June 30, 2009

Summer is flying by.  OK, it technically just started, but daylight is in decline and that is a disturbing trend.  Yeah, I know, we will still have more daylight in late August than the rest of the country has now, but it is in decline and that is a disturbing trend.

We slept in our own bed this weekend.  I guess you have to do that every once in awhile.  It was still an exhausting weekend.  On Saturday, we did the silliest thing we have attempted since moving up here.  We kayaked over six miles on Campbell Creek, my small fishing creek in our own backyard.  The creek seemed fast for the first few hundred yards.  The moving water was a new experience for us. 

As we approached Dowling Road, we noticed a visibly intimidating drop-off and some whitewater rapids.  I wasn’t aware of these rapids since I don’t fish that far upstream.  Kris paused along the shore and I indicated that I intended to give it a try.  It wasn’t really that dramatic of whitewater.  As soon as I expressed my intentions, Kris decided to go.  She shot through the rapids, quickly disappearing around the next bend.  I tried to control my screams of joy as I descended that stretch.  It was great fun.

The rest of the creek bordered on tedious.  The creek bends back and forth in tight u-turns.  Logs jam every turn, often hanging out over the fastest moving water on the bends.  We back-paddled and spun our way through the maze, learning new techniques of control, and learning to read the water.  Out of necessity, I began to find the fine adjustments that I could make to my position in the river.  My major adjustments were wearing me out.

At one point, Kris stopped in some fast moving water, grabbing some vegetation along the shore.  In front of her was a log completely across the creek and too low to get under.  I headed for the shallow water on the inside of the turn, but I found myself alongside another log.  The water wasn’t moving fast and I was tired so I just reached for the log to control myself.  With the kayak across the creek, this turned out to be a mistake.  As I grabbed the log, the kayak continued to move sideways under the log, tipping, filling with water, and jamming under the log.  I hopped out into the knee deep water.  I assisted Kris before extracting my kayak, emptying it of water and lifting the boats over the main blockage.  This shook my confidence a bit, but we made it the rest of the way relatively uneventfully. 

On Sunday, we took a quick bike ride on an odd stretch of bike path between the Johnson Pass trailhead and the Hope Junction turn off on the Seward Highway.  I suspect this is some of those federal tax dollars at work.  I have driven through there dozens of times and rarely have seen anyone using the beautifully paved trail.  It was no different on Sunday as we had the trail mostly to ourselves for the 7.5 miles each way.  The scenery was nothing new, but it is different to see it at a slower speed.  It seems different when you can feel and smell the air.  It was really just a long car drive and a short bike ride, but it was a nice way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

Tonight we took a quick ride on the greenbelt.  It was another beautiful evening so we forced ourselves to get out and enjoy it.  I tried to see how far I could ride on the twisty trail no-handed.  Kris may have accomplished her first significant distance of no-handed riding at an age that few others have ever tried.  There is an inconsistency between our age and our behavior.