Getting down to business

Lots of doing...not much posting. It's been a busy month and not for the obvious reasons. I got in a lot of flat-water paddling this month going to Rhodes Pond, Jordan a few times and Contentnea Creek. All this has been helped out by the fact that Nan finally got a flat-water boat and can go along.

The weekend before last Nancy, Cat and I headed east and paddled the Weldon Wave on a day trip; my first there. It was fun, albeit snowy.

I've also started the process of organizing my moonlighting a little by putting together a website (www.trianglekayak.com) to tout kayak instruction and to provide a link between me and my partners Paddle Creek and Triangle Aquatic Center. I'd forgotten the effort it takes to put that much copy together, particularly when you're developing from scratch.

We had a really fun trip this Tuesday to the French Broad for some much needed whitewater. We crammed 5 people in to my truck and met two more from Tennessee there. Raining like crazy when we left the triangle, it was beautiful, blue and almost warm in the mountains.

Rhodes Pond

We had a great treat yesterday. Nan asked me to go with her to look at a property that CWMTF was working with near Rhodes Pond in Cumberland County. We were pleasantly surprised that it turned out to be a real gem: very similar to paddling Merchant's Millpond. I look forward to going back down there and doing a little exploring to see if I can connect the pond with the next upstream road crossing of the (Little) Black River to turn it into a destination for CCC flatwater trips. Picasa album of the trip here.

Beachy time of year

We had a great time with several CCC'ers (8 total) going down to the beach for a surfing trip in our boats in late November. The seas didn't look like much when we arrived Friday but by mid-day Saturday it had built up enough to let everyone, even the first-timers get in a good day. Sunday, with a late start, provide the same. We all shared and took on preparing a meal for the group and we ended up with some fantastic food.

Balcony Falls

I had a great trip to the Balcony Falls section of the James River in Virginia yesterday. Eight of us from the triangle area drove up for the day-trip and met 3 folks from Bristol, TN to run the river. With flow about 525cfs/2.2' there wasn't much of a woohoo factor to the run but we had several first-timers with us and had a great time anyway. We had a pretty stiff tail wind all day with 50 deg. temps and cloudy skies broken every so often with rays of sunshine painting the fall colors of the gorge in a dramatic fashion. I could shoot myself for having forgotten to bring a camera. There were some real Kodak moments. Got back home at about 10:30 after a hearty dinner.

Southbound

The ACA's annual meeting was held in Panama City, FL last weekend and Nan and I took off down there for my first ACA Board of Directors meeting. I really didn't know what to expect. I sat through the SEIC meeting on Friday listening to the state of training activities. It was compelling. Saturday and Sunday saw the full Board meeting where we went over ACA's business and interviewed candidates for the new Executive Director. It was a nice weekend at a really nice resort: the Marriott Bay Point(except for the absence of free WiFi that you can get at ANY fleabag motel these days). We went down through Atlanta and back up on I-95 along the east coast. It was nice to go by some of my old cave diving haunts. Twenty three hours of driving later, we're back and looking for new adventure.

Canoe day

Though we were hoping that the recent rains would've given us some more persistent good flow, the Cape Fear dropped more quickly than we anticipated. To make the best of it, Nan and I hopped into the canoe and took it down Lillington to Erwin to see if we still had the right stuff to paddle some easy (~Class II) in the canoe. It was a really pretty day but you could start to feel a nip in the air and the water. We took on a little water over a couple of the large drops but did pretty well for a flat-water canoe. There were a couple of spots we could bow surf, side surf, and even practice a 'jet ferry' or two.

Fun day. It was nice to have Nan out with me on Monday, the rare weekday paddle.

Houston....We've had rainfall

What a year it's been for rain....or actually the lack thereof. After almost forgetting where the Haw River was, we finally had a day-and-a-half long drenching rain that brought the rivers up. Other commitments kept us from hitting the absolute prime part of the bubble, but we did get in a great day on the 27th and ran the middle Haw. It was like the good old days (when we had more normal global weather patterns). I hope the winter shows similar promise.

I had committed to teaching a land-based portion of a river-kayak course the morning of prime flows but at least we got in this little respite.

Another commitment I had made; one that took the whole day Sunday, was to man a CCC and ACA table at the grand opening of the new Triangle Aquatic Center in Cary (I turned down 3 other trips on the Haw that morning to do it...what a martyr). We're hoping that TAC sees the light and interest of the paddling community in having another indoor facility for roll practice and training and will open the facility to these types of events for the public. Our presence at the opening was well recieved and I had a lot of folks there ask if we would have rolling sessions there. I guess that all depends on the public's expressed demand for such. We'll see. It is a nice looking facility.

Downtime

OK, so it wasn't the busiest or most productive weekend I've ever had, but I did get some stuff done around the house. I began the process of burning the DVDs of thePaddler for the CCC and got about 25 of them done. I made the yard look a little crazy by starting to till in some of the accumulated shredded paper (mostly old CCC bank records) I'd been storing in the garage for that very purpose. This afternoon I got tired of staring at that bag of semolina flour from the mill in Virgina we visited and decided to make some pasta. Though it ain't pretty, I bet it will be good with some sauce for dinner tonight.

Russell Fork

We enjoyed a long weekend on our annual trip to the Russell Fork of the Big Sandy. This run is formed by the drawdown release of Flannagan Reservoir to the Pound River and ultimately the Russell Fork on October weekends. This stretch is within Breaks Interstate Park between Breaks, VA and Elkhorn City, KY. We had a group of about 16 on Saturday and about 10 on Sunday. Nancy and I stayed over until Tuesday and hiked much of the perimeter of the park on Monday. The leaves weren't quite at peak as yet and probably won't get as spectacular as last year due to the drought. It was still pretty though. Day-time temps were quite comfortable for paddling in drytops with night temps in the high 30's. The Russell Fork only had about 25 CFS of natural flow. The Pound releases were just over 800 CFS.

ACA Instructor Update

Though it's only required every four years and I was certified this year, I decided to participate in the ACA Dixie Division's Kayak Instructor Update last weekend at NOC. I wanted to get more exposure to teaching methods including those of other instructor-participants. It was a good weekend with 5 hours on the Nantahala on Saturday (from Surfers down through the falls) and half a day on the lake at Tsali on Sunday.

New job

I had previously decided not to run for CCC president for 2008 (though I look forward to continuing service as Past President) and take a while off from the job to work on my own kayaking skills as well as my kayaking instruction, but I was approached by a friend who is a current member of the board of directors of the American Canoe Association (ACA) about joining that national board as an appointee to fill a recent vacancy as well as running for that vacancy when its normal term ends this year. After talking with ACA president Kirk Havens, I decided it was an honor and privilege to be given the chance to participate and decided to say yes. A vote by the ACA board on Sept. 25 confirmed that appointment. I'm looking forward to utilizing my water quality background to participate in ACA conservation and stewardship efforts and my CCC background to help ACA work with paddling clubs to the benefit of both.

Family Weekend

We went north to Virginia for the weekend to see Nancy's folks. Saturday was spent with a side-trip to Buffalo Springs Herb Farm and Wade's Mill in Raphine Va. We took a hike after retail therapy along a small nature trail at the site. Fall is definitely in the air up there.

I'm sitting here this morning enjoying a bowl of water mill-ground yellow grits from Wade's Mill.

Fall is upon us

We had a good weekend in the mountains for what I'm calling the "President's Farewell Cruise". Six of us hit the Ocoee on Saturday and another 4 or 5 went to the Nantahala. We had one first-timer on the Ocoee but no real carnage. I shot a little helmet cam footage of the day. This was my first day on the Ocoee with the new creek boat. It did well, but I'm still going to have to work on holding my line on ferries.The weather was warm and sunny during the day but you could feel fall creeping in at night along with really heavy dews. This will likely be the last trip of the year with short sleeves and without drytop.

Finally!

As odd as it sounds, one of the most persistent 'dreams' I had for retirement was lighting off during the week, setting up camp at Smoky Mountain Meadows and paddling (or not) as the mood struck me for several days. After more than 5 months of retirement, I finally got around to it this week. While I didn't really have a plan for paddling, I was pleasantly surprised to find a couple of CCCers already planning to be there for the weekend so I hooked up with them. I met them at Ferebee on Sat and paddled my G-force. My plans SUnday were also to paddle with them, but also demo a Habitat 74, the creek boat I've been looking at. I got a demo from Endless Rivers and ran the river in it. As fate would have it, ERA also had the identical model and color (yellow, just like I was seeking) for sale on their deck. It didn't take too much thinking to make the leap and buy it when I got off the river that afternoon. That night, after the first round of CCCers left, a sceond round pulled into SMM from a day on the Ocoee and I got to join them on the Nanty for a 3rd day. On Tuesday, I decided to run laps on the falls and practice my Micro-Macro in the new boat and take some photos to kill off the rest of the day.

It was a really relaxing five days that lived up to the anticipation. I found myself relaxing but satisfied sitting in camp at night, reading a good book.

What's this 'leisure" business?

Sunday, Nan and I joined handful of CCC'ers in the Cape Fear River Cleanup. Erwin saw its record high temperature for the date at 100F and boy, were we feeling it by the end of the day. Nan and I each drank a cold quart of Gatorade after we got off the river and came home and just passed out on the sofa. It was a productive day though. I think we got 32 bags of trash plus several tires and big pieces.

Whew, where to start?

This retirement business is just that.....busy. We paddled the Nolichucky and French Broad near the end of July, catching an unheard of RAIN event. I'd forgotten what the stuff looked like. We had about 1300cfs on each river for that Sat. and Sun. That's the highest I'd run the Noli and was perfectly comfortable...a welcomed sign of improving skills and a comfort level with paddling within those skills.
On into August and the annual trip to the Yough.....Southern Invasion of Ohiopyle IX. We had about 30 members show up as a really small group compared to years-past. I hope it was just folks fearing dismal flow due to the drought. Guess what? It rained cats and dogs up there. The flow of the Yough was 3.2' on Fri; a full foot higher than I'd ever been on it. Once again, I was leery of the flow, having been challenged by 2' two years ago. Once again, no sweat. Gained abilities to catch dynamic eddies, to slow down and read water and react have all come together for a calm on the river I didn't know 2 years ago. Practice making perfect, I reckon. I had 3 great days on the Yough though it dropped quickly to 2' and then 1.7' on subsequent days, back to pre-rain levels. It was good seeing some folks I hadn't seen for a while.

The next weekend it was off to the beach with Nan for six days. Been a long time since I've done that, and the first time with more than a quick weekend this year. We took the opportunity to both relax and catch up on some much-needed yard work down there. Nan was pretty conscientious about working for several of the days, giving us the chance to be down there. I got out and did some kayak surfing and got to try out my new toy....a self-contained digital video helmet cam. The video, though not Cannes material, shows some promise for this new little addition to the photo/video arsenal.

Six million sandspurs later we and the cats (they went too) are back home.


I spent a little time this evening working on some material for what I hope will be an exciting new announcement in the next couple of weeks. A new endeavor and quite an honor if it pans out. We'll see.

Day on Jordan

Nan and I took off for a day on Lake Jordan today with plans to fish, read and have a picnic lunch in the canoe. Not a half-hour in, the trash bug bit me and I had to start picking up garbage out of the lake. After filling up the canoe, wer returned to shore, cleanup up the Robeson Creek parking lot and then went to Hwy 64 access and cleaned it up too. We finally got to enjoy the picnic in the rocks at LunchStop.

WOR 07

Only the day after returning from the Middle Fork, I headed out to Bryson City on Wed. July 4. I was pleasantly surprised by the number of folks still there mid-week in the midst of the terrible drought we're having. I got on the Ocoee on Thursday, Helped Robert Weddell run a group of novices down the Nanty on Friday (it was first time down Patton's run for several--they had big smiles) and then coordinated a trip on the Pigeon gorge on Saturday. Three days worth following 6 days of paddling in Idaho cured my paddling jones, but it wouldn't have been the same had I not been able to make it to WOR, always the high point of my year. WOR 07 photos here: http://picasaweb.google.com/lausley/WOR07 .

Middle Fork Salmon

We had a great time on the Middle Fork of the Salmon River in Idaho on a six-day, 97 mile kayak down the river. With commercial raft support, 19 CCC-ers plus a few others paddled from 15-24 miles per day, camping each night by the side of the river, descenbding from about 5800' to 3500'. Canyons, Inc. provided great commercial support, guides and meals. Nancy and I flew out to Boise and then took a bush plane to within 30 minutes of the put-in. a 30 minute bus ride put us at the Boundary Creek putin. Photos from the trip here: http://picasaweb.google.com/lausley/MiddleForkSalmon7_07 .

hot and dry

I've had to water the plants and new grass pretty much every day for the last month. It has been HOT and DRY, with only about two rain events during that period; neither of which kept the ground wet for more than a day. I have however, been watching my plump little roma tomatoes steadily growing and I'm dying to pick the first little sucker than ripens. It'll be the first time in 20 years here that I've been able to get fruit (probably because I've never gone to the trouble of container-growing them where they can get sunlight.) One of the advantages of having time, I guess.

We're pecking away at packing for the Middle Fork trip and I have the double whammy of having to be ready to take back off for Week-of-Rivers when I return.

I did enjoy going to Crabtree Lake the evening before last and grilling a dinner out with the CCC social. It was a laid-back evening. It was obvious folks were getting excited about WOR. GOPC was there coincidentally having a demo day and I got to try out a Pyrhana Ammo (not impressed) and a 2007 model Jackson 4Fun (Very Impressed). One of the CCC folks brought a brand new WS Habitat 74 (lime green, of course) that made me jealous enough to ask if I could try it out too. It's quite different feeling than a planing hull, but it was comfortable, rolled easy-as-pie, and picked up good secondary stability one you got past the primary tippiness. Dream on, I reckon.

Hot times at the Ocoee

Another hot and dry weekend moved us west to the Ocoee RIver in TN. It was our first time staying at the Thunder Rock campground at the Ocoee. David and Sandra had invited us up to paddle for the weekend. We ran into Robert W, Ben, Robbie and Jeff as well. We paddled with Dodie on Sat as well and did the whole middle Ocoee. SUnday, I paddled with the group while Nacy shuttle bunnied for us. Took out at Goforth Creek on Sun for a short day and the long drive back home.

I met Sarah M today to go over galley proofs of the large brochure print job for CCC. Larry B also dropped by today for a beer. I t was good seeing him after so long. He seems to have mellowed, if ever so slightly.

First course

My first time instructing (co-instructing, in this case) a beginner whitewater kayak course went pretty smoothly. We met at Lake Jordan on Saturday for time in the boats, land lectures, and stroke practice. Sunday saw us on the Cape Fear for a low water run and eventually, a very rainy day (Boy we needed the rain!). After a late start due to someone in another class not showing, we ended up spending even an hour on the river loner than planned. I saw a lot of smiles during the day as folks made it through their first small drops and saw quite a bit of improvement even as the day progressed.

Tuesday, I headed down to the beach for the first time of the year, taking both sea kayak and playboat. Had quite a chop on Tuesday and wore out quickly. Wednesday, I took my first trip out in the sea kayak and paddled to the Shallotte inlet sea buoy and back. Later in the afternoon, I took the playboat out again to wrap up the day.

Putting DWQ on the water

Last weekend, I made arrangements for about 20 folks from DWQ and their sig. others to meet outside of Jefferson NC and canoe and camp on the New River (NC). We had a great campground (Zaloo's Outpost) all to ourselves. Two daytrips in the canoes gave us a total of 16 miles on the river. I think folks (many of whom hadn't spent much time in canoes) had a good time. It was nice for me to arrive early Friday and camp through Monday morning without having to rush up for the weekend and then rush back home.

When I finally did get home, I decided to start into the process of insulating the attic of the garage to try to keep it a little cooler this summer. I finished 160 linear feet of the ceiling this week. I figure I'll do the same for the next 2 or 3 months and even the costs out a little.

Today I 'll spend preparing for teaching my first beginner kayak class this weekend. Chuck Hunley and I are co-teaching: beginning at Jordan tomorrow and then probably a LOW water day on the Cape Fear Sunday.

WV Weekend

I had a fun weekend in WV paddling with Chuck and Nancy on the middle Gauley at 1500 cfs Saturday and then my first trip on the lower Gauley (well, the first 3 rapids- Koontz' Flume, Canyon Doors and Junkyard) at 1100 cfs on Sunday for a quick day and then back home. Once again, it was a week of catch up afterwards, dealing with email, the yard, grocery shopping and then the latter part of the week getting ready for the DWQ canoe trip to the New River (NC) the coming weekend. I got a bit accomplished late tonight toward completing scans of the CCC newsletters for final distribution of the near-complete set.

Settling in

After a couple of weekends of the instructor course, it was relaxing to take a weekend of fun paddling to the Nantahala and camp with the Woods, et al. We had two fun days on the Nanty with some good weather and plenty of time to play all the way down. In two days, I did 10 loops on the falls to work on my micro-macro move and get it dialed in a little better. We ran into the CCC Novice/Int clinics a couple of times and it looked/sounded like they were having fun.

After a day of rest on Monday, Nan and I took a flatwater paddle down the Deep River and lunched at the Endor furnace with the CWMTF staff.

It's a day of packing today to head off the WV to see Ginny for a day and then paddle WV over the weekend, buring up the roadways once more.

New Horizons

I'm finally starting to feel recovered from the weekend and having completed my ACA whitewater kayak instructor's course. It was a mentally and physically challenging pair of weekends with long days (and a few nights) in class and on the river. We ran the middle Ocoee last Saturday as a challenge to look "competent and confident" on Class III (+, in this case) whitewater even though we can now only teach on Classes I and II. It was my 3rd run down the Ocoee and, though I had the added strain of trying to look good for the instructors, I felt really good about the run and had a great time even though we spent 7 hours on the river and I was whupped by the time we took off. Sunday was another long day on the Tuckaseegee. While the river itself wasn't much of a challenge, we had the added tasks of presenting 'model form' while paddling and presenting both prepared and impromptu teaching topics. I ended the day (another long one with 7 hours on the river) feeling good about what I had accomplished and resigned to the fact that I'd done my best and had hung in there with a mostly 20-something crowd in the class.

The Big Course

This past weekend I started my ACA Whitewater Kayak Instructor's course in Cullowhee, NC. I was really wound up about the event and decided it would do me some good to head up there a day early and do some on-river work on the Nantahala. The first weekend of the course really went well and the instructors did a good job of putting the class of 10 at ease. We me for 4 hours Friday night with lectures, 4 hours Sat. AM with lectures and student presentations and 4 hours on a lake SAT PM with stroke and roll work. Sunday AM had a couple of hours of lecture and student presentations and then back out to the lake.

More to come next weekend. I need to spend some time this week on the lake here at home perfecting my "modeling" of strokes and also to complete some homework of reading and developing a presentation of bow surfing for next weekend.

Zooming back out to the retirement perspective, it still seems like I have a full-time job. I haven't found much time yet to sit and wonder what I'm going to do. There are always some projects to take care of, appointments to keep and deadlines to meet. I spent all day yesterday catching up on email and CCC business and today, even the trip to the lake will entail dropping by the dump with garbage and recyclables. The cupboards and fridge are getting a little bare so a grocery run is in the near future. In another day or so, I'll need to start repacking camping gear for next weekend.

A good weekend in West Virginia

Nan and I headed up to WV for the weekend to paddle with Chuck, Nancy, Don, Karol, Robbie and Jeff. Adding a new one to the 'life list' we started on Saturday with the Dry Fork of the Cheat near Hendricks, WV. It was a great class III with lots of playspots, holes and surfing waves. Stage was about 4'. There were some marvy ledges near the bottom that allowed for a beefy side and a little more tame spin side. The sky was blue and sunny and it was really warm outside. Water temp was just on the bearable side without pogies.

Sunday saw us on what looked like a low-flow day on the middle Gauley. Flow was about 1,000 cfs as we put on but it quickly became obvious that a release started that morning. By the time we hit Woods Ferry, there was plenty of water padding the rapids. I played (an unwitting) probe at Woods Ferry and later at Chainsaw and demonstrated the lines NOT to tkae, plunging right into the big hole in the former and over the chainsaw in the latter, spinning down in a squirt the whole way. Backender was really beefy by the time we arrived at the takeout and after a long scout of both the sneak to left (wasn't really contemplating this, but wanted to see it with everyone else anyway) and river-right scout of the drop, I tried following the line that Jeff had so smoothly accomplished. I didn't make it far enough right and after bouncing over some big waves, ate a little bit of the hole and rolled quickly up in the pool.

We made it home about 9:30P and sacked out after a long day. It's tome to start buckling down and studying for the kayak instructor's course next weekend. Photos of the weekend.

Feeling Soggy

Well, I guess I'm getting my wish: Paddling until I get my fill. It just occurred to me that I've paddled 5 days out of the last 7 and today I think I'm going to take a break from it. I started doing a little more landscaping yesterday and will continue a little more today, at least until the rain comes. The Grays and Brabecs may be padding WV this weekend and if they do, Nan and I might tag along.

I'm still having a tough time getting a fixed schedule of wake/sleep going (not that I'm trying really hard). Some nights I'll bed down 10-11 and some nights 12-1. II certainly don't seem to have any trouble sleeping until 9AM, regardless. Eventually I'll have to get over the latter, but for the moment, it surely ain't bad.

Been another CCC week

We had a good day of flow on the Haw last Thurs. (~6.5') so I ran some new folks down the middle at 1:00 and followed up with a second group on the lower at 5:00. Off the river at 7:30.

Friday was the first day I was able to get out in the yard and do some things so I bought some herbs and mulch and got to work cleaning up some fallow beds and cleaned on of the 4 ponds.

Saturday was the annual Neuse River Cleanup. Had to get up at 6:00 AM for an 8:00AM start and boy, was it ytough to fit back into that mold. Michael C and I paddled canoes from Poole Road to the next bridge and filled both boats with about 15 bags of trash.

Sunday I committed to safety boat for the CCC Swiftwater Rescue course...again at 8:00 AM.....WAHHHHH! The river started out about paddlers' zero (~4.5'USGS) and the weather was ominous. By the time of our first break, heavy rains had begun to swell the river. By lunch it was visibly rising fast. By 2:00, they had to call water portions of the course becuase the flow and wood coming downstream made it just to dangerous to hold the course. They moved onto land for scenarios and Tiffany M and I were excused from our safety boat duties to run the lower. The bridge gauge was reading 5 feet when we left and after a beefy run with lots of big holes and waves, the bridge gauge read 6'. The Haw rose to about 13' USGS overnight.

Had a little slower day today going to the dump, to Lowe's and the grocery store and listening to the wind blow and blow and blow. Lost power for a little this AM so I sat down with a book at home for the first time in retirement and enjoyed a quiet moment.

The Easter Week

It was a busy week getting things ready for the CCC Easter meeting in Gatlinburg. All week long the weather forecast degraded and day by day, I'd start packing more and more clothes. I longingly looked forward to the arrival of my new drytop from REI since my drysuit is in England being repaired. I wasn't looking forward to facing a 20 degree weekend with an old leaky drytop and splash pants. The new drytop arrived and of course it was the wrong size. REI wouldn't and then couldn't get me an exchange of size and I was left without.

We had a fun mid-week kickoff to regular poker nights with 'the boys' on Wednesday night including Mike, Bill and Steve. We pigged out on wings and pizza and let the first night go by with freebee chips so we could get a feel for cash flow. It took about 3 hours for us to exhaust our $20 of play-money, with Bill the big winner. Nancy wisely made alternative arrangements for the evening.

Nan and I head to Gatlinburg on Thurs. by ourselves after several folks bailed on the weekend and riding up with us. There were about a dozen folks there Thurs. night and about 20 by Fri. night. Friday dawned without any appreciable natural flow except eastward on the FB and Noli and westward far out on the plateau. We paddled the lower Pigeon in cold but sunny weather on Fri. with newcomers Clint and Greg while the rest of the group paddled the Pigeon Gorge. Fri. night and all the way through Sat., the snow never ceased. We were greeted with a half inch of white and heavy winds Saturday morning. It took all the intestinal fortitude possible for me to join the group of 10 for the French Broad on Sat. It was cold but fun and rewarding.

We decided to head home Sunday after a short hike with Mark and Dana in the Cosby section of GSM NP. I took it easy for the next two days, catching up on paperwork and cleaning/warming up from the trip. Finally found a Kokatat drytop at NOC after striking out at ERA and GOPC. It's on its way and should be here in plenty of time for the instructor course at the end of the month. Once less item to fret about.

Playing Hookey

In the wayback machine today...back to the first day of summer during school years. Admittedly, I had a little more of a plan of what was up for the day than I did back during high school, but it still had that feeling...freedom. The freedom to anything you want to do...and so...I took the trash and recycling to the dump.

Just so happens that the closest (arguably) dump is right beside Crabtree Lake park. Also just so happens that I had my boat, lounge chair, good book, and picnic lunch (sort of...BBQ sandwich and sweeeeeeeeet tea) in the truck as well. That got me through mid-day OK.

Also figured I'd help Nancy out with her yard project so I stopped at the hardware store and got her some landscaping timbers and gravel. That's helping, right?

Settled in at home about the time Nan was breaking for work and heading out for yard work, so I cooked her a nice shrimp scampi dinner and then set about to mop up some CCC business. I wrote a letter of support to Sen. Snow (for CCC) for his bill to limit liability of indiv's /orgs for coordinating/leading paddling trips. Good timing on this. There's a lot of paranoia going through paddling clubs about this liability (though not necessarily founded in many facts).

The biological clock still isn't working right yet. I still find myself suddenly up until 1:00AM and sleeping till 9:00. ? I guess the body stages its only little freedom revolution when it can...but we'll have to work on normalizing that a little.

Catchup Day

After the previous hectic week I needed to catch up with some biz today and spent most of the day in the 'office' and in front of the computer. Finished taxes, announced the results of the CCC budget vote and got to work ordering new CCC equipment. Nan took care of her todo list as well today, working in the yard. This mix of tasks may help us each find our own times and spaces and keep us from sitting on top of each other all the time.

Decompression

Day one was a day of decompression. Bob Brueckner posted an impromptu middle Haw River cleanup on the CCClist to make up for the day that had been washed out two weeks ago. I decided that a good day on the river doing something worthwhile was a good way to begin my new journey. We had a beautiful day and while we started out with only Bob and I planning to clean, in standard CCC style, we had seven other CCC boaters join in and wound up with a dozen bags of trash and numerous other large articles: enough that we had to empty the canoes twice. After 7 hours on the river, I came home whupped.

The beginning

Today's the big day. T-minus zero. I've been trying to characterize the feeling of it in my mind. Sometimes it feels like I'm on death row: Everyone keeps saying goodbye like they're never going to see me again. Right....like I'm just going to fade away. I'll be back around and bothering them relentlessly....peppering their email with the latest web-fodder of the day. I think the retirement party last Saturday was the big peak for me. Since then I've been low-keying it with thoughts that I'm not at an end, but at a beginning.

The retirement party was a meaningful event. I was humbled by presentation of the Order of the Long Leaf Pine and the ESS plaque was beautiful. The language (of both) really capture my career ethos. I loved the fact that Steve, Jay, Mitch and I could round out the years as a group but felt bad about any implication that our unity at the party reflected that I don't enjoy a now-firm bond with my current peer group, the BAU. They've meant a lot to me in the past year in accepting me as a senior peer rather than a former supervisor/manager. That was a feeling I had missed for years and years.

I think everyone else are more excited about the 'finality' of today than I am. For the last month or so, I've been scanning (literally, as in electronically) my years of paper files into .pdfs, for both my own records and to make available to anyone, particularly the Aquatic Toxicology Unit, a little bit of the history that led to the present. That process was as much a catharsis of the years as anything else has been.

Nancy asked me last night what I wanted for my 'retirement dinner' tonight and nothing out of the ordinary really registered with me. I think we'll just do a couple of trays of grocery store sushi by the TV as a typical Friday night and maybe savor the moment a little more than usual. She out-did that and got a good dinner from a sushi restaurant.

I'm still in a bit of a fog...a feeling that I'm sure will quickly change as I get a routine set. I think pacing will have to be a focus so that I'm not constantly looking for something to be occupied with. That will come with time.