The trip pushes on; windy and hot in the Wild West

My body was still very much on Central Time Saturday morning, so I woke up at 5 AM Mountain Time in Ogallala, Nebraska.  I had some breakfast and packed up and drove north to McConaughy Reservoir, created by the construction of a dam on the North Platte River.  I was on the water just after 8 o'clock local time.

I had a pretty hard lactic session: two sets of (60 seconds on/60 sec. off, 50 sec. on/50 sec. off, 40 sec. on/40 sec. off, 30 sec. on/30 sec.off, 20 sec. on/20 sec. off, 10 sec. on/10 sec. off).  I went out and put everything I had into it, and was quite tired, but not as much so as in other lactic workouts.  This time I think the main reason was rough water on the lake driven by a strong south wind.  There were in fact some small downwind runs out there, and once the workout was over I did surf a little bit, but during the workout I was having to paddle up and over the waves.

When I paddle on flatwater I can put every ounce of my energy into propelling the boat forward.  But on rougher water I have to divert some of that energy into my muscles whose job is balance and control.  My conjecture is that that's the reason the workout wasn't quite as exhausting as it was supposed to be.  I guess the bright side is that I'm on my way to a big downwind event, and Saturday's session gave me some specific training.

A strong south wind is nothing unusual for the North American Great Plains.  As you drive any highway across the Plains, you'll see a lot of trees and shrubs leaning toward the north because they're constantly being hammered by the south wind.

One more factoid about Saturday: it was my first time ever to paddle in the state of Nebraska.  Long-time readers of this blog might remember posts like this one in which I talk about my goal of paddling a boat in every state of the United States.

I continued west and made it as far as Little America, Wyoming.  Yesterday morning I drove about an hour and a half to Bear Lake, a huge naturally-formed lake that straddles the Utah-Idaho state line.  Many people were out sunning and bathing in celebration of Independence Day, but for me it was just a break from another long drive.  I did a calm 80 minutes.

I continued on across the high desert landscapes of northern Utah and southern Idaho.  By the time I stopped for supper in Boise, it was hot.  My guess is it was pushing 100 degrees Fahrenheit.  The Pacific Northwest has been in the news for the heat wave it’s been experiencing, and while I think the worst of it is over, some significant heat lingers.  I drove about another hour to my stopping place for the night, a campsite in Farewell Bend State Park just inside eastern Oregon.  It stayed hot well after dark and even though it was a “dry” heat, I was sweating a bit as I lay in the tent.

By this morning it had cooled off to a very pleasant temperature—maybe 70 degrees or so.  But once the sun comes up over the ridge just to the east, I expect it’ll be another hot one.  The good news is that I’m almost to the Columbia Gorge.  Today is a day off from paddling, and I plan to spend it moving at a leisurely pace to within a couple of hours of the Gorge, and then roll in there tomorrow.

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