Lots of activity as the summer solstice approaches

For those of you who liked my photo of a Muscovy duck and her ducklings several weeks ago, here's another bit of wildlife on my dock.

The music is performed by Memphis saxophonist/flutist/vocalist Hope Clayburn and her Soul Scrimmage band.  I'd say it's an ideal song for this video, except for the part about the snake being a "cobra" or a "mamba"... we don't have those on the Memphis riverfront.  This guy is just a non-poisonous water snake.

So, what's been going on lately?  Well, I'm getting in the boat about four times a week.  On my lucky days, I paddle to the mouth of the harbor and find a big upstream-moving barge rig generating some big waves out on the Mississippi that I can surf.  When I'm not so lucky, I just paddle steady, usually for an hour, and try to throw in some good surges.  I'm pleased to say that lately I've been feeling really good in the boat.

I want to start paddling my whitewater boat some soon, to get my body used to those movements again before I spend sixteen days paddling it in the Grand Canyon.  Last fall, while I was up at the Gauley River in West Virginia, the pedestal came unglued from inside the boat, and since then the boat had been sitting in my garage with a loose pedestal.  Yesterday I finally went and got a tube of marine-grade cement and glued the pedestal back in place.  I thought about paddling the whitewater boat this morning--we've had a lot of rain lately, and I could have gone out to the swollen Wolf River to practice some ferries and other swiftwater moves--but the glue was still too soft.  This particular brand of cement takes a full seven days to cure completely.  So I was back in the surfski on the Mississippi today.

Meanwhile, I'm also riding my bike some.  I'm trying to get on it at least twice a week.  Usually I follow the Greater Memphis Greenline (a local "rails-to-trails" trail) out to east Memphis, where I either do a loop around Patriot Lake in Shelby Farms or turn down the Wolf River Greenway and ride to Walnut Grove Road and back.

I've thought about incorporating some running, but for the last couple of weeks something has felt a little off in my left knee.  It feels like it could be some patella tendinitis under the kneecap.  So I'm holding off on the running and hoping that discomfort will run its course.

All told, I think my summer fitness program is off to a good start.  So far it's been the easy part of getting ready for the Grand Canyon.  More challenging is the organization of the trip and keeping the fifteen other people in my group on the same page.

For more information on what this blog is about, click here.