Pro-Soup Propaganda: kayaking

Showing posts with label kayaking. Show all posts

Monday, December 30, 2013

Pro-Soup Propaganda's 2013 Year in Review

Oh, 2013, what a funny, weird, great, horrible year you were.

I did some pretty awesome stuff this year.

*I did a fair amount of hiking! I did some nice walks at Mt. Tabor, other hikes around Portland, went to some parks, hiked up Multnomah Falls, and hiked (and camped!) in Central Oregon's high desert, to name a few.

*I met Lil Bub, Internet Cat Sensation!

*Jonathan and I finally kayaked and it was awesome!

*I got laid-off from my "main" job and all of my side-hustles soon became my job! Luckily I am making a bunch of money and am able to put a ton of it into savings.

*I saw Michael Pollan speak for the second time.

*Jonathan and I went whale-watching at the coast and it was awesome!

*I had a great, well-earned sandwich at the top of Mt Waynapicchu.

*I went to Ketchikan to work a lot and saw some bears, went to Easter Island and saw a lot of moai, saw the Nazca Lines, hiked the Sun Gate Trail, was forgotten by the train in middle-of-nowhere Peru and hiked back to Machu Picchu Pueblo in the dark (still one of my top favorite travel memories!), explored Machu-freaking-Picchu!, and explored Cusco.

*We adopted the weirdest member of our family, hands down. Welcome, FunCat, we are glad to have you, even though you may be a small evil orange wizard, but we are glad you live in the Fortress of Joy with us!

*I made a packing list of my carry-on bag for my three weeks in South America. Maybe it will inspire or help you?

*Amy and I had some amazing conversations.

*Jonathan and I only snowshoed once this year. We tried to go again last week, but Mt. Hood doesn't have enough snow on it. Boo!

*I thought I helped co-create #slothing but apparently it's been the rage on the internet already.

*I fulfilled some Gob Bluth wannabe-ness and rode a Segway!

*I cooked some of my favorite recipes that I still love to make: Chicken Vegetable Soup, Thai Coconut Soup, Basil Garbanzo Beans and Quinoa, Curry-Fried Quinoa, and the best Chicken and Veggie Noodle Soup ever!

*I visited a U-Pick farm with Amy and look forward to returning!

While there were more many happy memories this year than not, this was a really painful year in parts. I had some personal life issues that took several months to deal with. I'm still dealing with them, really. I'm doing my best to focus on the now and look forward to healing and feeling better, but sometimes it sucks. I feel kind of lost and floundery sometimes (like I'm floundering, not like this guy, cute as he is). I know things will get better and I'm doing the best I can, but I am really excited to go to Antarctica and focus on me for a bit. I have been working my butt off the past two months and am looking forward to reaping the benefits.

This was my list of 2013 Resolutions. While I actually did pretty good on that stuff (yay reading lots of books and saving money!), there is stuff that didn't really happen (going to the Japanese Garden and yoga).

This new year is going to be called "Year of the Radical." (2013 was "Year of the Waffle." It was a delicious year.) There are going to be some radical changes. Things are going to be shaken up. Amy is going to be moving in with us quite soon, which will help both her and us with our respective money situations. I will be going on my big adventures. Jonathan and I will both be getting mountain bikes. We want to go on more bigger adventures together. I no longer need to totally kill myself with trying to earn money to pay for my trips. I will still be hustling but I would like to think that now I don't have to drive myself crazy with Making All The Money, but, who am I kidding myself, it IS nice to have it. ;o)

Brendan Leonard's post "Do Things And Make Things Next Year" really resonated with me. His goals for next year? "Do Things" and "Make Things." After being SO busy this year and having it jam-packed with everything, I am looking forward to a little bit of downtime. I want time to do stuff and time to make stuff. What will those things be? I don't know, but I look forward to finding out.

Monday, July 22, 2013

Kayaking at Sauvie Island with Next Adventure

Jonathan and I kayaking together - yippee!

On Saturday Jonathan and I got to do something that I have been wanting to do since I moved to Portland and that's go kayaking! When we first got together, he wasn't really into it, but he has since changed his mind and wanted to go with me. When I was living in Ketchikan for those seven months in 2011 I tried to go kayaking many, many times and it never worked out (as mentioned in this post and this post). I did a kayak safety class in June that year, but that's the only kayaking I got to do! So this year I was bound to kayak and, thanks to Jonathan who for Christmas got me Merc Perk rewards (like Groupon but for local stuff) for Next Adventure, we finally got to go!

We met up with our group at Next Adventure at 9am. Our guides Wrenna and Troy were super great. They were really helpful and upbeat and I could tell it was going to be a good trip. I think there were seven or eight other people in our group, not counting Jonathan and I, but they managed to keep everyone all together!

The weather started out cool and then got progressively sunnier as we continued throughout the day, eventually getting to be pretty hot. I didn't sunblock my legs as well as I should have and got pretty burnt, so note to self: SUNBLOCK. DO IT. Up top I was wearing my Patagonia Capilene 1 Silkweight shirt, which I'm super thankful for. It kept the sun off my arms and kept me cool. Love it!

I had my camera in my new Dicapac WP-ONE waterproof camera case for the first time and, while it was a little awkward, it worked and didn't cost as much as the Canon waterproof case for my camera. I just wanted something to not get water on the camera, not necessarily something that I could scuba with, so I think it worked just fine. The only drawback is that some of the shots have the black ring around the top or bottom from the lens, so maybe if I play with it a bit I can get it to where it's centered better.

I believe we started going down the Gilbert River and ending up in Sturgeon Lake, paddling through McNary Lake and finishing at Little McNary. All in all, the trip took about six or seven hours and we paddled over ten miles. Jonathan did great and was totally into it, telling me that he can't wait to go again. SUCCESS! I had a great day, as well, and I want to get back onto the water soon!

Here's a link to the trip we did. I can't recommend it enough!

Adventure-mobile!

Fitting people to their kayaks

Lookin' good!

Resting the feets

Happy girl!

What did you get up to this weekend?

Disclaimer: there are some affiliate links in this post. Your clicking through them and purchasing something provides me with a small commission that goes toward my Antarctica fund. Thanks!

Monday, May 30, 2011

Kayak Safety Class and Getting Ready to Camp!

Huzzah for a great weekend! The kayak safety class was so super awesome on Saturday! It ended up just being me, Gretchen, Terry, and Brian, so it was all people I'm great friends with! Greg, James, and the girl who was really nice whose name I didn't quite catch were all excellent! I felt like I learned a lot, but I really want to actually take the class again, one on one. Or Jonathan and I talked about him doing the class with just us when he comes up to visit (which will be in just over a month!!!! For a whole week!!!! :oD). I really could have used the smaller group setting because my brain was totally slow at picking up what I was supposed to do. I'm not usually really easily distracted but seeing something once and then having to do it myself is not something I'm good at. I still do feel like I learned a lot and now I just need to practice what I've learned! I still give the day A+!

What we did is kayaked over to Snow's Cove over on Pennock and then practiced our maneuvers there under the watchful eyes of two Nigerian pygmy goats (really). On the way back the wind had picked up and it took a little longer to get back, but it was still great fun. I love kayaking! Brian would like to take Whitney to practice some of the techniques we learned, so I'm hoping to get in on that to practice some.

I did wear my new Stohlquist BetSEA PFD, which was AWESOME. I totally love it! It fit perfectly and was extremely comfortable the whole time. It never moved on me and having the fleecey-lined pockets was a nice treat and were warm even when wet from us doing our rolls in the water. I can't wait to get out there and use it more! There was even a perfect place to secure my camera to so I could take pictures while we were out. I seriously love this PFD.

Here's some of the pictures that I took, but you can see them all in this album:

The day started off being warm and sunny, weather-wise, but then got overcast and windy. It was still fairly warm out. After we got back from our class we all headed up to Terry and Gretchen's, where we hung out in the hot tub for two hours and took pictures like these:

Photos by Terry!

And now I am trying to hurriedly type this because I am supposed to go camping with Myurgen (Sunday night)! They just picked me up from Brian's and took me to our friend Stine's house for homemade birthday pizza by her husband Jimbo, who easily ties with Brian for best homemade pizza ever. Seriously, this stuff is amazing! So tonight I'll be camping FINALLY out at Ward Lake, which I haven't camped at in years and year, so that should be pretty fun! Photos to come later! :o)

I hope everyone else is enjoying their Memorial Day weekend! I am actually working today (Monday), so I'm hoping that I got some sleep as I camped last night.

P.S. Today marks one week until I will be in Anchorage visiting my mom! Yeah!!

P.P.S. Maybe I will not be so busy someday and I can totally write a full blog post again, huh? :o)