eug-corv paddle

Kalin and I along with a slew of others attended the KLCC Eugene Beer fest last weekend, and it was awesome!  Aside from buying a few to many tickets and having to really be diligent about consuming the beer I prepurchased, I had a great time.  The beer was really freakin good, and there was a cider there that blew my mind too (Crispin).  Kalin and I did some "urban camping" in Eugene that night and then put our kayaks on the Willamette Saturday morning, intending to beat Forrest's paddling time established the summer before.  We put in at Skinners Butte, intending on running the few rapids in Eugene, before hitting the flatwater.  Kalin immediately took a tough line that was really shallow near a bridge and flipped, but I slid up with a perfect T rescue as he supported himself partially on some shallow rocks.  After that, it was smooth sailing (litterally).  We intentionally timed our trip to a strong southerly wind that day and CRUISED the river with a 25mph wind at our backs for a significant portion of the paddle.  Unfortunately the 2 short paddles into the wind we had to do, produced a sprained wrist (overgripping?) on my arm.  Grrrrr.   Sooo once again, I am out of commission for a little while.  Oh well, it'll give me more time to run.  I am up to one or two 4-5 mile runs a week now (massive for me) and have started a little of the cross training for the other legs for the PPP. 
OH!  I also go to go XC skiing in Yosemite for my moms birthday weekend a week or two ago.  It was a quick trip but I managed to figure out the basics behind skate skiing.  It is exhausting, but very fast.  On that trip, I also did a dusk run up the Yosemite Falls Trail to escape the hotel room and ended up rescuing (kinda) an old-timer on the trail who got caught by dark without a headlamp and was very dehydrated.  I slowly walked out with him and got all sortsa stories.  Apparently he worked in the valley for years in the 60s and pretty much knew all our heroes first hand.  I mentioned some names he seemed to have nearly forgotten about too (got some wide grins)!  He also participated in a number of rescues.  He cashed in some of his karma points, and I gained some that night. :)

Sorry, no pictures this time.