Last weekend, Dan and I rented a lodge at James River State Park with two other families (Danny, Sally and Alex, and Paul, Terry, Katie and Nick), our dog Pippen, and Danny and Sally’s dog Cody. The occasion was the Nelson Downriver Canoe and Kayak Race in Nelson County. After the race, we enjoyed a picnic by the river and then medals were awarded. Paul and Nick won second place in the Open Canoe/Father & Son class. Way to go, guys!

The lodge has a fully equipped kitchen, six bedrooms and three bathrooms. There is a back porch with rocking chairs, a picnic table and a large grill. We brought food and drinks, grilled dinner, and generally had a great time. I beat Sally and Terry at Scrabble, Danny beat everyone at poker, and we had a fabulous Sunday breakfast cooked by Paul.

When I have time, I’ll put up a regular photo album of the weekend, but here are some snaps for now:

So, last weekend, Dan, Danny B. and I decided to head up to James River Park in Richmond and get some kayaking in. Saturday was bright, warm and beautiful - we spent that day weeding and planting in the herb and veggie gardens. Sunday I was expecting more of the same weather, but nooooooo - it was cool and overcast. And on the drive up to Richmond, it started raining. Well, gee, that doesn’t sound like much fun - rainy, cloudy, cool and on the river, in 6-foot high water.

Dan and Danny went, but … I changed my mind, and went shopping instead Got some lovely pressed glass dessert dishes at Tuesday Morning, and wandered around an Asian grocery store. Didn’t see anything I had to have, but it was interesting to look around.

So here are Dan and Danny, checking out the river. Hmmm, do we really want to do this?

Yes! Yes, we do! Kim, are you sure you don’t want to go? Yes, I’m sure, you guys have fun. I’ll pick you up at the takeout.

And here they are actually going in. We got lucky - Danny had been in touch with a couple of people from Richmond’s wild and crazy paddling group, the Corn Youth Alliance, and they waited for us, so Dan and Danny had some people to paddle with.

Bye, guys! See you at Reedy Creek!

Next month, Dan and I are going on a trip to PA with some friends to be part of a kayaking race, and then Dan and I are going to do a rails-to-trails bike trip. Here’s a collection of links about the trip:

• Lehigh River Rafting - Pocono PA Lehigh Gorge Rafting
• Jim Thorpe, PA

This is my entry in this week’s Photo Friday challenge, The Good Life.

For the last few years, we’ve been going out on Friday night sailing races with Dan’s boss Laura and her husband Cap’n Steve and assorted other friends - usually Danny and Sally, Paul and Terri, sometimes others. It’s sponsored by the Portsmouth Boat Club, and it’s a blast After the race, we have appetizers and drinks on board and sometimes go to dinner at the Boat Club, or out somewhere.

We’ve had a few exciting moments out there. One night, I was steering and got a leee-tle too close to the Navy pier - the sentry there was not pleased. He actually had a rifle and shouted at us! Be careful out there

L-R: Nick, Danny, Dan, Josi, Katie, Paul and Kim.

Yesterday, Sept. 10, Dan and Josi and I, with several friends - Danny, Paul and his kids, Nick and Katie - went to kayak the James River again, from Pony Pasture to Reedy Creek. The river was high, the day was warm and sometimes sunny, and it was just glorious. We had a few newbies along (and you know who you are), but they did great and we had a lot of fun.

At one point, Katie ran into a rock and got stuck, and then Josi ran into Katie and tipped over. Then Paul had to get out of his boat (he was paddling the canoe with Nick) and Dan held it while Paul helped Josi empty the water out of her boat so she could continue on.

We had a few other minor mishaps like that, but nothing we couldn’t handle.

We got a late start, so we ended up getting home around 11 p.m. We had dinner at the fanciest Arby’s I’ve ever seen - fresh sandwiches and salads, fresh cookies and brownies - it was surprisingly good.

Another great day on the water. More pics are here.

Our new passion is kayaking, so now I have my own We bought it Saturday morning, and Saturday afternoon Josi and I went out for a paddle. It handles beautifully, in flat water anyway. Maybe in a couple of weeks we’ll head back up to Richmond and hit the whitewater.

Specs: It’s a 9-foot Dagger Zydeco and we bought it at Appomattox River Company in Yorktown. And the color is mango

Well, I’m not sure what possessed me to agree to do this, but yesterday I went whitewater kayaking for the first time, with Dan and our friend Dan Borick. This was the third - count ‘em, one, two, three - time I have ever been in a kayak. The other two times were in the past two weeks on the Western Branch of the Elizabeth River, at the end of our street, where the water was absolutely flat as a pancake. Are you impressed yet?

It was a blast The trip was sponsored by a group of Richmond kayakers called the Corn Youth Alliance (CYA). I have to thank them, especially a guy named Thomas, aka MonsterK, for keeping an eye on me as I hit almost every obstacle out there, except for the bridge. Don’t know how I managed to avoid that one.

I noticed as we were getting ready to put the boats in the water that the one I had, borrowed from Dan’s boss Laura, was much longer and skinnier than any of the others, and I wondered why. Well, it turns out that the shorter, wider kayaks are much more maneuverable on the river rapids. With my long slim profile and novice skills, I kept going sideways and running right into rocks and logs - right where I did not want to go. Once, I had to actually climb out of the boat, carefully walk up the hull to the bow, step onto a giant boulder in the middle of the river, pull the boat over the rock, get back in the boat, and launch it again. Dan and Danny were ahead of me and couldn’t get back to help me, and I couldn’t hear whatever they were shouting at me, so I had to figure this out on my own. I am so proud of myself That gymnastics training from long ago sure came in handy.

Not long after that, we hooked up with the CYA group. After I told Thomas this was my third time in a kayak, they seemed to always be around when I needed a hand. Hm, I wonder if that was a coincidence or their way of avoiding liability for someone drowning during their event?

Here’s a great, interactive map of the route. Scroll to the right and you’ll see Pony Pasture Rapids - that’s where we put the boats in. Keep on scrolling to the bottom right to follow the path we took, to the take-out at Reedy Creek. Keep on scrolling right to see the Class IV rapids called Hollywood, in downtown Richmond. This is what we would hit had we not made it into the take-out. There seemed to be several members of CYA making sure we got to the take-out

At one point, not noticing the upcoming three-foot drop over a dam, I landed on a wall and got stuck. Another of the trip guides came by to help me off it, I went down in the right place, and promptly landed on another rock. The sequence of events is blurry already, but I managed to get safely to the take-out. When I got out of the boat, I was surprised to feel like I had been sailing for a few days, unsteady legs and all. It took a little while to get my land legs back.

But now I think I’m hooked, so it’s time to start looking for a kayak for me. Dan’s is 10 feet long, so that might work. Here’s one I kinda like.

Check out the rest of the pix in my album.

Well, this blogging thing apparently takes a bit of conscious effort to become a habit It’s been an eventful couple of weeks, and I haven’t even gotten around to mentioning the Grand Canyon trip, much less posting photos…

But one thing at a time. We had a surprise visit a couple of weeks ago, from some former neighbors, Chip and Diane. They’re a young couple who weren’t really happy living in a big old house with a big yard to take care of, so they bought a sailboat and moved to Baltimore’s Inner Harbor. It was a lot of fun catching up with what they’ve been doing, and meeting their new daughter, Summer, who is about a year old:

I have to say, I was a bit skeptical about their plans to live on a 30-or-so-foot sailboat in Baltimore - neither of them had ever sailed before, so living on a sailboat seemed a bit of, let’s say, an unexpected choice However, they seem very happy and were on their way to Florida in the Intracoastal Waterway. This is Diane’s first time spending extended time traveling on the boat, although Chip had taken the boat up to Maine with a friend, and they spent the summer there.

It would be interesting if they happened to meet up with my mother and her husband Leo, who are also on their way south on the Intracoastal for the winter.

Here’s my entry for PhotoFriday’s challenge for this week: Burn

This was taken when we were sailing last Friday, 9/23, on the Elizabeth River between Portsmouth and Norfolk. It was a beautiful night, even though we apparently couldn’t figure out what the race course was supposed to be. Oh well, better luck tomorrow

Update 10/1: re: the race course last week, we were right and all the rest of the boats were wrong! So the race was scrubbed and not counted. Geez. That’s a lesson to go with your gut.

We crewed on our friends Laura and Steve’s boat, the Laura J, in a race called the Barnacle Regatta on the Elizabeth River on Aug. 12, and again last night. This photo is from the start of the race on Aug. 12:

Some related links:

• Portsmouth Boat Club
• Barnacle Regatta
• Race Results

We made sixth place last night out of 10 boats that finished the race; 18 started it - I don’t know what happened to the others. Maybe they got couldn’t figure out the course :-/