Saturday, August 18, 2012
I woke up early this morning, loaded my canoe onto the van, and headed out for Stoney Creek Metropark in Shelby Township. I had the canoe in the water by 8:30 and spent 1-1/2 hours paddling around the lake. Perfect temperature, no wind, great conditions for a first paddle with my new (to me) canoe! So what waterway will I paddle next? I'm leaning towards the Clinton River from Rochester to Utica.
Monday, August 6, 2012
I'm Still Alive!!
I am probably the world's worst blogger. It has been over a year since I last posted anything. My son, pictured in the previous post, is now running around the yard wearing an Algonquin Park t-shirt :) That outfit will soon be part of my new son's wardrobe. So now I have two daughters and two sons. We will definitely need 2 or 3 canoes for family canoe trips!
It was a terrible year for hunting. No deer hunting at all, and the rabbit hunting was the worst I have yet seen. The Winter in southeast Michigan was almost non-existent. Barely any snow, mostly mud and rain. The few times I got out were fruitless. Everybody was praising the mild winter, how easy it was to drive, and how little snow needed to be shoveled. But for someone who loves tracking rabbits in the snow, it was a depressing season. I couldn't even go out in my new back yard and stoke up a nice fire. I had plans to try some winter camping, first in my yard and later in wilder areas, but everything was puddles and mud.
So my winter sucked, and the usual spring canoe trip was first postponed, then cancelled. I've slept in a tent a total of 5 nights so far this year, without a lot of hope for more. But there is one thing I am looking forward to this summer: My wife's uncle has gifted us one of his canoes! It's not a nice, new Bell or Swift like the ones I'm accustomed to renting, but it floats and it will be my own. So at the least, I can get in a lot more practice before and after my Algonquin trips. It is a starting point to the small fleet I hope to someday acquire so that everyone in my family can paddle together.
I will be picking up the canoe at my wife's grandparents' house in Illinois. We plan on taking it down the Fox River, a repeat of a trip we did last summer. Then we will be bringing it home to Michigan. I already have a list of local rivers and lakes I want to paddle before the end of the month!
It was a terrible year for hunting. No deer hunting at all, and the rabbit hunting was the worst I have yet seen. The Winter in southeast Michigan was almost non-existent. Barely any snow, mostly mud and rain. The few times I got out were fruitless. Everybody was praising the mild winter, how easy it was to drive, and how little snow needed to be shoveled. But for someone who loves tracking rabbits in the snow, it was a depressing season. I couldn't even go out in my new back yard and stoke up a nice fire. I had plans to try some winter camping, first in my yard and later in wilder areas, but everything was puddles and mud.
So my winter sucked, and the usual spring canoe trip was first postponed, then cancelled. I've slept in a tent a total of 5 nights so far this year, without a lot of hope for more. But there is one thing I am looking forward to this summer: My wife's uncle has gifted us one of his canoes! It's not a nice, new Bell or Swift like the ones I'm accustomed to renting, but it floats and it will be my own. So at the least, I can get in a lot more practice before and after my Algonquin trips. It is a starting point to the small fleet I hope to someday acquire so that everyone in my family can paddle together.
I will be picking up the canoe at my wife's grandparents' house in Illinois. We plan on taking it down the Fox River, a repeat of a trip we did last summer. Then we will be bringing it home to Michigan. I already have a list of local rivers and lakes I want to paddle before the end of the month!
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