I was feeling some improvement in my back as this new week got underway. By today the discomfort still wasn't gone--there's still some general soreness in the area--but at least it's not bothering me while I'm trying to sleep like it was last weekend. So that's a reason to feel upbeat.
Another reason is that firefighters seem to be making some progress on the Dragon Bravo and White Sage fires north of the Grand Canyon: as of this writing the former fire is 26% contained, the latter 75% contained. I've noticed, however, that the reported acreage of the Dragon Bravo fire is now more than double what it was a day or two ago. Not being any kind of an expert on wildfires, I don't really know what the significance of that is.
Here in Memphis and the Mid South, meanwhile, the heat has risen to another level. I understand much of the Midwest and Southeast are under one of those "heat domes." For several mornings in a row now, it's been 80 degrees Fahrenheit or warmer when I got out of bed at six o'clock, so it's just not cooling down very much overnight.
Back before there was such a thing as air conditioning, rich people Memphis simply left town for the summer. They repaired to vacation homes in places like Hardy, Arkansas, which sits on the clear, cool, spring-fed Spring River. It was no different from wealthy New Yorkers who spent summers in the Hamptons or well-to-do Atlantans who went up the mountain to Highlands, North Carolina.
People who couldn't afford to do that simply gutted it out in the hot city, and I would wager that very little "work" got done during those periods. I can imagine the whole population sitting on porches, fanning themselves and counting the minutes until darkness when they could nod off to sleep and repeat the process the next day.
Outdoor exercise is definitely something I try to get done before lunchtime each day. Even with the 21st-century central air conditioning system in my home, I'm finding it hard to get much done once the afternoon heat has settled in. My woodworking shop is not air-conditioned, but it's underneath my cooled living space, and it's sandwiched between the two adjacent buildings, so it's well insulated and usually not so bad in the summertime. However, right now the oppressive heat outside is bringing the afternoon temperature in my shop up close to the limit of what I can tolerate for any substantial woodworking activity.
But my big wilderness adventure is coming right up, so I continue working to steel my body appropriately. I did bike rides Monday and yesterday. I don't know if bike riding is the absolute best conditioning activity for the Grand Canyon; certainly, running or even hiking (walking) would be more specific prep for what I'm likely to be doing out there. But as I noted a while back, my knees, especially the left one, are feeling a little funny these days. I'm still doing some exercises to bring my hamstrings into equilibrium with the opposing quad muscles.
As for paddling, I'm still splitting time between the surfski and the whitewater boat. The whitewater boat is better for this oppressive heat, as my stroke drill sessions are shorter than my surfski sessions and I can do Eskimo rolls to stay cool. But let's face it: in the harbor and on the Mississippi River, the surfski is a lot more fun to paddle, especially when there are some barge wakes to surf out on the Mississippi.
I can't see the Mississippi from my dock at the marina, and so the only way to find out whether any good surfing opportunities exist out there is to paddle the 2000 meters or so down to the harbor's mouth and take a look. And covering 2000 meters is definitely a job for the ski, not the whitewater boat. On Tuesday I went down there and satisfied myself with some drills in the whitewater boat near the marina; but after I had finished, while exiting the marina's neighborhood in my car, I saw a couple of barge rigs generating some absolutely beautiful waves. Their location was such that they probably would have been nicely accessible to me during the time I would have been paddling the ski out from the harbor's mouth. Curses, I grumbled.
So this morning I decided to paddle the surfski down to the mouth of the harbor to see what the barge traffic was like. If there were good surfing opportunities, I would avail myself, and if there weren't, I would return to the dock and hop in the whitewater boat.
Down to the harbor's mouth I went, and as luck would have it... the Mississippi was deserted. So back to the dock it was. My thought was to do a half hour in the ski and a half hour in the whitewater boat, and because my trip down to the mouth had been a slow warmup, I had to do the trip back at a much stronger tempo to keep the ski time at a half hour. It made me good and hot and ready to do some rolls in the other boat.
I'll probably follow a similar plan for future sessions on the water. It's a little bit of a hassle because I have to carry gear for two different boats--two paddles and a sprayskirt, along with my PFD. But if I do end up paddling both boats, it's a good well-rounded workout with a variety of muscle groups engaged. And if I get to do some surfing, it's physically intense and fun at the same time.
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