Worth every minute, even the rough stuff

Started off Friday full of beans, rarin’ ta go!!! Ran smack dab into a tinpot dictators idea of healthcare and blew a 30amp fuse. That’s a previous post though.

Fuggit!

Onward, always onward.

Spent the remainder of Friday getting wet, flopping around like an out-of-water bluegill (inside joke now, LOL) and meeting new friends and learning a great deal. Many thanks to Bruce and Marty for the time, advice, help and encouragement. Many thanks to the wives for allowing the boys out of sight (kinda, we were near the canpsite) to do their part.

Did I roll?

Nope, not just yet.

Have a lot of work to do on the hipsnap thing yet. Want to get this down to muscle memory and visceral reflex. As told to me, as read by me in several texts; the hip snap is crucial to the event. And seeing how effective a good one is, both vicariously and by ‘doing’ a few good ones,,, oh yeah, its important! (Feeling that boat roll back up underneath you from full capsize and barely rock the boat you are using for side support, its an amazing feeling. Just a sphincter-o-meter measurement, I’d estimate the snap makes up around 95% of the rollup, the paddle and upper torso split the difference of the remaining 5%.)

Another exercise I need is one I have done, but not quite in the manner suggested: Wet exits.

Bruces advice is to occasionally capsize and “hangout” for a few seconds before popping the skirt and shedding the boat. Everytime I’ve done a wet exit, it was flip!grab!push-pull and get out and up! No “wait a sec and share gossip with a fish”. Yeah, part of that was induced by fear and panic: I’m improving there. Granted, knowing I have not one but two big guys there ready to yank my gangly carcass to the surface is a huge benefit to that,,,, Still, having dipped in a few times, feeling whats right and whats wrong, helps oddles as well.

Saturday: easy float day. Cumberland river below Wolfcreek Dam. Water on arrival, WAY DOWN! Wait around for the rest to show and find out,”yeah, they’re gonna start generatin’ at eleven”

‘Oh, and that means?’ Knowing in my hindbrain “millions of gallons of water!!!!” And Bruce had warned me it would be cold. 45° if not cooler. All from the bottom of that lake on the other side of said dam. Right on ALL counts.

They started generating at 11, we hit water by 11:30ish, and by noon, that water level was up 3 feet and rising as they spooled up the remaining turbines.

It actually wasn’t bad. It is an eerie feeling to be taking a break on a shoal and watching that water creeping towards you like a rising tide. And all day long the current kept increasing. Most a body had to do was steering strokes. I did make a mad dash back upstream at one point and it took quite a bit to overcome that current and head up. I was probably creeping upstream at 1 maybe 2mph. And I was hammered down, even saw the blade on my paddle flexing.

Met new friends there too. I’ve always been horrible with names, though I will remember faces for decades. Lysandra, Cindy, Anita, JR, and others whose names have slipped off my register. Lysandras littles amazed the hell out of me. Spent around a half hour talking about matter, electromagnetics, radio and a myriad of other items with her youngest.

9 years old!!!!!

Homeschooled.

And he handles a kayak like a danged pro; was probably toodling in one while suckin’ a pacifier,,, He would spin that boat of his around like a duckling chasing a waterspider. When he “graduates” to whitewater (mama approved no doubt) he might dominate the sport.

Today, ho-hum. Duties day. Laundry, grass, trimming weeds in areas still to rocky for mowers (I swear to you, they GROW more, every year!!) Spent some of it talking to new friends, and of course, grumpyKat had her say a few times. I thought she had another batch coming due but lost them, and that may be why she’s grumpy. I’m not sure she can carry to term after the first brood. And with Grizz no longer with us, she wants another brood. Guess I’d be grumpy too.

Time will tell, though I feel certain Sid messed her up inside being born last July. Sid was the one I had to help with and was shredded for. For her sake, the fact that she likes being a mamakat, and my sake, I’d like another fuzzybuddy like Grizz, well,,,