More to Come...

OK, here's the first of the pics from yesterday. Click on the filmstrips to enlarge them - there's one of each of us. It was truly one of the best paddling days I've had. The weather was beautiful and the water was up. We ran the Knife and baby section of the Lester and had a thoroughly great time. It was Caleb, Dennis, Bill, Graeme, and I on the Knife, then we met up with Nora when we went over to the lester. The Knife was amazing, with a little bit of everything - a bit of technical water, a ton of waves, and some great holes to surf. The pics are from Fish Falls, which is the largest drop on the river. Bill, Caleb, and Graeme all made clean runs with huge endings as they rocketed up out of the water. Dennis had a good line, but got sucked back in and beaten pretty thoroughly (see filmstrip #4). To his credit he took it like a man, rolling up twice in the curtain before swimming. Props to Graeme for jumping in his boat to chase Dennis's down a difficult rapid. Also props to Caleb for coming up with the Carabiner-on-a-stick contraption that we used to free Dennis's boat from the rock it was stuck on. After that, we went back to the falls and Bill let me borrow his Burn to run the drop (big thanks). I made it pretty clean, but definitely needed a good stroke or two at the bottom to avoid getting sucked back in. After that, it was cruising through the waves and surfing some holes. Great river. We also did a class II-III section of the Lester as a cool down, which was a bit of splashy fun. I've got loads of great pictures from both rivers, so be patient and I'll get them posted as soon as I can. Check back for updates.

PASSED!

I found out yesterday that I passed the Bar Exam! Woo-Hoo! The good news is that I won't have to go through that again, the bad news is that I now have to charge $3 per minute any time someone calls me and $2 per minute to answer e-mails. OK, maybe not. Hopefully it will lead to some gainful employment, however, which would be very handy. Huge congratulations to Nate G, who also passed. Way to go man! Hopefully the other Mitchell kids did well also.

Clean up!

That's right, this past Sunday was the annual Vermillion River Cleanup. Nora did a great job organizing it and it really went well. Not sure how many people showed up, but I've got to think it was at least 20. What was really nice was that a bunch of the people were High School students from Hastings. Not only did they really pull their own weight and then some, but it's nice to get some local people involved in cleaning up the river. Maybe it will have a bit of a trickle-down to all of the bike-throwing punks that make the cleanup necessary every year.

Like last year, Nora organized the event and managed to snag some sweet swag from a whole bunch of sponsors. I'm pretty sure that everybody that volunteered got something, which is pretty cool. I spent my day in the water with Ivan, Dennis, and three high school seniors dragging bikes, scooters, railroad tracks, a steel staircase, and more over to shore where the dry volunteers carried, roped, and dragged it up the cliffs. Everybody worked hard and I was amazed at how much big heavy stuff they got up to the trash pile. It was a good time, there were good people, and the river is that much cleaner and safer.

Check Nora's blog for the pictures and some more info.

Wac'd

These are some pics from Waconia yesterday. Notice the shot of Tighe on the jetski with a student holding the kite (upside down) on the back. It's a great system that allows you to move back upwind pretty easily. In addition to the pics, I got to meet a bunch of local kiters and got some good beta on everything from launch techniques to kite models. David was kind enough to spend about an hour with me giving me some tips and helping me learn to water launch my kite (I was using one of Tighe's kites last time). The problem was that my ATL reverse-launch somehow got strung incorrectly, so my kite would only turn right once it was up. It took a long time to find the problem, but we eventually got it sorted. Then, Tighe was good enough to drive me out to the middle of the lake on the jetski so that I could practice without worrying about being dragged onto shore or into a dock. Unfortunately, I totally wasted Tighe's time because I failed to notice that one of my kite's wingtips was dragging in water the whole way out. The lines coming off that tip created a tangle like you wouldn't believe. To make matters worse, when I was untangling that knot I dropped my control bar into the lake. I dove in after that while Tighe worked on the original knot. By this time, however, there were more tangles in the lines that I had to try to undo from the bar. All the while, I was keeping Tighe from getting back to the lesson that he was supposed to be teaching. Finally, I just called it, got back on the jetski, and caught a ride to shore so that at least my line issues didn't have to take up any more of Tighe's time. The lines got even more messed up riding back, and it took me about 40 minutes to finally get them straightened out. At that point I just packed it in, took a few pics, and headed out.
Despite all of the line issues, the real problem wasn't with the gear, it was with me. I hate to admit it, but all of these issues were a direct result of the fact that I'm just not comfortable kiting yet. To be painfully honest, I'm scared of my kite. There's no logical reason for it, and I can't even say what I'm scared about, but there was a level of apprehension that was causing me to do everything only 1/2 heartedly. That's how all of the mistakes happened. I've had similar spells kayaking, and I've found that normally what I need to do is just go out and throw myself into what I'm worried about, get thrashed, and roll up. After that, my confidence shoots back up and I can get back to thinking about the things I need to. So, I've decided that my next kiting day will be different. I'm going to head up to Mille Lacs and just work all of the fear and uncertainty out of me. I might not even bring the board - just go out and put the kite and myself through every imaginable scenario until that one part of my brain is finally satisfied and I can actually start devoting my thoughts to what I need to do to kite well instead of what I'm afraid might happen if I don't.

Kite Lesson!

Well, the impossible has occurred. Today I actually became waterlogged beyond comfort. As someone who is most comfortable when up to my eyeballs in splashing water, I never thought I'd see the day. After kiting twice in a row without noseplugs, however, I think I've finally found my limit. I had water up my nose, in my ears, down my throat, and just about everywhere else. Despite that, it was an awesome day. I took a 1.5 hour kiteboard lesson with Tighe from Lakawa. It was great, Tighe was really helpful, and I wound up scooting around Lake Waconia on my board. Using a jetski and an in-helmet communication system, we headed out to the middle of the lake to work on water launching, drift launching, body dragging. and actually boarding. It was great. I was really suprised by the body dragging - I had assumed it was a fairly leisurely activity in which I would sort of be gently towed along the lake by a kite that was depowered and in the neutral zone. That was definitely not what Tighe had me doing. I was skimming across the waves at about 15 mph, signing the kite for more power, and all the while trying to keep my swimsuit from falling off. It was really fun. Then we got the board out and started to work on that. There's a lot more to water kiting than snow and I had some trouble keeping both the kite and board doing what they were supposed to. Twice I completely nosedived the kite while cruising along because I was trying to get the board to edge and couldn't concentrate on both things at once. I'm looking forward to the day when it just becomes automatic. Speaking of automatic, I'm totally in love with the Slingshot T2. Whenever you let go of the bar, it automatically flys to the edge of the window and just hangs out there. WAY better than the TD's that would overfly the window and crash. Also, this kite doesn't seem to invert like the TD's do. The coolest thing, though, was that once the kite was on the water it would automatically turn on its side and scoot out to the edge of the wind window. Then it would just sit there waiting to be launched. I could crash and let go of the bar, the kite would move itself into launch position, then I could put on my board before even launching it. Pretty cool. Plus, they finally moved the safety loop down below the bar so your leash doesn't get twisted around it. Tighe also took some pics, which was really cool of him. With my life jacket riding up over the harness and the incredibly functional (but not so fashionable) com helmet I know I've never looked cooler, but at least its proof that I wasn't just floundering in the water all day.

Kiting!

Kim and I headed down to lake Pepin today to meet up with Nora for some kiting. We tried Maiden Rock this time, which was better for a South Breeze than the beach we were at last time. The wind was better than last time, but still not consistently strong enough to pull us on the boards (I was busy or out town for the good wind days, so we had to deal with borderline winds today). Also, I'm wishing that my kite had more struts on it. When it would sit on its trailing edge in the water the struts wouldn't be able to support the kite, fold, and the kite would load up with water. That made it tough to re-launch. Nora's bow kite, which is smaller but actually has more struts, held its shape and re-launched pretty easily. We did have both kites in the air quite a bit, and each managed to get up on our boards. I actually had about a 3 minute session of up-down-up-down continuously as I would get up on the board, wipe out but not come off the board, then get right back up again. It's a little more tricky than using the board behind a boat. We wound up spending three hours in the water while Kim was getting scorched on the beach. It was a fun day, but I think next time I'm going to try heading up to Mille Lacs for some consistent winds. Thanks to Nora for bringing the camera - I shamelessly copied these pics from her blog. She has even more posted there, though, so check it out!

South Dakota

Kim and I took a 4-day trip out to South Dakota this week. We spent two nights camping in the black hills, but caught hotel rooms on the driving days. It was really nice to get out camping. We managed to do just about everything there is to do in the area including: Rushmore, Crazy Horse, Hot Springs, The Badlands, Wall Drug, Deadwood, Custer State Park, Sylvan Lake, the Needles, and more. We were busy, but everything was beautiful and the crowds were gone (apparantly we're already past the tourist season there). We really had a good time, and we've got tons of pictures. Highly recommend the trip to anyone. Also, I realized that the ranches of the Western half of the state would be about the best snow kite fields you could find. My mind is already trying to work out a trip this winter... Stay tuned.

Verm Again

Dennis, Paul B, and I headed down to catch what was left of the Verm flow. The water level was only in the 70-80 cfs range (about 1/2 of Monday's level), but was still fun. Triple was in and fun, Railroad had the spin-o-matic groove on surfer's right, and Donut was a real lively and fun time that was perfect for hand surfing. Couple noteworthy events: First, Dennis and I completed the first (to out knowledge) tandem spin in Donut - we were party surfing the wave, linked boats, and got spun around like that; Second, I had a beaver dive out of the grass after fisherman's and swim directly under my boat. On a less cool note, there is now a man's wedding band somewhere in the rocks immediately upstream from the takeout and on the river right side. Nate had taken a friend down the river shortly before Dennis, Paul, and I arrived. Apparently his friend did well, but flipped right before the takeout and lost his ring while fighting to get upright again. If you see a shiny band in the water, grab it and let Nate G know!

Hooray for Rain!

Aaah, the upside to a wet and dreary weekend... In addition to relieving all of the drought-related problems, the recent rains finally brought the Verm back to life! It was a great time down there today, with the level just over 200 cfs and around 20 local paddlers making it down for a run. The level was perfect for playboating and it was really great to get to see everybody again. I paddled until my arms gave out, then grabbed the camera for about 10 minutes at Donut Hole. Really great time. Check Nora's blog for more pics.

Kite & Kayak

I finally got to take out some of my favorite toys this weekend. On Friday I drove down to Lake Pepin to take out my big kite and see what water kiting is like. Nora was kind enough to show me a perfect kiting spot, as well as to stand in waste deep water (and a mushy clay bottom) for an hour helping me try to get the kite airborne. As usual, the wind was perfect when we were setting up the kite, but then shifted and died once we were ready to go. We did get the kite up a few times and got some practice with body drags, but it was never steady enough to actually get on the board. Next time. Huge thanks to Nora for showing me the spot, helping with the kite, and taking the pictures.

Saturday Graeme and I drove out to Jim Falls for some kayaking. The city of Jim Falls, WI has several recreational water releases for whitewater paddlers each year. The water was mostly class II with one tougher drop, but no play. It was great to get on the water though, and it's always fun kayaking with Graeme.

Sunday was my first time this year out at Wausau, and it was worth the wait. The whitewater course was redone this year to make it both more playable and more friendly. Hats off to the designers because every feature on the river is now a fun spot. Not only are the features better, but because there's more of them the crowds are more spread out. It's great! Despite a very rusty morning, I had a great time in the afternoon hitting a few cartwheels and a loop. Bill, Bob, and Brian J all drove out for the afternoon and it was great to see them again. The only problem is that it seems like those guys have been improving all summer and I've been regressing. Still, it was fun watching Bill hit his loop and Brian trying loops and wheels. Those guys are really ripping it up this year. Definitely good times.

Finally!

Done with the Bar Exam! No idea if I passed or not, but at least I don't have to worry about it for a while. In the meantime, a few friends helped me enjoy my first free weekend after the test up at the cabin. Also, happy birthday to Meaghan! Thanks to everybody for helping out with the chores this weekend (especially Kim), and thanks to the Flis girls for the ride home. Also, thanks to Kressen for doing a great job getting pics of people behind the boat - great job! Hope everybody had fun - I know I did. The pics are myself walking on water, Beecher and Nicole on the kneeboard and Nick on the tube. Thanks everybody for coming out and making it such a fun time.