Ice Out

Finally.

This has been quite the winter here in Wisconsin and for much of the northern US. Kind of a winter from the old days when the drifts were six feet deep and the cold was of the below zero sort. All the global warming outcry and the accompanying mild winters lulled us into a sense of warm security. I know I was certainly wondering what was going on when I was mowing the lawn in November the last few years. So this winter, whether it was a fluke or not, was different from the last few winters and was certainly long enough to create cabin fever. Which has made us all anxious for spring. In those afore-mentioned "olden days", the ice going out was a big event. I've never been around water as the ice was melting, "going out" to use that old term. Today though, I saw a little bit of it in action. Ice going out, to me, looks more like ice rotting and literally dissolving in place more than anything else. With a little wind today, I sat on the shore and watched big chunks of it break off, get blown around and melt, almost in front of my eyes. Neat stuff.

John Abrahams and Superior Surf Systems in Duluth

John Abrahams was the best man in our wedding. We've kept in touch over the years, although that could always be improved upon. He has been in Duluth, MN for the last eon or so, which also happens to be the town where I spent the bulk of my childhood years. It's a great place if you bring your own job with you. Or start something, which is what John has done. I got a call from him last night. He's coming down to Canoecopia for the first time ever and staying with us. Should be big fun. He's a great guy. And he is also the founder of Superior Surf Systems. I knew he had been thinking of starting a kayak shop and I had searched for him and all sorts of kayak keywords near Duluth. Turns out he does surf skis. These are unusually long sit-on-top kayaks.
So I was googling for the wrong thing this whole time. Anyway, it turns out that surf skis got their start in South Africa and have been around awhile but are keeping a VERY low profile. John is determined to change that a bit and bring surf skiing to the Midwest and Lake Superior.

a very interesting geography website

An interesting website I stumbled across today - Geosense

After too many hours shoveling snow, I came in and sat down for a bit. Yesterday's blizzard was amazing! A real old fashioned blizzard! Anyway, Stumbleupon is a neat little utility I use once in awhile. You press the button and it serves up a random site for your time wasting pleasure. Kind of like channel surfing.

Today Stumbleupon served up Geosense to me. I tried it and was quickly hooked. It's nothing more than a simple game where you try to pinpoint the given location before your competitor does. You can play against the clock as well. Try it. I thought I knew my geography...this site is showing me otherwise!

The snow we have on the ground in the Madison, WI. should certainly make for a great water year!

some work in a different time zone

I went out to the Outdoor Retailer show last week. Quite the experience. In prior lives I had been to a few expo-type things and some conventions. But nothing as big as this show. Every day of walking the show floor led to sore tired feet. It's been a while since that has happened. I even brought what I thought were the right shoes for walking on concrete floors. Funny how the odd and unexpected things end up making the strongest impact.

The show itself was remarkable. If you are an outdoorsy person this place would have been pretty close to heaven. Just about every possible gear maker and vendor was there. This was the winter show so things skewed towards winter sports and not so much towards summer. I was hoping for more of the paddling stuff, but...I guess that's for the next show this coming August - the Summer Outdoor Retailer - supposed to be even bigger than the Winter Outdoor Retailer.

What did I find? All sorts of things - beyond the people I was lucky enough to meet - here's one of the things I liked that I found at the show - toe socks - from Injinji. They are a mix of non-scratchy wool and several other fabrics.

I like how they feel. This might be an acquired taste for some though. For others, especially if you like flipflops with the anchor thing between your toes, you'll love these socks.

Two more things that caught my eye, amongst the plethora (word for the day) of displays that were filled with other neat things.

1 - LipZip lip balm. I think this stuff is for skiers, but their innovations solve two problems for me which is why I like it. They added a small hinge to the cap, so now you can't lose the cap, it is attached to the barrel. They also added a retractable string and a clasp to the bottom of the barrel. So now you can hook it on a belt loop or a D-ring, instead of losing it or forgetting to take it out of your pocket and then running it through the washer.

2 - Smartshield sunscreen and bug repellant - Like LipZip's market, the sunscreen bug juice market is an old giant already full of products. But again I thought this was a product that had a couple of nice innovations and therefore is significantly different from what is already out there. First, their product is applied with a towelette. Personally, I have ALWAYS DISLIKED sprays and lotions, both sunscreen and bug juice, so I have tended not to use them. I do however like towelettes, especially the towelettes you get from KLM on some of their flights. And now from Smartshield too.
The second thing I like about this sunscreen/bug juice is that it is based on aloe vera. This means that it will absorb into skin and not sit on top of skin like petrol-based products. If you enjoy the blessings of a head without hair, like I do, this is big because this is a sunscreen I can put on top of my head that won't runoff when I sweat and trickle into my eyes and sting like crazy. Once summer rolls around I'll post again with some results.

pleasant places off the beaten path

A recent comment on a blog entry brings up the notion of just how many neat places there are that are off the beaten path. This kind of fits the theme of our "pleasant places" newsletter column. It also fits my own style, now that the comment from Thomas in Oklahoma has made me think about it.

So in the interest of being a trend follower and putting up a Top Ten list on a website and because I really like these places and they are all a GOOD LONG WAYS off of the beaten path, here is my Top Ten List of "Pleasant Places Off the Beaten Path". Most of them are water-centric too. Sorry about the run-on sentence back there....
Top Ten Places Off the Beaten Path

10. The Jersey Lily, Ingomar, MT. - This one barely made the list, it's one of my Dad's favorites. Hwy.12 wide spot, pot belly wood stove in the middle of the store.

9. Roslyn, WA. - About a half-hour off of I-90 on the dry east side of Snoqualmie Pass. aka Cicely, Alaska. A mid-90's television show I liked, Northern Exposure, was filmed here. Full of Ponderosa pines. Great spot. Getting close to north Cascades.

8. Duluth, MN. - My hometown, right at the tip of Lake Superior. In college, the lakeshore was a dump, full of college bars. Not that way anymore.

7. (tie) National Bison Range, Moiese, MT. - A neat spot to view some wildlife. Near Ravalli. About 30 minutes northwest of Missoula.

7. Leavenworth, WA. - Touristy, but I love the part of the Cascades especially Tumwater Canyon that this town is nestled in. Wenatchee River is right in town too.

6. (tie) "up North", northern Wisconsin - I usually stop in central WI, but this part of the state is great too.

6. Winthrop, WA. - In the heart of the north Cascades. Remote, quiet, deer grazing in the village baseball field kind of place. Fabulous spot. Takes some effort to get to though.

5. Ely, Mn. - Major put-in for BWCA canoeing trips. Very remote. Watch out for moose on the roads. Almost met my maker here after narrowly missing a monsterishly large moose while driving my Ford Fiesta through a -40 degree night on the way to this town.

4. Missoula, MT. - Graduated from college here. Fabulous spot. Remote. Bitterroot River and valley is very nice.

3. Lake Wazeecha, Wisconsin Rapids, WI. - hard to beat a sweet spot like this, only a couple hours away from home

2. Stanley, ID. - For me the most remote spot on the list. Special. I think Idaho is the best kept secret in the country because of places like this.

1. Salmon, ID. - My favorite spot - Spent a ton of time in this little unknown hard to get to mountain town. Great spot. Great memories. Go there.

Some of these places are somewhat struggling because they are TOO far off the beaten path. Wisconsin Rapids (near Lake Wazeecha), for example, is about a half-hour off of I-39. Everyone from Chicago blasts by the exit (Hwy. 73) for this area, on their way "'up North" to Minocqua and Eagle River. I think this area of "inner WI." has EVERYTHING going for it that Minocqua et al has. Except for the fact that no one takes the exit to discover it.....

I hope people that read this will post some comments on their favorite remote spots!

Canoecopia booth

Quietwater Films will have a booth this year at Canoecopia. Canoecopia is the largest paddlesports expo/convention/tradeshow in the country. It happens in Madison, WI. this year from March 7-9 at the Alliant Energy center. I walked the aisles last year along with my wife and kids. Big fun just being part of the energy that comes along with a crowd of tens of thousands of happy people looking around at outdoor gear.

This year will hopefully be even more fun as an exhibitor. Last year we had nothing to sell or even to show really. This year we'll have three products - a solo canoe DVD, a rec kayak DVD, and a tandem canoe DVD.

One of the things that makes Canoecopia interesting is the great bunch of speakers who give talks on a wide range of paddlesports-related topics. The talks are free with your admission. The hardest part is finding a space to sit in some of the speaking rooms. Many of the talks are jam packed. The swimming pool of the adjacent hotel also gets used as a demo area, so there are demonstrations given live on the water too!

As a spectator last year, I really enjoyed it. The whole Exhibition center is filled up with boats and equipment and people. It's a fun time. Vendors come from across the country. People attend from all over the US and Canada as well.

paddlesports coverage in Time Magazine

I was flipping through the October 25 issue of Time magazine and happened across a great article on paddlesports. Today I remembered that paddlesports article and went to the Time site and pulled it up there as well. Nice read overall. Wish it said canoe numbers were up as well as the kayak numbers, but it does point out the surge in interest in solo sports like paddling. Very nice to see paddlesports get some mention in a national magazine.