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.