Spring Rains

So its been raining for the last two weeks.  This means that the rivers are high and more dangerious to ride right now.   I have been staying put checking and double checking my gear anxiously waiting to put my boat in the water.   I have been keeping myself busy though.  I am organizing a river clean up in my home town on our stream Tommy Run.   I am working with American Rivers and the Riverkeepers of the Chippewa Valley.   We are going to be doing the clean up on July 30, 2011 starting at 10am at Martin Fritz Memorial Park and cleaning upstream all the way downtown to the shopping center.

This should be a fun time for everyone.  We are hoping that this can become an annual event.   If you are reading this and wondering if there is a river clean up in your area check this out.

It is also looking like I might not have the funding to do my trip this summer, but I am hoping that it will still be possible.   I will keep you all posted.

Midwinter Madness

As the snows lie deep over my misty valley and the cold seeps into your very bones a madness comes over you. Some call it cabin fever, others spring fever.  All I know for sure is you come up with the craziest ideas in the depths of this fever.  My fever crept over me during a recent blizzard.  I was looking at watershed maps and it occurred to me that the stream that runs 100 yards from my back yard connects to the Ohio river.  The madness came upon me then and there.  I thought I could take my kayak from my back yard all the way to the Ohio river.  Then I thought, I can do this over the course of one boating season.  So this is my proposal;  I am going to put my kayak into Tommy Run (the stream near my house) and by the end of the season I will pull out on the banks of the Ohio river.  I don't plan on doing this all in one shot, I still have to earn a living, but I will do it is stages.  Putting in for the next stage where I pulled out from the last.  I plan on keeping a log and sharing it here with you so you can see what I saw and hopefully feel a little bit of the awe that I feel.

So till the spring thaw......