Well it's finally arrived ... my first USA spring roadtrip signalling the beginning of the 2011 paddling season.
The last couple of weeks were fairly busy ... I managed to squeeze in a couple of photoshoots and get all my paddling gear checked and packed.
I left home last thursday morning and headed off to work. My manager told me to hit the road at 10am but I could not as I had a whole pile of things I really needed to get done for other people on the team. After all ... I was leaving for two weeks and would not be sure if I would be checking in or not.
I manged to get out just before noon> The border crossing at Buffalo was rather painless. I got my normal anything to declare from one of the two US customs guys. The other one asked me where I was going. I said Tennessee and then he asked why and I pointed at the boated ont he roof. Turned out he was a kayaker.
I hade to make a stop in Morgantown, WV to pickup a boat for my buddy Jeff from Utah. This would be the second boat I have deleivered to Jeff in less then a year but at least this time I was not driving it all the way to Utah to drop it off.
After that I made it to my friends place in West Milford for the night. I was curious to see how far they were progressing on their bathroom reno. I now have a bet with them for a dollar. They say they will be done by the time I see them on my return trip back north on the 20th. I think not!
I left friday morning at the crack of dawn to make my way down to the Mulberry Fork races near Garden City, AL. I new this was going to be a long day of driving. I managed to break it up with a few stops including one in Lenoir City, TN to drop off the boat and the other at the Mohawk Canoe factory in Chattanooga, TN. I managed to pull into the campground of the races at 7:30ish which was really only 6:30 as I forgot about the timezone.
I learned something that day with the new GPS I bought. It told me that I would arrive at 17:05 ... but ... when it was 17:05 I noticed that there was still a really long pink line to follow on the gps. That was when I reallized I went through a timezone change by looking at the cell phone.
I ran into alot of friends at the registration booth. I paid my entry fee. After that I told them they had to change all their race info as due to me being there it was now a International race.
I quickly setup my tent in a high spot before the rain started which continued through the night. Luckily the it stopped during most of the slalom races on the saturday.
I did enter the down river race. It was nice to finally get back in my boat as it had been since last september that I was las in it. I had fun during the race. I got passed by lots of people but did not care. I played around in the rapids on the way down as I was just on a leisurely paddle. I ran some of the race gets when I got to near the end. After blowing one of the gates I ran the rest of the last set of rapids totally backwards practicing my skills. I then spun the boat around and paddled the last 60 yards or so standing up in my boat. I got an applause for that. Don't think they ever had that happen before.
After that I went and took a really really long front and back surf in the local play spot the kayakers were in. I stayed in there way long then any of them could.
After that it was back to the campground for the banquet dinner and awards. It was a great evening to just hang out and talk to new people. They were surprised at how far I had driven just to come to a race,
Unfortunately on sunday the races were cancelled due to the high water. Pretty much eveything around was in flood stage. I packed up all my stuff and headed back up to TN. I made a quick stop in Lenoir City to drop off my roof top carrie and all my camping crap as I would not be needing it. After that I headed up to Charity and Gabe's for a week of chillaxing. It was nice to finally sleep in a bed again.
Today ... being monday ... would be a fun day. The sun was shining and the skies were blue but the water was still high everywhere to go boat. Gabe and I manage to change the flat on the front tire of the tractor. We had to take the old tire off by hand and put in a new tube and put the tire back on ... only took us about 1.5 hours but we got-r-dun. I spent a couple hours shooting some photos of the farm and the old farm house on the property. Be interesting to see how the rest of the week pans out on the farm.
