Life's Good!

Not much to say about the TRI but that it was so much fun. I loved loved loved doing that with my sisters! I hope it becomes a yearly event!

I came home and the next weekend I went kayaking but by Buena Vista for a CW sponsored event called 'ARK WEEKEND'. We paddle sections of the Arkansas River. It was fun. We took a 10 FT tow behind of a friends up to sleep in. It was the bomb as far as comfort...but a little too much work for two nights of camping. Here are pictures of the weekend. We camped at Browns Creek which has the creek flowing behind our campsite. We had lots to drink and decided to make a first descent down the creek.....and took pictures :) It was pretty funny at the time!

here's the video. If you can't hear the music make sure the volume on the youtube video is up :)

Ok...I just had one of the coolest days EVER!!!!!!

So my paddle that I lost in the knarly swim....it was a very expensive upgrade to my gear that I did late last season. I love this paddle, my friends love this paddle. I get a call on Wednesday from a rafting company, telling me my paddle floated up to them in an eddy and they saw my postings (on local boating forums) that it was missing. I danced around and screamed with excitement...my paddle wanted to come home, he he he he.

I call my housemate/friend Patty and Michele, neither of them seemed too terribly excited. Patty at the very least I thought would be jumping up and down with me. Weird.

I drive all the way to Ft. Collins on Thursday (the birthday) to pick it up from the very nice boaters that saved it, with a case of thank you beer in hand. Still elated, thinking what an excellent birthday present from the river gods :) I was gone most of the afternoon and rushing back to go to a presentation Patty said was important I attend. Why I don't really know, but I thought it was my only time to hang out with her that day so I went. I was told earlier in the week 'hey we're just going to celebrate the mass birthdays when we're all camping this weekend, hope that's ok'. And it was I was ok with that, just hoped for some company Thursday night so I wouldn't have to be alone.

So Patty and I get done watching the presentation and I say I have to go home. I need to logon to work make sure I didn't miss anything important while I went to Ft. Collins. Patty looks at me like I'm crazy... She says are you sure, can't we just go here or there, I said I really need to go home to logon. So she drops me off at my car and I see her frantically texting and making phone calls. Weird.

We get home, I walk in the backyard and there is a small group of my friends screaming Happy Birthday to me. I stood there in shock mostly not having a clue what to say.....someone had to break the awkward silence and came up and gave me a hug. I think if I would have spoken anything I would have started crying. It all made sense though, things were weird the previous few days but I had no idea :) There were decorations, a huge cake, grilling burgers and drinking some beers. It was great.

That trumphed getting my paddle back, it made my day...my year really. I've never had friends like that to do something so nice for me. I felt blessed.

And.....there's more...... This group of friends presented me with a gift. A gift card for a local kayak shop to upgrade more gear. They also gave me some smack about my lost paddle since I hadn't put my name on it yet, which is a sin in the boating world. I later found out that, Patty had organized this group of people and the orginal present was to replace my lost paddle. REPLACE the very expensive paddle. Everyone had jumped at the opportunity to contribute and help including the local kayak shop after hearing about my epic day on the river when I lost the paddle. Then the paddle was found and thew off the whole deal :) Plan B was the gift certificate which will cover lots of gear upgrades. I can't even express in words how cool that is. It was such a cool feeling to have so much love and support from these people. I couldn't have asked for a better day and housemates who were intrumental in making it all happen. I went to bed last night with a huge smile on my face, I'll remember this for years to come!!!!

My record with friends in the past has been sketchy at best, but these two women I live with and the people around me, are genuinely good friends. I couldn't be luckier right now :)

Just thought I'd share my cool day! Thanks for the birthday wishes and see you all son :)



Yes that is someone's butt....not sure whose but I had a couple of those on my camera that was being passed around. There was one on my phone that they passed around which was much worse!!!!!

I went the Cache La Poudre River (in the Poudre Canyon by Ft. Collins area) this Saturday for some whitewater boating fun! I knew I was doing runs that were a step up for me III+ and a few IV's. So, my friend Laurie and I met up and found a group of familiar people to run Lower Mishiwaka through Bridges (these are the names of the different parts of the river that kayakers boat).

I was excited...a little nervous...but really excited! I hadn't boated with any of these guys very much at all, and the first two sections of the run (5 miles or so of river)I had never done before....plus the water level was really high 4.4 on the rock report. So needless to say I was out of my comfort zone.

It started off great, big waves lots of busy water to keep me on my toes. I was twitchy and could tell that I was not as comfortable as I would have been given the reasons listed above. But, was having some fun. I made it through the class III+ section no problem, only rolled my kayak twice witout incident. I'm going into the class IV section specifically the rapid Cardiac Corner. It's huge waves, laterals, and an eddy at the top that you should probably catch. I'm headed into the eddy at the top and get all flustered because of how big the entrance was....so I flipped, rolled up and realized I missed the eddy. So now I'm in this rapid, never having run it before going down first.... all my leads were sitting in the eddy I missed. I get flipped again, roll up, then get flipped again, roll up, then get flipped again and my boat gets right up next to the huge wall that you're supposed to stay away from (had I been upright I could see it). I feel my boat scrape under the undercut rock (not a good thing) for a while and I'm starting to run out of air. I see light again in the waters above as I'm still underwater and know that I'm out from under the undercut rock. Whew :) I try to roll up but missed it and couldn't get any carping air either. I'm out of air and still have to pull my skirt and make it to the surface above me.... I get there finally, take a huge gasp of the lovely fresh air while simultaneously yard sale'ing my boat and paddle...my precious paddle :(

I swam my hardest to get to the eddy which keeps me from swimming any more of the river. I'm on the wrong side...the road and all the cars are on the right, I'm on the left where there's poision IVY and lots of hiking to get down river and see my safety. The attempt by my fellow boaters to help me accross to the right side of the river was painful. I was going to be pendulum'd across using throw ropes. Once I was pulled about 70% (sucking water and using every ounce of strength I had to fight the 1800CFS of water rushing through that section) of the way the rope I was hanging onto started to twist around my hand.....with the pressure of the current making it seem like it might break fingers if not my hand, if I kept hanging on. I let go...and swam as hard as I've ever swam in my entire life. Just below me on the river was pineview falls...a knarly class IV that eats boats for dinner....I didn't want to get any where near it. I managed to get to shore, the right side, and looked at my hand...it wasn't broken but lets just say I could club people with the size of my fingers right now and probably do some permanent damage to the person :) All fingers in tact , breathing air....life is good. My boat went down pineview falls without me as well as my paddle. A friendly boater down below found my boat and pulled it out for me thankfully, my paddle however was not so lucky....it's still missing :( sniff sniff...I loved that paddle. The boating community here is good about returning lost items found in this manner so I'm crossing my fingers and hoping river karma will prevail :)

Good day on the river though I did all that rolling through some pretty knarly stuff that was a step up for me, so I'm happy :) Might wait until the levels come down a bit to try it again though!!!

It was excellent swimming practice however. Does Wisconsin lakes have any rapids I could use to do the swim portion of the TRI? :) he he he he.

I've started biking in the morning (very slow on that) and then running at night when I get home. It's been blistering HOT here, so I've struggled. Still not where I'd like to be on the running piece but even after the Tri I'm going to keep at it. It's cheap and easy to find time to do since it's right outside my door. I've found a route at my new place that works well. I've included some pictures of the new house I'm living in. It's really cute, all hardwood floors, in an old neighborhood, established trees which is such a nice thing to be around again. The owner keeps an extraordinary garden (we kind of suck at keeping up with it, but we're learning). It's got a big back yard for the pooches and Woobie loves to sleep all day in the flowers on the side of the garden where no one can see him. We have lots of squirrels which the pups love to chase. I really like the place, it's homey and comfy...which is perfect for me :)















It's interesting to live with people again. I really like that people are around....before I could go days (I work from home alot) without talking to anyone. I think mentally, emotionally and socially that took a toll on me that I didn't realize. Also, I can go to any store I can think of and it takes less than 5 mins to get there...instead of the 10 miles in any directions just for groceries and gas, god forbid I wanted to go to target. The mountains are in my backyard....I think that's my favorite part! My housemates are women...which is challenging but I'm adjusting. I like the new situation, I think it was the best thing I could have done for my sanity.

Ok....see you all in a few weeks...I CAN'T WAIT TO SEE EVERYONE!

Last weekend was the offical kick off for the kayaking season. We have been getting on the water since April, but now the snow is melting, the rivers are flowing and we set out every chance we get to take advantage of it :)

Training Camp was up in Cotopaxi this last weekend. The group I'm a member of Colorado whitewater puts it on. There a bunch of different classes you can take from skills and drills to learning to read water. Last year I was in the mental toughness class this year I volunteered to sweep for where ever they needed someone. The organization and classes are put on by volunteers. Each class would have a lead and a sweep to make sure there's safety and if anything happens like a swim we're there to help.

So the weekend started on Friday, i drove up to Buena Vista with Patty and Alex. Paddlefest happens at the same time as out training camp. Paddle fest is a big event where all the pro kayakers and their teams come out to teach and compete. We took a intro to playboating class with Emily Jackson. Emily is qualifing with her Dad Eric Jackson for the Olympics... she's obviously an excellent kayaker so it was a privleage to take a class from her. Class was great, had a good time, when it was done we headed to the Training camp camp site to get settled in. We rented a cabin for numerous reasons (one being we have the rest of the summer to sleep on the group mine as well make the kick off weekend comfortable). The whole weekend was excellent, great boating, great friends, good times!

This weekend we're heading up to the Cache La Poudre......which is called the Poudre. It's a river up by Ft. Collins and is a lot of fun. We're camping up the in the canyon, leaving today around 5PM. Should be a good time!

Here are a few pictures of the weekend and a little video of my friend Daniel surfing at the Salida play park. Thought you all might find it interesting to see what a really good play boater looks like!






Here are the pictures from Buena Vista on Friday before our playboating session. It's a beautiful view!







Our transportation.....with all our kayaks plus a few 'big boats' for training camp! The car was jam packed with 3 people, 1 beagle, kayak gear, camping gear....I means PACKED!





This is Daniel....doing a loop in his kayak.... some day hopefully very soon I will my very own loop :)

Well....thought it was time to put up a post. Nothing much has been happening really, just working, kayaking, and lounging :) Last weekend a group of us went up to run Deckers. It was at really high water and it was a kick in the pants! 900CFS is REALLY high for this run and it made for some great rapids higher up from the normal put in. We had Daniel with us which he always is willing to teach so he had me surf everything possible all the way down the run. My arms were jello by the end and I loved it!

I'm just learning how to surf in the last few weeks. Golden, Co has a WW play park which is a great place to practice. It's easy to get to (in town) and it runs along side a walking path through the park so you can get out where ever you want. I've been hitting the park every tuesday and thrusday with a group of normally women (sometimes the boys come too) and we surf, get flipped and roll up about a million times. It's great for gaining confidence with a roll and stability in your boat. So here's a video of one of our surf sessions with the ladies. I'm going tonight with the head cam (if the weather holds) so hopefully I'll have some video from a different perspective soon. Enjoy! P.S. I'm in the orange boat and red helmet (with black strip around brim for the head cam).

I loaded a video....just a teaser. The Wildes trip was a sucess, now I just have to get all the pics and video together to share. I tried to take picture.....but the Wildes clan NEVER STOPS MOVING! So I took a lot of video instead and I'm just learning about video editing so it takes me a while. Anyway, here's a video and a picture..... More to come on that later
What a happy baby, so cute!



Running.... i still suck at running! I keep trying though. Since it's been so nice out I started running outside finally. It's a huge difference then on the treadmil....HUGE difference for me! But I've gradually adding more miles of jogging/walking and trying to reduce the walking. This week I added the bike. I'm just tooling around now after I run, but slowly adding miles to the routine.
I've been kayaking a few times already....and it's COLD. We did Shoshone/Grizzly the other weekend. Shoshone is short and fun class III then grizzly is flat and slow class II. It snowed half way down Grizzly. My hands couldn't grip the paddle anymore halfway through the day all of our hands were so cold. but we made it and of course once we hit the take out the sun came out. Did a few other runs since then....can't wait for the sun to warm things up a bit more though.

Snowboarding is over too :( snif sniff... I put my board away (but could use up until May almost June at ABasin). It's going to be a great summer.

More later........

Ok....finally I have it done. I started this thing so many different ways and decided the fastest way and easiest to display this much was to make a video. Hope you enjoy, it's about 10 mins long. To be honest I'm a little P'O'd at the internet! It never displays the pictures with the original clarity once they are converted with the blogger movie display. If I posted them individually you could see they are all crisp and nice pictures but the stupid internet fuzzes them out. Oh well, you'll get the picture ;)

Mom/Dad - I'm sending you a CD of these songs among others you asked for so you can import them to the Ipod! Pura Vida~ Tracy