first VASA ride will almost certainly also be my last VASA ride. I had registered for the ride last year, but it was held the day I was released from the hospital, a day when I was in no condition for a long bike ride.

With the change of hosts came a change of venue - the ride started and ended at the flagship REI in Northeast DC rather than at Sweden House. Rather than bike the ten miles from home to REI I lazed out and took Metro to Capitol South which left just a mile and a half of biking to the start. I could have lazed out even further and taken the red line almost to REI's front door, but I decided a little riding was better than dealing with switching trains.

Upon my arrival I immediately bumped into lots of people I knew: Judd and Josephine were volunteering at registration. Yvonne and Jay (who I think of as paddlers, not cyclists) were marshaling the 15 mile ride. Lots of my coffee club cyclist friends were getting ready to head out for the 60 mile ride, which started first, so I said a quick hello then they headed out.

Gina, Ken, young Chris and I had arranged in advance to do the 30 mile route together. Gina's "significant other" Peter was supposed to show up on a tandem with his 12 year old daughter Sophie as well, but he was late in arriving so the rest of us minus Gina headed out, picking up some other riders (people we didn't know) as part of our group - eight people in all, joined midway by a ninth. I was using the "follow route" function of my bike computer for the first time. Chris was running two different computers, which seemed appropriate on his space age specially imported German pinion gear, belt- drive Rose bike, and so between the two of us and our three computers we managed not to make any wrong turns. The route took us across DC into Georgetown, and then up to Bethesda via the Capital Crescent Trail and MacArthur Boulevard. One could actually have taken the Cap Crescent trail the whole way to Bethesda rather than dealing with traffic on MacArthur, but we opted to keep to the official route and take the road from Fletcher's Cove onward. I think they routed it that way to get the route to be exactly 30 miles.

Bethesda offered a halfway pit stop - bathrooms at Panera, bananas, granola bars and pretzels. Ken is another Jewish rider and, being Conservative, observes eight days of Passover. I observe seven and so it was still Passover for him but not for me - so unfortunately he couldn't take advantage of the free granola bars (he wouldn't even take possession of chametz on Passover). While we were chomping our snacks Gina, Peter and Sophie caught up with us. Also, a few of our group took off ahead of us, so when we started the ride back we were a reconfigured group of Ken, Chris, Gina, Peter, Sophie and me - which was kind of nice, since we all knew each other.

The ride back from Bethesda was pleasant: mostly downhill, and a lot of it was through the closed roads of Rock Creek Park. When we got back to REI we were served the traditional blueberry soup and Swedish meatballs (yes, they had meatless Swedish meatballs!). I hung around for a bit but didn't opt to wait until 2 PM for the after-party at Wunder Garden, since I needed to get home, change, rest and then head back to Northeast DC for an evening out with friends. Feeling like I still had some gas left in the tank I decided to bike home rather than taking the train. I will say that I started to feel tired about half-way through the ten mile ride home, but I made it, completing my longest day of riding (about 43 miles) since my surgery. I love every new milestone like this, so it was a really good day - good riding, good friends, and a new distance accomplishment. I am glad, though, that I didn't try the 60 mile ride. That would have been too much.

Bethesda pit stop

Strava track of the VASA ride

Strava track of the ride home

Cherry Blossom Paddle

First they said the cherry blossoms would peak really early, around St. Patrick's Day. Then March was cold and they pushed the forecast peak to late March. Then early April. Then later in April. Admittedly, the peak bloom forecast always moves around, but this year's particularly unsettled weather made it really hard to pin down a date for a cherry blossom kayak trip. I suggested to the PoG regulars that we do a cherry blossom paddle the last Thursday in March, but after the peak bloom was pushed into April I opted to delay a week to April 5th.  In all the confusion I lost some of my original group, but the PoG stalwarts showed up: Tom, Rob and Larry.

The best place to see the blossoms from the water happens to be the little Tidal Basin inlet directly across the river from Columbia lsland, so we started our paddle by crossing the river to the blossoms. Cherry blossom season always yields interesting sights, in this case some Asian women doing a fashion photo shoot and what looked to be a couple posing for wedding photos. For the record, my wedding was this first week in April (29 years ago!) and our wedding was less than a mile from the water but we didn't take waterfront photos. No, instead of beautiful pictures looking out over the controversially named Negro Bar Channel, we just posed outside the synagogue. I wasn't as much of a water person back then so detouring on our wedding day to take waterfront pictures didn't even occur to me. In addition, for various reasons our wedding took on an out of control freight train sort of life of its own, and so I doubt we would have risked having things go off the rails by heading to an additional location for pictures even if we had thought of it.

It had been quite windy and so the blossoms were less puffy than usual. I think the wind had blown off some of the blossoms. And it wasn't that we were off peak: the park service declared April 5th, the day we paddled to have been the peak bloom day.

Still, we had a nice outing - after blossom peeping we headed upriver, marveling at the features revealed by the unusually low tide. We continued on our usual route around Roosevelt Island then headed back to the marina.

As we were landing Gina (an ur PoG-ger from the Georgetown days) showed up on her bike and joined Rob and me for dinner. Tom had planned to come to dinner too but took a wrong turn and headed into the Bermuda triangle of roads that inter-tangle around the Pentagon. Or so he says ... perhaps he just abruptly reached his limit of being sociable and blew us off. Whatever the case, the three of us had a good time, discussing travels, relationships, interesting work projects and boat building over Nando chicken and sangria.

Heading out from the marina

Wsdding photos?

Rob, Tom and Larry

Me

Kitty's Sushi Roll Ride

Bike friend Kitty (real name: Grace) is a Japan expert. I mean that for real. Her degrees are in Eastern Studies and her day job has something to do with Japanse-American relationships. She has lived in Japan and recently returned from a trip there. She's also a serious cyclist and is a typically hyper-normal mid-Westerner while also being the kind of nutcase who shows up at events dressed as a penguin. So, I knew I would be good hands when she planned a Japan-themed ride, timed to fall in advance of the cherry blossoms so it wouldn't be a cherry blossom ride.

The weather didn't fully cooperate. We were at the tail end of a fierce windstorm that had descended on the whole east coast. Friday had been really crazy, with gusts up over 60 MPH causing our house to make weird moaning noises of a kind we've never heard before. Saturday was a little better, with winds "only" 20-30 MPH. As is my wont, I woke up in plenty of time but puttered around - breakfast, newspaper, stretching, coffee - until the point when I had to rush out the door to have any chance of getting there in time. Bundled up against the cold and wind, I hit the W&OD. The wind was at my back and I found myself doing incredible speeds - up over 20 MPH - with fairly little effort. With wind assist the trip to Rosslyn, which usually takes me about 35 minutes, took only 25. Crossing the "Intersection of Doom", I found the entrance to the Mount Vernon Trail blocked by a downed tree. Fortunately, it was the trunk blocking the path, not the crown, so it was possible to lift my bike over and then scramble after it. Another cyclist ... who turned out to be none other than Kitty ... hit the blockage at the same time. We helped each other over the tree and then continued on. Initially we rode together, but I told her to go ahead since she was in a hurry to get to the meeting spot. The meeting spot was a coffee place in Navy Yard. There was pre-ride coffee 8:15 followed by rolling out at 8:45. I had timed my arrival to be there for the ride start, not the coffee, so I was surprised to see that Kitty was on my schedule. Turned out she had gotten a later start than planned. She bolted ahead while I continued at my meandering pace. Obviously she got there first, but even with a restroom break at Columbia Island, I got there in plenty of time.

After donning some Japanese garb over her biking gear (not a kimono - too hard to ride in), Kitty saddled up and led us out. While I won't go into all the details of her well-researched and interesting presentations, I'll list some highlights:

• Stop at the Washington Navy Yard, where a delegation of Samurai made the first diplomatic visit of Japanese to the U.S. in the 1800's. Apparently they made quite a splash. According to Kitty, by the 1800's the Samurai class were no longer warriors so much as they served as the top echelon of government bureaucrats.
• A look at the Stone pagoda. This gift to the U.S. from the mayor of Yokohama in the 1950's is located near the FDR Memorial.
• A stop outside the Freer/Sackler galleries of art.
• Most moving, a visit to the Japanese-American Patriotism Memorial, which commemorates both the Japanese-American who were sent to internment camps during WW II and the Japanese-Americans who died fighting in the war.
• While the ride most definitely wasn't about the cherry blossoms, we did learn that the Cherry Blossoms symbolize life's fragility and beauty: the blossoms are a reminder that life is almost overwhelmingly beautiful but that it is also tragically short. I'm still working on the beauty part, but I'm for sure feeling the tragically short part these days!

Kitty gives her shpiel at the Sackler

By the end of the ride the sun had come out and the temperature had become quite comfortable. We lingered a bit and took group photos at our last stop, the Japanese Information and Culture Center (JICC). From there the group was continuing on to lunch at a Japanese restaurant above Georgetown. I have some sort of mild allergy to some ingredient/seasoning in Japanese food (I cough for the rest of the day after eating Japanese), so I skipped the lunch. I rode with the group as far a Georgetown then broke off and headed home over Key Bridge. It was on the late side of lunchtime and I got a craving for an Earl's salmon sandwich, so I made a little detour into Ballston for a lunch stop at Earl's.

Group photo at the JICC

It was an eventful ride. In addition to the places I've already mentioned we passed by the White House, biking past apparently just ten minutes or so before someone opened fire there, and saw the unveiling ceremonies for the Mayor Marion Barry statue. Wait, what?! There's a Marion Barry statue? Crack-cocaine abusing, woman-abusing, "Bitch set me up!" Marion Barry??!? 

Plus, I got a chance to visit the new DC WaWa market. Ted and I are big WaWa fans and so this was very exciting to me.

31 miles - my longest ride since surgery.

First Kayak Trip of the Year

This winter started out harshly. The "bomb cyclone" in January treated us to single digit temperatures coupled with strong winds. This makes the recent thaw - temps in the 40's and 50's (not to mention a few days with temps in the 70's!) - feel really like springtime. The river, frozen solid six weeks ago, started to reach the 50's as well. It was time to go kayaking!

Dressed for biking during the "bomb cyclone" super cold weather. I look ready for the planet Hoth.

Unfortunately, no one was available to go paddling last Saturday and it was a rainy day besides, so I didn't go. I awoke Sunday still burning with paddling fever, but the morning was rainy and chilly - not pleasant weather. Fortunately, the rain abated mid-day and I headed out on my own to go paddling.

Getting ready to launch

Yes, yes, you should never paddle solo, particularly in wintertime. Yes, yes, a person with my medical conditions probably shouldn't paddle solo. But life is a balance of risk and reward. After all, last summer I came closer than I expect to being shot while doing the seemingly safe activity of playing music at a festival. Today it almost happened again - someone opened fire outside the White House a mere ten minutes after I passed by on my bicycle. The lesson I draw from this is that you shouldn't be afraid to live your life - risk can find you at any time and place, so why cower from it?

First, I loaded the kayak onto the car and spent some time measuring how tall the car was with the kayak on it. I'm curious to see if I can fit into the garage at work with the kayak on the car. My method required the use of a level and, needless to say, my level was mysteriously missing (I'm betting David has it) but fortunately I have a backup. In fact, my backup level is a thing of beauty - an old wooden level inherited from my father's toolkit. The highest point on the kayak measured 6' 2". Now, to see how tall the garage is ...

I launched from Columbia Island. After going through the extreme contortions required to zip my dry suit unassisted (whose idea was it to put the zipper across the back?!) I launched and headed up the Boundary Channel. The channel is a few hundred feet wide at its widest and is extremely protected - I figured it was the safest route for me to take. Well, then again, it's pretty isolated. While I was unlikely to run into problems from wind or waves there, was never far from shore, and for most of it I could probably walk to shore if I capsized, if anything had happened back there who knows how long it would have been before anyone found me.

The days of rain combined with high tide put plenty of water in the river and the channel, which dries out at low tide, had plenty of water in it. The lowest spot, which is frequently barely navigable, had several feet of water depth. No problem. As a note, conditions were quite different a week later after our crazy windstorm. When I biked down the Mount Vernon Trail on my way to Kitty's Sushi Roll ride I was amazed at how the persistent Northwest wind had blown the water out of the river. The outermost spans of Memorial bridge were dry. The southern tip of Roosevelt Island extended half-way to Memorial Bridge. Rocks I had never seen before poked up above the surface. A little farther downriver it even made the news. But no problem today. Variability of conditions is one reason I never get tired of kayaking the same stretch of the river.

I basically did the Thursday night Pirates of Georgetown paddle, going up around Roosevelt Island. My only time on the river proper was coming back down the east side of Roosevelt; however, conditions were glassy calm and so I wasn't very concerned. Once down at the bottom of the island I ducked back into the protected waters of the Boundary Channel. Because it's usually navigable only at high tide it's rare to be able to take it both out and back.

It felt great to be back on the water!

Judd's Presidents' Day Ride

Monday I participated in a Presidents' Day bike ride led by my bike friend Judd. Last year's ride apparently was very long with many stops. This year he kep the number of stops down by focusing on a theme: Presidents with a Connection to Illinois (which happens to be Judd's home state).

While the ride was not scheduled to start until 10:30, there was a pre-ride plan to meet up for breakfast at 8 AM at the regular Monday cyclist breakfast meetup at Lazy Mike's in Falls Church. However, the day dawned with a passing band of rain - drizzly and grey. I wasn't really keen on riding several miles in that stuff and then being wet all day, so I decided to skip breakfast and wait out the rain - Judd decided to do the same, by the way.

So, having gotten up in time to get to breakfast at 8 AM, I found myself with some time on my hands. I got involved in working on my taxes and before I knew it I was running a little late getting out the door for the ride. As I hustled down the Custis Trail towards DC a convoy of more intrepid riders who had decided to do breakfast despite the rain caught up with me. This put me at ease about getting there on time, and we all rode together and made it downtown on time.

Getting ready at the Lincoln Memorials

Our meeting point and first stop was the Lincoln Memorial. Illinois is, after all, the "Land of Lincoln". From there we continued to the site of the original building of the Veterans Administration, which Judd (a VA employee) told us was founded in the wake of the Civil War - and thus has a connection to both Lincoln and Grant (who apparently lived in Illinois at some point in his life). I suspect, though, that this is some sort of Fake News, since the Veterans Administration web site says that the various agencies which ultimately were consolidated into the VA weren't founded until much later.

From there we continued to the spot where John Hinckley, Jr. attempted to assassinate Reagan, who apparently also lived in Illinois for a time (why do people shoot all these Illinoisians?). We learned the term "erotomania", which refers to a delusion where a person (say, Hinckley) believes that another person (say, Jodie Foster) is in love with them - or will fall in love with them if they, for example, assassinate the president.

The weather had remained cool and misty so we took a needed snack/warm-up/bathroom break at Glen's Garden Market, after which we continued on to Grant Circle, a rare circle in DC which has no statue (and which intersects with Illinois Avenue!).

Hey, get out of the middle of the street, you idiot!

We attempted to ride by the Obamas' home in the Kalorama neighborhood, but the street is blocked by the Secret Service. We could get only to the end of the block and peer down the street to see the house. By the way, it turns out that the Obamas, Jared & Ivanka, and Jeff Bezos all live in the same neighborhood. That must make for some fun block parties!

The group at the Lincoln Cottage

Our final stop was the Lincoln Cottage, which served as President Lincoln's summer getaway while he was President. Some folks were going to tour the museum there (which turned out not to be possible that day) and then go out for lunch, but others headed home. I rode home with three other riders - Anne, Nadine, and Cynthis - who were all going approximately to my neighborhood. Safely back at home, I had a bowl of soup to warm myself up and reflected on a nice ride.