More on that winter routine

Three days after my truncated First Run In 20 Years my left calf muscle is still sore, but I think it's definitely improving.  Maybe by next week I'll feel ready to attempt another short run.

The chilly weather (low 40s Fahrenheit) weather we've been having is not fun to go bike riding in, but yesterday afternoon I found it in me to bundle up and ride out the Greater Memphis Greenline to Shelby Farms and back.  I did my usual 34-kilometer loop, riding around Patriot Lake out there before heading back.  The sun was shining, so that helped make it feel not quite so miserable.

Both Wednesday and today I did rounds of the gym routine I started on Monday, and that's starting to feel beneficial.

So, I feel like I've got something started.  I'm still trying to incorporate maybe one more cardiovascular activity: I'm interested in finding a rowing ergometer nearby that I can access without having to pay too exorbitant a membership fee.

Right now I think the most important thing is just to get something--anything--going.  After several months of sort of flailing around, trying to deal with motivation and energy level and aches and pains, I think it's more important than ever to have a solid routine that I can follow each day and feel good about.

In my last post I said that I didn't do anything athletic last weekend.  But by Sunday afternoon I was tired of sitting around feeling like a slug, so I decided to go out and do a little hiking in the Mississippi River bottoms.  I drove across the Memphis-Arkansas Bridge and parked in Big River Park, and hiked down to a big expanse of sand that was exposed on the inside of the big bend just downstream of the trio of old bridges.

There were a good dozen other people out on the sandbar, and at first I expected them all to have metal detectors: both our local newspapers had just run stories of interesting artifacts found by treasure hunters.  But as I walked closer I realized they were all just fishing.

Treasure hunters probably had been by in recent days, and I was expecting no miraculous discoveries of my own.  But I did see a couple of interesting things.  One was this scuttled fishing boat:

I think it had been mostly buried in the sand and silt, and then partially excavated by passersby during this current low-water period.

And then there was this thing: part of a winch, maybe?  Or of a towboat's engine apparatus?

These were the only things I saw out of the ordinary.  I can only imagine what artifacts there are buried beneath layers upon layers of mud down there.

The river level on Sunday was about 7.1 feet below zero on the Memphis gauge.  Since then the river has been on a big rise: it's forecast to crest this weekend about a foot above zero on the gauge.  That's still a very low level, but compared to what it's been the last month or so, it's going to look like an ocean of water down there.  I haven't been paying close attention to where it's been raining in the watershed, but my guess is that the remnants of Hurricane Nicole must have dumped enough rain on the west slope of the Appalachians last week to bring about this big rise.

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Trying to get a winter routine going

Knowing it was my last chance to paddle in mild weather before much colder air arrived, I found the gumption to get down to the river Friday afternoon.  My body still feeling the effects of my struggle with the whitewater boat on Tuesday, I opted for the surfski and did a reasonably nice 60-minute paddle.

Friday evening I tuned in to Greg Barton's lecture.  Greg's suggestions for offseason cross-training didn't really include anything I hadn't thought of; he mentioned things like weight training, bike riding, running, and cross-country skiing (sadly not available where I live).  But he did give me some ideas of where to focus my strength training, and maybe the best thing he said was "I let the weather be my coach," meaning that if it's a particularly nice day when he'd planned to do an indoor workout, he'll go paddle instead.  I've behaved similarly myself, of course, but hearing a guy like Greg say it is always reassuring.

As if on cue, the weather turned blustery and much colder over the weekend.  I gave my body a break and spent time on non-athletic things.  Then yesterday I started a new gym routine that includes some arm and core exercises all done on the stability ball.

Also yesterday I took the bold step of buying a new pair of running shoes.  I was quite the serious runner back in high school and college, but up until now I think it had been some 20 years since I'd so much as gone for a run.  That changed today.  This morning I put on my new shoes, stepped out the door, and started to run.  I'd been wondering whether my body would even remember how to run, but I'm happy to say that it does.

I knew the important thing was not to bite off too much on my first time out.  And my body quickly chimed in with its opinion just a couple of minutes in: running was not going to be anywhere near as effortless as I remember it feeling in the prime of my competitive career.  I'd gone out thinking I'd run maybe 30 minutes, but I quickly scaled that ambition back to 20.  All those capillary beds I'd once built up in my running muscles are long gone, I realized.

I was headed back toward home, and then, about 14 minutes into the run, I felt a sharp pain in my left calf muscle.  I knew better than to push through it.  I stopped and walked the rest of the way.

I'm still feeling some pain there now, but it doesn't have the feel of a terribly serious injury.  I was thinking I'd do my next run Thursday or Friday, but now we'll just have to see how soon this thing heals.  Sigh... sometimes it seems like my body doesn't want to let me do anything these days.

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Monday photo feature

Get a load of this old relic.  25 years ago this was a cutting-edge slalom-racing design.  Now it's just my old beat-up slalom boat that I hadn't paddled for six years before last Tuesday.

I was worried about how my ailing left arm and shoulder would respond to whitewater-style paddle strokes, and it turns out I was right to be.  The pain in my shoulder/biceps area worsened, and I did something to my forearm as well.

I'd been flirting with the idea of getting back on some whitewater soon, but that plan is now on hold.  It's discouraging not to be able to do something that for most of my life felt as natural as could be.

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):

The period that has passed since my last training-related post has been full of ups and downs.  Right now things are sort of down.  My left shoulder and biceps area has been acutely sore, and lately even my left wrist and forearm have been hurting some.

In recent months I've had thoughts of getting back out on some whitewater, but I don't know if my body will let me do that in its current state.  On Tuesday this week I broke out my old Superglide C1 that I raced slalom in from the late 1990s into the mid 2000s, and took it down to the harbor.  Forward paddling wasn't really a problem, but my left arm and shoulder didn't respond particularly well to draw strokes with the blade opened way up (I paddle on my left in a whitewater C1).  I finished 40 minutes of paddling feeling sore and discouraged.  I think part of the problem is that the boat's outfitting is the same as it was when I last raced slalom back around 2005, and my body has surely changed some since then.  I probably should find myself a more comfortable, more forgiving boat to paddle than this high-performance race boat, but that would involve some financial investment, and again, I'm not sure serious whitewater paddling is something I can do right now.

Today is the last day of pleasant, balmy weather before much colder air moves in, so it would make sense to paddle one more time today, but my body just doesn't want to do it.  I've actually done a lot of out-of-the-boat stuff this week: bike riding, rehab exercises, and some light weight work.  Today I'm feeling pretty tired from all that.

This evening Greg Barton is delivering an online lecture about wintertime cross-training.  I plan to tune into that and see what good ideas I might get.

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Monday photo feature

This photograph appeared on the CNN website this past week.  It's part of an article about the low flows on the Mississippi River.  You can view the article here.

While I don't think the article was intended to mislead people, the use of this photo is deceptive in my opinion.  The caption reads as follows:

The Mississippi River at Memphis -- shown here near the Memphis-Arkansas Bridge -- has slowed to a trickle. It was at its fifth-lowest level on record this week and continues to drop.

Actually, that's the Hernando DeSoto Bridge in the photo.  The Memphis-Arkansas Bridge is a mile or so downstream.  But the thing I take issue with is the suggestion that the little puddle pictured here is all there is of the Mississippi at Memphis right now.  It's not.  Just look at the last two photos in the post I put up yesterday.  As I said, even at historic low flows the Mississippi is a very big, very powerful river.

Maybe I shouldn't get upset about this.  But I constantly encounter people in our society whose understanding of basic river hydrology and continental drainage is shockingly poor.  We don't need an ostensibly serious news organization making that problem worse.

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The ravages of a lack of water

I went back down to the riverfront yesterday and found the water even lower than it had been on Tuesday.  At -10.76 feet on the Memphis gauge, it was just over a tenth of a foot lower .

I mentioned in Tuesday's post that the low level is putting a lot of stress on the marina.  Check out the bowed roof supports in these photos:

The marina is owned by its slip owners, sort of like a condo.  I'm not part of the ownership since I just rent a rack for my kayak down there, and I guess I'm glad not to be on the hook for the damage that's happening to the structure right now.  But on the other hand, I get a lot of enjoyment out of my use of the facility, and I hope the owners will be able to keep it in good repair.  I don't think the slip owners are a particularly wealthy group--the wealthy houseboat and yacht owners around here keep their boats at Pickwick Lake--so it remains to be seen how they address the damage once this low-water period has run its course.

Just like on Tuesday, I had to use another dock to have access to the water, and even at this dock there was just barely enough water to float my boat.  I did a quick depth-check with my paddle; the tip of the blade was probably an inch or two immersed in mud:

Meanwhile, not even the United States Coast Guard has a ramp that extends all the way down to the current water surface.  The USCG buoy tender the Kankakee is usually parked in this spot, but right now it's having to take up residence elsewhere:

I got in my boat and paddled for 60 minutes.  The low water level is causing all kinds of trouble for commercial vessels, but there's still plenty of water for paddling.  Even at a record-low level, the Mississippi is still a very big river:

Yep... interesting times in the lower Mississippi River basin.  Let's hope for some rain in the Midwest soon.

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This low-water season is REALLY low

I'm on a bit of a break from blogging.  Apologies to anybody who's been checking here multiple times hoping for something new.

Not much has changed since my last post, and that's the main reason I decided to give the blog a rest for a while.  The truth is that I was tired of writing essentially the same thing over and over.  Soon I'll post an update of what's been happening with my aches and pains and my efforts to keep some kind of exercise going until I find the motivation for pursuing paddling excellence once more.

The main reason for this post is to share some photos I took today in the harbor.  Yesterday the Mississippi River dropped to its lowest level ever recorded at Memphis.  The record low had been -10.70 feet on the Memphis gauge back in the summer of 1988, and yesterday afternoon the water dipped almost a tenth of a foot lower than that: -10.77 feet.

By the time I got down to the river this morning it had risen back to -10.65 feet... still all but the record low, as far as I'm concerned.  As I walked down to the marina, I found that the entire west end of it was in the mud:

Here's the dock where I normally put my boat in the water:

Low water puts a lot of stress on the marina.  Even the part of it that's still afloat has some piers that are touching the bottom, causing contortion in the roof line:

Since my normal dock was completely aground, I carried my boat around the corner to a dock that still had some water access:

First I paddled up toward the harbor's north end.  Up there a barge is sitting high and dry:

I headed back south, and stopped to take a picture where Bayou Gayoso empties into the harbor.  My guess is that the mound of dirt in the foreground is made up of sediment that's washed into the harbor from the bayou:

Farther south, down the hill from River Garden Park where the Outdoors, Inc., Canoe and Kayak Race used to finish, an historic relic has been revealed.  Pictured here is some kind of old wooden boat complete with the engine block that I presume once propelled it.  I am not the first person to spot it: there's an orange traffic cone marking the site just to the right of this photo.  I hope that means our local archeologists are on it:

There are two marinas in the harbor.  I've shared pictures above of the one where I keep my boat.  The other one is some one thousand meters to the south, and it's not faring so well right now, either.  The entire west wing and much of the east wing are sitting in the mud.  The boats in this photo won't be going anywhere until the water comes up a few feet:

And here's a photo of the same marina from a different angle that local photographer Danny Day took yesterday.  I think he made better use of the light than I did (i.e., he's a better photographer):

All very fascinating, to be sure.  But I hope for the return of some rainfall to the Missouri, Ohio, Tennessee, and Cumberland drainages soon.

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Monday photo feature

The first slalom race I ever did was one of those "citizen" races the Nantahala Racing Club used to put on. You could enter in whatever boat you had and do an easy course on the gates down near Worser Wesser Falls.  Here I am racing my old Dancer kayak.  Every time I look at this photo I want to say I'm 11 or 12 years old, but the year was in fact 1992, at which time I was 24 and going on 25.  Photo by Michael Stout.

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Feeling good at times and deflated at others

This was a week of ups and downs in terms of how I'm feeling and what sort of physical activity I've managed to do.

I spent Monday dealing with logs, trying to gather some material for my job at the Pink Palace Crafts Fair next weekend.  No matter how careful I am, I always manage to tweak some muscles when I do such work, usually in my lower back.

I woke up Tuesday feeling really stiff and sore from Monday's work.  But I got myself down to the river and paddled for an hour, and that seemed to loosen me up very nicely.  I can say that in my four-plus decades of paddling there have been countless days in which I felt better after paddling than I'd felt before.

Meanwhile, I was trying my best to keep my left arm in the "neutral" position to keep the stress off my rotator cuff, and doing the strengthening exercises that Rob had shown me.  By Thursday the area was feeling as good as it had felt in a long time, and that lifted my spirits.  I had a good bike ride Thursday morning, and then saw my chiropractor that afternoon.  I told her of the improvement in my left rotator cuff area, joking that I was almost afraid to say it out loud.

As it turned out, I was right to be afraid.  I spent Friday doing more log-hunting, and while I can't think of any specific thing I did to aggravate any particular muscles, by yesterday morning my left arm was back to feeling as bad as ever.  I went down to the river and got in the boat, and as I warmed up in the harbor, the pain nagged me with every stroke.  Eventually I got warmed up enough for the discomfort to move into the background, but today the area continues to hurt.

Lately Sunday has been a bike-riding day for me, and that was the plan again today.  But I was delayed by the latest of what has been a rash of flat tires in the last month.  I got it fixed and did a good ride out to Shelby Farms and back by way of the Greater Memphis Greenline.  As I carried the bike back into the garage to the spot where I hang it on the wall, I heard a sudden hissing noise: for some reason all the air was running out of the tire once more.  Sigh... at least it waited until I was back home.  I was too tired to deal with it right then, but I'll be fixing yet another flat tire before my next ride.

If I need a reminder of how small my problems are, then I guess I should look at the current catastrophic phenomena around the planet.  The remnants of a Pacific typhoon walloped the west coast of Alaska, another typhoon is hitting Japan, Puerto Rico is bracing for Hurricane Fiona, a series of earthquakes has rocked Taiwan, and wildfires continue to burn in the western U.S.  Oddly enough, it's as calm as can be around here.  The sun is out, breezes are light, and we're in for several days of near-100-degrees-Fahrenheit temperatures.

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Monday photo feature

When my friend Rob came to visit last week, it was the first time I'd seen him in person in six years.  Back in 2016 I visited his home in New York's Hudson Valley during my trip to the USCA Nationals in western Massachusetts.  One day Rob and I put on the Hudson River at Peekskill and paddled up toward the Bear Mountain Bridge.

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Entertaining a house guest and hunting logs

My best friend Rob came to visit for a few days this past week.  We visited a couple of local museums, went out to eat, explored the outdoors... the sort of things good friends do.

But Rob's visit has some actual relevance to this blog, too.  Rob is a chiropractor based in Pawling, New York, and he had a lot to say about my current skeletal-muscular issues.  He had me go through a whole bunch of movements and concluded that my deltoid/biceps woes are the result of inflammation of tendons in my rotator cuff.  He said that only once this inflammation is calmed down will any other treatments really work.  He urged me to do my best to keep my left arm in the "neutral position" (i.e., as if it's in a sling) as much as possible to minimize stress on the area.  He also showed me some exercises that target the rotator cuff area specifically.  While he was at it, he showed me a whole slew of core exercises (mostly on the stability ball) that I now want to incorporate into strength work this fall and winter.

All this advice is what one would expect from a chiropractor.  But Rob is also quite knowledgeable of internal health in general, and while he was here he gave me advice on my diet and the vitamin supplements I should be taking.  My cholesterol level has been somewhat high my whole adult life, and after a particularly high test result back in June, my doctor finally put me on a prescription statin drug.  My LDL level has come down a lot as a result, but Rob thinks I can achieve the same thing with a natural over-the-counter statin (red yeast rice).  He explained that the prescription statin has an oversized impact on other nutrients in my body that is less severe with the natural statin.  So I'm looking into possible changes there.  I'm scheduled to visit my doctor again in December, so I'll probably wait until then before making the switch.

Since Rob was here on vacation, I took sort of a vacation of my own from most chores (both athletic and non-athletic) this past week.  But we found ways to get out and be active.  On Tuesday we took my plastic sea kayak down to the river for Rob to paddle, and the two of us paddled out of the harbor, up the Mississippi above the Hernando DeSoto Bridge, and across the river to a bunch of sandbars, where enjoyed a little beach time.  On Wednesday afternoon I was hoping to find a bike for Rob to use so we could go for a bike ride together, but the closest thing we could find was one of those app-activated electric scooters.  So we got that running and Rob rode it out east on the Greater Memphis Greenline while I rode my bike; once we were out at Shelby Farms we switched mounts for the trip back.

Rob departed after lunch on Thursday, and I turned my attention to catching up on some of the chores I'd ignored while he was here.  The annual crafts fair where I demonstrate bowl carving is just two weeks off, and I need some material for the job, so on Friday afternoon I set out on a scouting trip on my bike, looking for good logs that people had cut in their yards and put out on the curb for the city sanitation service to collect.  I rode all over sections of the Evergreen, Vollintine-Evergreen, and Speedway Terrace neighborhoods and made a mental note of any promising material I saw.

Yesterday I did some stretching and started some of the rehab exercises Rob had shown me.  Then I went down to the river and paddled for 60 minutes.  I felt surprisingly good in the boat and even got some good rides on the wake behind a fuel barge that services the tour boats that pass through Memphis on the Mississippi.  All the while I tried to keep my left arm in the neutral position as much as possible; since good paddling form involves keeping the elbows close to the body, I was able to do so without much trouble.  On the way home from the river I stopped and picked up several logs I'd spotted during Friday's bike ride.

This morning I did some more bike scouting, focusing on a couple of the neighborhoods south of the Greenline that I usually ride out to Shelby Farms.  I didn't see much bowl-carving material today, but I live in a big city with lots and lots of trees, so I feel pretty sure I can find what I need in the next few days as long as I keep at it.

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Another week crossed off

Last week was much like the weeks that preceded it: I paddled Tuesday and Saturday, did a bike ride Thursday and yesterday, and did lots of rehab exercises the rest of the time.  The chiropractor showed me a couple of new exercises to add to the routine, and suggested we do some dry needling the next time I go in.  I'm scheduled to do that this coming Thursday.

I've more or less packed it in as far as racing goes this year, though there's at least one event that's tempting: there's a downwind race on Lake Michigan the weekend of October 8-9.  That's a long trip for me, and I'm nowhere near race-ready, but I'm not immune to those FOMO urges.  I'll most likely stick to my guns and pass it up unless I experience some very quick and significant improvement in the ailments department.

For now, I'm putting my athletic life on the back burner because my friend Rob has come down from New York to visit, and I'm going to show him around town.

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Monday photo feature

In recent years I've been traveling out to the Columbia River Gorge on the Oregon-Washington state line for the purpose of downwind surfski paddling.  But back in 1998 I went out there to enjoy one of that region's other offerings: whitewater.  In this photo I'm paddling on a section of the White Salmon River, which originates in the vicinity of Mount Adams in Washington and flows southward, meeting the Columbia River across from the town of Hood River, Oregon.  Photo by Wendy Peterson.

Is it possible for me to get back into some whitewater paddling?  I can't think why not, but there are some logistical hurdles I'll have to clear.  The nearest decent whitewater stream is some four hours from where I live.  And I'll have to get myself a new boat: the boat pictured above was my go-to river-running craft for about 20 years, but then it got stolen from behind my building six years ago.

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Weary

I can't say that last week offered much of interest to those wanting to read about canoe and kayak training.  I did my rehab exercises, but until the weekend I did little else that can be called real training or anything fitness-oriented.  Part of the reason is that I was busy with some non-athletic things: both my woodworking business and my rental properties have been commanding much of my attention lately.

And I continue to grapple with motivation and general existential questions of what my paddling future is going to look like.  It seems like in the last two years I've been training more and enjoying it less, and it's gotten to where I can't even think about my boat or the river without thinking about how exhausted I sometimes feel out there.

One idea I've had is to get back into some whitewater paddling.  But while I may in fact do that, it has motivational challenges of its own, most notably the fact that there's no whitewater where I live and I'll have to make road trips to do it.  The biggest appeal of open water/surfski paddling is that I have an ideal place to do it right here at home, and I can paddle for an hour or two and still have the rest of the day to get work done and live my life.  Getting myself to a whitewater-rich region requires investing an entire day or an entire weekend or more.

Meanwhile, I continue to have my aches and pains, and while they don't directly affect my paddling, they've been a detriment to my overall quality of life, and I'm getting more and more frustrated with their refusal to go away.  I've got the rehab exercises that my chiropractor gave me for my deltoid/biceps pain and that another physical therapist gave me for my neck tightness, but I've been doing them and doing them and doing them, and the discomfort is still there.

On top of all that, my age increased by an integer over the weekend.

Anyway... on Thursday I tried to get out and do some exercise in the form of riding my bike.  But about three miles from home I got another flat tire.  I had all the necessary tools to change a tire except one, and it was an important one: an air pump.  I've given up on the old tubular pumps that mount on a bike's frame because it takes an eternity and a lot of physical effort to achieve even 30 pounds per square inch (my bike's tires need a minimum of 40 or 45 psi).  And I was about four miles from the public pump that I'd used for my flat tire a week earlier.  So I found a place to lock up the bike, summoned an Uber to take me home, and drove my pickup truck back out to retrieve the bike.  Once I was back home from that errand I walked to the bike shop in my block and asked the friendly owner what the latest tire-inflation technology is, and he sold me a little carbon dioxide canister that he said can air up a tire in no time.  So I hope I now have all the survival gear I need now that I'm doing some slightly more serious bike riding.

Saturday morning I went down to the river and got in the boat for the first time since paddling with Scott up in Kentucky.  I'd sort of been dreading it for the reasons listed above, but once I was warmed up I didn't feel half bad in the boat.  I even had the gumption to do some surfing behind a barge rig out on the river, though I missed the best waves because I got turned broadside and took a long time getting back into the right position.  In the end I got one decent ride, and then I headed back to the harbor.

Yesterday I got back on the bike, and this time I got a good ride in without any flat tires.  I did my usual ride out to Shelby Farms and back.  I got rained on during the trip back, and that actually felt pretty good on a hot late-August afternoon.

This week will include a bit of paddling, a bit of riding, and of course more rehab work while I ponder what's ahead for me.

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The fun just never stopped up in Kentucky

Here's a quick video I made of this past weekend up at Burkesville, Kentucky.  Piecing together a tolerable rendition of "My Old Kentucky Home" on my harmonica was definitely the biggest challenge of this project.

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Monday photo feature

The canoe and kayak race on the Cumberland River at Burkesville, Kentucky, was just one part of a big festival.  There was also live music, a 5K run, a display of classic cars, food trucks, vendor booths... and catfish wrestling!

You heard me.  Saturday afternoon a bunch of large fish were put in a pool, and festival-goers were encouraged to sign up and jump in the pool and wrestle out as many fish as they could.  The person who wrangled the most fish got a cash prize.

Scott Cummins and I demurred from entering the contest.  We'd already had all the aquatic exertion we needed for the day.  But Scott did pluck one of the more docile lunkers from the water for a photo-op to burnish his country-boy credentials.  He was about as convincing as that Doctor Oz shopping for the best deals in the grocery aisle.

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Slumberin' on the Cumberland

I got a reasonably early start Friday morning and arrived in the town of Burkesville, Kentucky, before 3 o'clock in the afternoon.  Scott Cummins was waiting for me there, and we promptly put his tandem surfski on the Cumberland River for a systems check.  As we paddled for a half-hour or so, the most obvious issue was our differing stroke rates.  Scott's natural rate is quite a bit higher than mine, and he said he would use a paddle with larger blade area in the race to slow it down a little.

The Mighty Cumberland River Run canoe and kayak race is part of a big annual festival in the town, so there was plenty for Scott and me to observe off the water.  On Friday evening there was a "battle of the bands" on the main stage, and while the musical fare in these parts was about what I expected (i.e., bad country music), we had fun hanging out and watching all the goings-on.  We availed ourselves of the on-site camping, Scott sleeping in his van and I in my tent.

We got up bright and early Saturday morning and drove up to the community of Bakerton, where the race would start.  Scott and I were the only tandem surfski entered, so the race was basically a time trial for us. We agreed that breaking an hour for the 12-mile advertised distance was a reasonable goal, though a lofty one: it would require an average pace of about 20 kilometers per hour, and on Friday we'd seemed to be maxing out in the 18s.  Still, we would have plenty of help from the current: the dam keepers upriver at Cumberland Reservoir were releasing generous amounts of water in the wake of the heavy rains a couple of weeks prior.

We warmed up, paddled to the starting line, and the race was on.  Even with his bigger-bladed paddle Scott was wanting to paddle at quite a high rate, and I kept having to remind him to dial it back a little.  I didn't want to be too fussy about it because I didn't want to pull Scott out of the zone he was used to, but then again it wouldn't do him any good if I were to blow up, so I tried to persuade him down to the highest cadence that I could tolerate for an hour or so.

The morning was mostly overcast, and there was some thin fog hanging over the river in places.  This section of the Cumberland is quite a beautiful place, with wooded banks and rocky bluffs, and I tried my best to behold the scenery, but most of my attention was on Scott's back as I tried to keep my strokes in sync with his.

Our speed varied from 15 kph to over 18 kph.  The current was faster in some places and slower in others, and at times we felt ourselves fighting a headwind.  It became clear early on that a sub-one-hour time wasn't in the cards.  Not having trained particularly hard for the last month, I felt pretty good and taxed as the race wore on.  But the base I'd built up during the course of the year gave me what I needed to paddle decently all the way to the finish.  We arrived at the Kentucky Highway 61 bridge one hour, 4 minutes, 48 seconds after we'd started.  My G.P.S. device measured the distance at 18.2 kilometers, or about 11.3 miles.

We got a ride back to the start to retrieve our vehicles, and then Scott went back to the finish to load the boat.  The race organizers fed us some barbecue chicken for lunch and handed us our awards, and we got in an afternoon nap back at our campsite.  The evening's entertainment consisted of the "battle of the bands" winner at 6 o'clock and a headliner at 8:00.  The headliner was a Kentucky-based band of some note.  If there's anything I have rather snobbish opinions about, it's what constitutes good music.  Maybe it's because I'm from Memphis.  Anyway, the band had its moments, but overall it was pretty... meh.

Oh well.  The live music wasn't my main reason for being there.  Yesterday morning Scott and I had some breakfast and then put the boat in the water for one more paddle.  We went upstream for four miles and came back.  The upstream leg took us about 50 minutes, the return trip about 25 minutes.  This time Scott used a paddle with even larger blades, and I think it was what he should have used on Saturday: he was much better able to paddle at a stroke rate that suited me.

We said our goodbyes and departed for our respective homes.  My trip home was slowed by a big wreck on Interstate 40 near Dickson, Tennessee, and I didn't arrive until after 6 PM.  Fortunately I was able to pick up most of the Saint Louis Cardinals game on several different radio stations.  Once home I unpacked the car in between heavy rain showers, threw together a quick supper, and fell asleep in quick order.

What's next for me in terms of paddling?  I have no idea.  I'll keep tending to my aches and pains and see what develops.

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

Paddling, rehabbing, riding, walking

I did another round of my rehab exercises Tuesday morning.  The exercises are intended to strengthen my scapula so that it'll take pressure off the deltoid/biceps area that's been giving me trouble.  So far I'm still having pain there, and my chiropractor told me Monday that it can take a while for the scapula to re-engage.  So I guess I'll keep doing the exercises and hope they make a difference eventually.

After that on Tuesday I went down to the river and paddled for 60 minutes.  Aside from the arm pain I felt reasonably good in the boat, and I hope that'll be the case again when I race with Scott this Saturday.

Yesterday was a rainy day here in the Mid South.  I did my rehab exercises again, but otherwise spent the day addressing non-athletic chores.

This morning I rode my bike, taking the Greenline out east and looping around Patriot Lake.  Along the way my front tire went flat.  Of course it happened when I was as far from home as I was going to get.  I didn't have a spare tube with me, but I did have some patches and the tools to change a tire, so I made my way to the public air pump where the Greenline meets the trail down to the lake.  I inflated the tire to see if I could find the leak, but the leak was so small that I couldn't find it.  I got the tire up over 50 p.s.i. and decided to see how far I could get back toward home.  The tire seemed great for a while, but by the time I was crossing Waring Street I could tell that it was deflating again.  I kept on going, but by the time I reached Highland Street the bike wasn't really rideable anymore.  I considered calling an Uber, but my parsimonious nature won out and I walked the remaining two-plus miles home.  Fortunately it was a lovely, not-so-hot morning, and in general I'm grateful that I can simply walk.

I plan to pack for my trip this afternoon and get going tomorrow morning.  As of this writing Scott and I have no competition in the tandem surfski class, but I'm looking forward to getting up there and putting in a strong effort on the river and catching up with Scott a bit.

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Monday photo feature

It's the 2001 edition of the Outdoors, Inc., Canoe and Kayak Race on the Mississippi River at Memphis!  That's me paddling my old "Apple Turnover" kayak that was designed to meet official wildwater boat specs while being lighter and tippier for racing on Class I water.  It was probably not designed for something like the Mississippi River, but somehow I made it work for several years before I finally acquired my first surfski.  Photo by Emerson Wickwire.

Mike Herbert of Rogers, Arkansas, won the race that year, followed by Greg Barton of Seattle, Washington.  I was locked in a stiff competition for third place with the two guys over my right shoulder here: Peter Braul of Kincardine, Ontario, and Scott Cummins of Indianapolis, Indiana.

Here we are 21 years later, and though I've lost track of Peter, I still talk to Scott often.  Scott has moved back to his hometown of Louisville, and this Saturday he and I will be teaming up in a double surfski at the Mighty Cumberland River Run at Burkesville, Kentucky.  There's still time to register for any tandem teams out there with the nerve to come and try to beat us.

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

Still searching for answers

We finally got a break from the humidity on Friday, as a north-northeast wind brought some drier air.  When I stepped out on my back deck first thing yesterday morning, I thought I was back in the semiarid West.  It was delightful with a clear sky and a pleasant northeast breeze.

It went on to be fairly hot yesterday--I think the high was around 90 degrees Fahrenheit--but the absence of suffocating humidity lifted my spirits.  And my spirits need all the lifting they can get these days, because my nagging ailments seem never-ending.  I've talked plenty lately about my left deltoid/biceps area, but my right shoulder/neck area, which has felt better but not entirely back to normal for most of this year, has been flaring up again in the last couple of days.

After doing my new rehab exercises at home yesterday, I paddled for 60 minutes down on the riverfront.  Once again I incorporated a lot of backpaddling to address muscle imbalances that might be contributing to my woes.  I did a loop out on the river and once I was warmed up my pains faded into the background a bit, but my concern over them has been outweighing my enjoyment of paddling lately, and after my race in Kentucky next weekend I think I may have to take a longer break and see if I can overcome them in some more permanent way.

This morning I did another round of rehab exercises, and then rode my bike out to Shelby Farms and around Patriot Lake and back.  I never thought I would say this, but in recent weeks I've been enjoying my bike rides a lot more than paddling my boat.  I've mentioned how tired and listless I've felt in the last couple of years, but I still have a desire to get out and be active, and bike riding seems to satisfy that.  The ennui seems specific to paddling.  My arm and shoulder woes are part of the reason, but I think my pursuit of excellence in downwind paddling in the last several years has something to do with it, too.  As fun as downwinding is, it's also the most physically exhausting paddling discipline I've ever tried, and I think I've had my eye on a degree of perfection that's just not attainable for somebody of my age and abilities.  I think part of the problem is that I don't understand downwind conditions as fully as I do other kinds of water I've paddled on, and as a result I'm working much harder than I should be out there.

Whatever the case, I need to change something, and I think taking a break to address my ailments will be a good start.

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

Riding more than driving, pain in the arm, and water in the air and on the ground

The residents of my city are, frankly, like the residents of most of the United States in that they are heavily reliant on private automobiles to get around.  Public transportation here is pretty much just our city bus system, and it leaves much to be desired.  Meanwhile, though our network of bicycle trails has grown quite a bit in the last 20 years, it still has a long way to go to serve the needs of those whose bikes are their primary means of transportation.

That's why I feel a sense of accomplishment any time my car stays parked all day.  Sunday and Monday were two such days.  And I didn't just sit in the house all day: on Sunday I did the bike ride I talked about in my last post, and on Monday I ran some errands on my bike in both the morning and the afternoon.

One of those errands was to my chiropractor's office to get more treatment for the soreness in my left deltoid and biceps area.  She showed me a couple of exercises I can do at home with my rubber band that work the scapula, saying that it should take pressure off my upper arm area.  She speculated that my scapula has gotten weak because it doesn't get worked by all the paddling I do.  I told her that in recent years I've incorporated a little bit of backpaddling into each paddling session to work the opposing muscles, and she said that's a good idea.

All that set the tone for my Tuesday morning plans.  I started at home with some full-body stretching and the exercises that my chiropractor had shown me.  Then I cranked my car's engine for the first time in several days, and went down to the riverfront to get in the boat.  I had a busy day ahead and had time for only 30 minutes of paddling, and I spent it doing a lot of backpaddling, with some balance drills and stroke drills thrown in.

Of course, it will take my muscles some time to respond to any rehab exercises I do, and for the rest of Tuesday my left arm hurt pretty bad and I felt a bit demoralized.

The weird weather pattern continues around here.  After almost no rain in the month of July, the atmosphere seems to be oozing moisture here in August.  The Internet radar shows rain cells sort of roaming aimlessly across the region.  There was some heavy rain in my neighborhood last night, with some more showers this morning.  In between showers it's been relentlessly humid.

This morning I did another round of my rehab exercises and then got on the bike.  There had just been a heavy shower and it was still drizzling pretty hard, and I felt grumpy about having to ride on yet another rainy, humid day.  But once I was out there in motion it didn't feel so bad.  (Don't forget: skin is waterproof!)  And our local rivers and creeks were flowing full of water.  I got out my cellular telephone and shot a bit of video:

 

The first creek we see here is Cypress Creek (0:00 to 0:28), which drains the section of Memphis known as Hayden Place.  Riding eastward on the Greater Memphis Greenline, the next creek is Harrison Creek in "near-east" Memphis (0:28 to 0:56).  These two creeks are tributaries of the third waterway shown here, the Wolf River (0:56 to 1:25), which flows beneath the Greenline near Shelby Farms and winds around the north side of Memphis before emptying into the Mississippi River.

I did indeed get soaked during the rest of my ride, especially in Shelby Farms, whose trail network doesn't drain as well as the Greenline, which sits on an old railroad bed.  But the sight of these swollen streams made a yucky day seem a lot better.  Rushing water is something I'll never get tired of being around, whether I'm in a boat or on the bank.

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Monday photo feature

It's August of 2018 on Fontana Reservoir near Almond, North Carolina.  That's Pete Greene of Beaufort, South Carolina, in the foreground, closing out his defeat of me (left) and Sven Jonsson of Bryson City, North Carolina.

As you can see in the bottom left corner, the photographer is one Sarah Ruhlen.  I didn't really know her at all, but I came to recognize her name from the many photographs she took at events around the region that surrounds the Nantahala River.

Though she was only 24 years old, Ms. Ruhlen passed away this past week.  I don't know the details, but I do know she'd been diagnosed with dysautonomia, or dysfunction of the autonomic nervous system.

I think we had at least a small number of mutual friends, and for their loss, I am sorry.

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

Plowing through a muggy weekend

I could tell first thing yesterday morning that it would be a steamy day.  The rain had moved out but the humidity was still plenty high, and the temperature was quickly rising under a sunny sky.  When I went down to the river and paddled for 60 minutes, a fairly strong south breeze was the only thing that made it bearable.  I felt tired and sluggish in the boat, and the soreness in my left deltoid/biceps area was bad.  It might be time for me to return to the chiropractor's office: she seemed confident we could address this problem when I saw her back before my trip, but we might not have gotten enough sessions in.

This morning I did another bike ride.  I did my usual loop around Patriot Lake, getting out there and back on the Greater Memphis Greenline.  The Greenline is nice this time of year because it's shady.  It actually was a pretty morning with lots of sunshine, but it was also warm and humid.  This past week the temperature has been up and down and the rain has come and gone, but high humidity has been the constant.

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The summer fun continues

The Fahrenheit temperature rose back into the 90s in the first half of this week.  I paddled for 60 minutes on Tuesday morning and then enjoyed a cool hose bath on the dock.  I also had some summertime fruit waiting there: peaches and nectarines that I'd bought at my local farmers' market.  Pausing to savor things like that is a big part of how I survive, and even occasionally enjoy, the hot summers here.

Later this week some more rainy weather moved into the region, and that brought lower temperatures but not lower humidity.  Conditions were downright sodden as I headed out for a bike ride this morning.  The humidity in the air and the spray from the many puddles I rode through combined to soak me to the core.  I timed myself for just one 5K today, and managed 10:26--not bad for a day like today.  A highlight of the ride was seeing two deer on the Greenline in the woods near the Wolf River.

In other news, Scott Cummins and I have signed up to race a tandem surfski in the Mighty Cumberland River Run at Burkesville, Kentucky.  As of this writing we're the only tandem boat entered in the 12-mile race, so right now the trophy has our name all over it.  I know the prospect of racing a pair of studs like Scott and me strikes fear in the hearts of racers worldwide, but if there are any people reading this who'd like to partner up and paddle to the starting line alongside us, I hope they'll sign up.

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Monday photo feature

Here's a screen shot from a short video that my friend Joe Royer shot from his patio yesterday and then texted to me.  There are three paddlers heading down the Mississippi River toward the Harahan Bridge, and I later found out that they were locals Adam Davis, Ralph Dismukes, and Kata Dismukes.

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

Seeing what I can do on the water and on land

This weekend has brought cooler temperatures to the Mid South, with Fahrenheit highs in the 80s.  But it's been somewhat rainy and very humid, so it's not as delightful outside as you might think.  The rain is part of the same system that has caused catastrophic flooding in eastern Kentucky, but we've been spared such misery here, as the heaviest precipitation has gone north or south of Memphis.

The floodwaters of Kentucky and other parts of the Midwest will eventually find their way to the Memphis riverfront.  Several days ago the Mississippi River was flowing below a foot on the Memphis gauge, but it's now rising toward a predicted crest of 9.6 feet.

The level was almost 3 feet when I went down there to paddle yesterday.  These days my sessions are totally unstructured: I plan to paddle for 60 or 70 minutes and just see what's going on.  When I reached the mouth of the harbor yesterday there was a small barge rig heading upriver, and I went out to see what kind of surfing could be had.  It turned out the waves were small and hard to stay on for any length of time, and I found myself doing lots of hard sprints without much reward.  After a while I returned to the harbor, where I did a couple of long surges before easing back to the dock.

This morning I was back on the bike, riding almost 37 kilometers.  My route was about the same one I rode this past Thursday and Sunday: eastward on the Greater Memphis Greenline to Shelby Farms, and then a loop around Patriot Lake before returning to Midtown on the Greenline.  Today I took a couple of different trails in Shelby farms, and that accounts for the longer distance.

My G.P.S. device is set to alert me every time I complete 5 kilometers.  I never set it that way on purpose; it might just be a default setting.  Anyway, it's gotten me familiar with my 5K times on the bike this year.  It typically takes me a little under 14 minutes to cover 5 km, and that seems pretty good to me until I remember that there are a few dozen runners in this world covering it as much as a minute faster than that.

This past Thursday I thought I'd see just how fast I could ride a 5K, just for fun or to satisfy my curiosity or whatever.  I gave it three tries, the fastest one being about 11 minutes, 3 seconds.  I continued the experiment today, and this time I did it on a section of the Greenline with no street crossings.  Heading out toward Shelby Farms I was slowed several times by people walking their dogs, but I managed to clock 10:26.  After riding an easier pace around the lake, I returned to that uninterrupted stretch of Greenline and rode another hard 5K, lowering my time to 10:14.

I'm sure these times are unimpressive to more accomplished bike riders.  A 10:14 5K works out to an average speed of less than 30 kilometers (18.6 miles) per hour.  But let me remind you that I was riding my 25-year-old low-tech mountain bike, dressed in gym shorts and a cotton tee shirt.  And I have no particular training goals as a bike rider; I was out there just seeing what I could do.  And that's what sports is all about, isn't it?  From world-class athletes down to the least-talented masses, each of us is just seeing what he or she can do.

I got rained on during the return leg of today's ride.  It really started pouring right as I got home.  It was nothing to worry about: whenever a kid at the summer camp I attended started whining about having to do something in the rain, the standard retort from the counselors was "Skin is waterproof."

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Nothing lasts forever

I'm definitely in a regrouping phase now.  I did a 34-kilometer bike ride Sunday morning, a mostly-easy 70-minute paddle Tuesday, and a 33-km bike ride today.  That's the nature of my physical activity these days.

It's tempting to think that this has been a "light" year, seeing as how I haven't attended but three races.  But the reality is that I've spent the last eight months working very hard.  It started last December, when I got going in earnest to prepare for my trip to South Africa at the end of January.  When I returned from that trip on February 1, I turned my attention to the race at Ocean Springs in late March and laid down a solid body of work.  I backed off a bit during the month of April, but then spent May and June building the fitness, power, and speed I would need for the race in the Columbia Gorge.

It hasn't been easy.  I've struggled with feelings of low energy, and my weight continues to be down a bit.  Tests I've had done at the doctor's office have revealed no problems, and I wonder if I'm not just getting old and past my prime... tough to accept for any athlete who's spent his life looking at times and speeds and so on.

I recently heard an interviewer say to Jasper Mocke, "Complete this sentence: 'I am a paddler because...'"  Jasper replied, "'...I need to be.'"  I think that's as good a reason as any for why I'm a paddler, too.  And maybe this sounds weird, but I've spent my life thinking things "need" to be a certain way.  When I started running track and cross country in high school it had been a few years since any distance runners from my school had advanced to the state meet, and I felt that I "needed" to correct that.  Later on, once I'd moved back to my hometown and gotten more serious about canoe and kayak racing, I saw that my city was not exactly a hotbed for racers, and I felt a "need" to remedy that, too.

And so that's what I've been trying to do for the last several decades.  I wouldn't say I've had brilliant success--I'm not a world-class talent and I've never been a contender to make national teams or anything like that.  But I've had a modicum of success in regional races over the years and I've made sure there's at least one person down on the Memphis riverfront paddling a boat with all the effort, technical precision, and wisdom he has in him.

Now I'm wondering if I still have the desire to go out and do hard workouts and make myself hurt for diminishing results.  Certainly I should have known all along that I won't be able to go out and clock certain times forever, but that doesn't make it any easier to accept that maybe the aging process is slowing me down to a noticeable degree.  The reality is that the world will keep going about its daily business regardless of whether Elmore Holmes can average 5 minutes per kilometer, and somehow I need to find a way to get over myself and keep enjoying those aspects of the sport that remain accessible.

I do have a race coming up pretty soon, August 20 on the Cumberland River at Burkesville, Kentucky.  My friend Scott from Louisville has invited me to do it with him in a tandem surfski.  I certainly plan to give it my best--I never want to let a tandem partner down--but I'm not likely to put as much pressure on myself as I do when paddling solo.  Hopefully we'll just have a lot of fun, and I need that more than anything right now.

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

Monday photo feature

During my week in the Columbia River Gorge I had fun getting to know the guy to the right in this photo. Adrián Carpente is a native of northwest Spain who now lives in Palo Alto, California.  The photo is a screen shot from some video footage Adrián shot while we rode the wake of the sternwheeler on the 11th of July.  That's me in the white Epic surfski in the middle; to the far left is another resident of the southeastern U.S., John Wellens of Prosperity, South Carolina.

You can see more of Adrián's video footage in an edit I put together and posted here.

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

Settling back into life at home

I've sort of crashed since my return home on Sunday.  Aside from several bike rides around the neighborhood, I did nothing athletic all week.  On Wednesday I thought I was getting sick--I had a hint of a sore throat all day.  I wondered if perhaps the COVID-19 virus had gotten me at last: every airplane and airport I'd been in was packed, and I found myself in a couple of dense crowds during the race week, too.  I went down to the drugstore and picked up one of those home test kits.  The kit consisted of two antigen tests, and I took one of them on Wednesday and the other Thursday.  Both registered a negative result.  Since Wednesday I've been feeling fine, so I guess I evaded that virus once again.

A couple of chores have kept me from being a complete shut-in.  One of those was going to the doctor Tuesday morning.  My cholesterol level has been on the high side my whole adult life, and when I visited the doctor in May my LDL had shot up high enough that she decided it was time to put me on one of those "statin" drugs.  The purpose of Tuesday's visit was to re-check the level and see if the drug was doing any good.  My LDL was down dramatically, so I guess I'll be popping that pill each day from now on.

Another chore was dealing with a crew that removed a couple of trees over at my rental property yesterday.  They of course did all the work while I just stood there and watched.  We've had another few days of triple-digit Fahrenheit temperatures, and fortunately they seemed to be well-acclimated to such conditions and experienced in dealing with them.  They made quick work of the two trees, wrapping up the whole job in less than five hours.

This morning I finally got back in the boat for the first time since my last downwind session in the Columbia Gorge last Saturday.  It was hot and getting hotter outside, but I was glad to be back on my home water.  I felt rusty and sluggish in the boat.  I wasn't used to the tippiness of my V12 after spending the week in the Gorge paddling a V9.  I was even having to brace a little on some of my strokes, and that put some stress on my left wrist.  If I had gotten in the boat maybe 20 minutes earlier I would have had some barge wakes to try to surf; as it was, the barge traffic was well off in the distance to the north by the time I reached the mouth of the harbor.  I ended up playing around in some bumps and otherwise paddling easy for 70 minutes.

It felt good to take my hose bath back at the dock.  For anybody who wonders how I stand these hot, humid summers, that's as good an answer as any.

I'm not sure what remains for me in terms of racing this year, and at the moment I don't really care.  I'll start caring again soon enough, but for now my focus is on getting a little exercise and surviving another hot summer.

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

Sternwheelin' freewheelin'

Last Monday (July 11) was a not-so-windy day in the Columbia Gorge, so Adrián and I paddled out to see what fun we might have behind the sternwheeler that's based at Cascade Locks.  Here's a bit of the footage that Adrián shot on his Go Pro camera:

 

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

Americana fun (2022 edition)

As I mentioned before, I have now visited every one of the United States of America.  Going to Alaska from the 7th to the 10th of this month enabled me to add it as the 50th and final state on my list.

It is now my goal to paddle a boat in every state, and I have done so in 44 of the 50 states.  The six outstanding states, in alphabetical order, are Alaska, Arizona, Delaware, Maine, Minnesota, and New Jersey.

A trip down the Grand Canyon seems an obvious way to pick up Arizona.  I've never been good at getting myself included in big groups of people, and that's really what you have to do to run the Grand.  If you're reading this and are involved in an upcoming trip that needs another person, I'd love to hear from you.

Meanwhile, a paddling trip in Alaska is something I'll have to dedicate more time and energy to than I was able to do this month.  Similar effort might be required for Maine because of how far away it is.  Perhaps I'll plan a trip up the Eastern Seaboard during which I pick up Delaware and New Jersey and end up in Maine.  Maybe next year I'll skip the Columbia Gorge race and focus on one of these trips.

I'm not sure why I've never paddled in Minnesota; there's nothing that complicated about it.  It's far from where I live, but not insanely far.  Part of the problem is that it's not on my way anywhere unless I want to go to Manitoba or Saskatchewan or someplace like that.  Maybe I'll go to the Boundary Waters, though I've got to say I'm not a fan of mosquitoes.

Oh well, there's plenty of time to think about all that.  Here's the updated list.  States marked with an asterisk (*) are the ones I have merely visited.  States marked with a pound sign (#) are the ones I have visited and paddled a boat in.

Alabama#
Alaska*
Arizona*
Arkansas#
California#
Colorado#
Connecticut#
Delaware*
Florida#
Georgia#
Hawaii#
Idaho#
Illinois#
Indiana#
Iowa#
Kansas#
Kentucky#
Louisiana#
Maine*
Maryland#
Massachusetts#
Michigan#
Minnesota*
Mississippi#
Missouri#
Montana#
Nebraska#
Nevada#
New Hampshire#
New Jersey*
New Mexico#
New York#
North Carolina#
North Dakota#
Ohio#
Oklahoma#
Oregon#
Pennsylvania#
Rhode Island#
South Carolina#
South Dakota#
Tennessee#
Texas#
Utah#
Vermont#
Virginia#
Washington#
West Virginia#
Wisconsin#
Wyoming#

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

Monday photo feature

Here I am less than a minute into the Gorge Downwind Championships race on the Columbia River on Friday.  The race is so young, so mysterious, so full of possibilities...

That it would develop into the slowest and most painful of my four Gorge races is just how it sometimes goes in our sport, and probably every sport.

I'm not sure who the photographer is for this photo.  Possibly Sandy Yonley, but I wouldn't take that to the bank.  In any case, it's one of very many nice shots.

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

Home at last

There's no question I was beat to the socks on Saturday, but as Adrián and some other paddlers I knew headed out on a run from Stevenson to Home Valley in the afternoon, I decided to join in.  And I'm glad I did.  After a calm morning the wind was picking up, and the conditions, while not huge, were very enjoyable.  It felt good to link some runs and make the boat go fast for about 10 kilometers.

Yesterday morning Adrián and I checked out of our Air B&B and headed toward Portland in Adrián's rental car.  Along the way we stopped and looked at some sights along the Historic Columbia River Highway, including Ponytail Falls, the Oneonta Tunnel, and Multnomah Falls.  We got the rental car returned by the noon deadline and took an Uber to the Portland airport.  We got there just before noon, and my flight wasn't scheduled to leave until a minute before midnight, so what I hoped to do was check my bags and then take public transit into downtown Portland, where I might walk around for a bit.  But the airline agent informed me that it wasn't possible to check one's bags more than four hours before a flight.  I told her I didn't want to be stuck with my bags all day, and she suggested I put myself on standby for an earlier flight.

In short, I ended up on a one o'clock flight that arrived at Dallas-Fort Worth around 7:45 Central Time, then made a dash to a distant wing of the airport to board a plane to Memphis a half hour later.  I wasn't interested in hanging around the airport any longer than I had to, but the downside is that I had no time to find anything decent to eat.  Because the airlines seem to be feeding passengers next to nothing on domestic flights these days, I ended up eating very little all day yesterday.

I touched down in Memphis around 10:15 PM Central Time--more than two hours before my originally-scheduled flight out of Portland would take off.  My friend Rob very kindly came to pick me up.  We waited an absurdly long time for my baggage to emerge on the carousel, and spent another eternity in line to pay for the short-term parking, and then a trip up Airways Boulevard delivered me home at last.

And I am so glad to be back.  So glad.  I don't care how beautiful the places I visit might be, or how awesome the paddling might be; after a few days away from home all I want is to be back there.  The weather forecast here in the Mid South looks terrible, with the temperature currently predicted to hit 103 degrees Fahrenheit on Wednesday, and I suppose I'll be missing the cooler, less humid Pacific Northwest weather, but still... I'm home, and that outweighs the discomfort of the coming weeks.

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