Capris Kayaking

One week ago Friday, I talked Cindo and Pablo into kayaking in the Isles of Capri. I'd seen ocean kayakers while on our morning walk one day. The, when looking through a local magazine I saw an ad for a kayak rental place with no reservations required.

We got up and ate breakfast at Susie's Diner - one of our fave places in town. Then we headed to Capri Fish House and Tony fixed us up with 3 Perception kayaks, paddles and life jackets. Paul got the map - was that because he's the guy? The kayaks were around 11 footers. We were in the backwater - it was salt, but no waves.

Right away we saw this osprey nest - and Dad Bird was just bringing supper in - a nice fishy.

We weren't too brave - sticking to areas that looked easy to get back to the Fish House from. But we paddled for a couple hours (we had the kayaks until noon) and found an interesting little beach. Though Cindo had never been kayaking before, she loved it and she caught on right away (we Bullocks are water people - thanks to our Mama).



After we left the beach, we paddled around to where we could see Marco - the south end, called Tiger Tail Beach. It was cool to see it from the water. Then we as we paddled back around toward our point of origin - we saw a dolphin not 20 yards from Paul! It was so cool! It kept surfacing near us for a couple minutes - then off it went.

I'm glad we broke our usual mold of just sitting on the beach and at the pool after our morning walk. It was fun to paddle the waters of South Florida! 



Yakking

I need to get fired up! I'm get to go kayaking Friday - on the Upper Iowa, my fave kayaking river. I've had a rough week...and I'm feeling mopey. So I've got one day to get out of mopesville - tomorrow is it. My crabbiness will dissipate tomorrow at around 4 PM.

Why the bad week? I'm sure you're dying to know - because none of you have had your own stuff do deal with. Sunday was a great day...walking and kayaking with Deb. And Monday started out well, with breakfast with my homies. But went downhill when I got to work.

I had worked on a PowerPoint presentation for my Nashville talk for 2 days. It was based on a paper I had written for that event. The problem is four of us are doing the talk together on our Environmental Management System Pilot Project (I know - I bet you're sad you won't get to see it!) - and 1 person (not me - another queen bee) is in charge of melding all the presentations together. I get to present last, and didn't have the benefit of seeing the other people's stuff before doing mine.

The Queen Bee dissed my presentation and nixed half the slides I worked so hard on. My giant ego was crushed and it was back to the drawing board. I finally finished version 2 today. That all happened late Monday.

After work that night I decided to shop - figured that should perk me up, right? I even had a coupon for Eddie Bauer. But no luck. Stopped at HyVee for a few things on my way to Joan's - then discovered I'd forgotten to drop off my 3 bags of clothes at Goodwill on the way there, AND my milk was leaking. Yep, TRAGIC!

You know what...writing it all down...it all sounds pretty stupid and not worth being crabby over. I'm still mostly sad because of Boldie's illness and another friend who is also ill. I need to find a way to deal with this stuff.

And I get to kayak Friday!

Excellent long weekend!

Strapped the kayaks on the Subaru and headed NE. Stop 1 was at Fox River Mills in Osage - visited with Karla Smith, who I worked with back the the day (1984-1986) in the computer dept. there. Jeez I think they still have the same carpet and paneling at the plant! Good to see her.

Then on to the FMC Landfill about 15 miles away for some work. I like visiting sites so I can picture them when I talk to directors etc. Spent about an hour there with a short tour - you'd think Ken, the director doesn't get many visitors. He didn't want us to leave! He gave me a pint of pickles he canned himself - kinda sweet (the gesture though I'm sure the pickles are sweet too).

On to Decorah - Hotel Winneshiek. Lovely place, nice folks. Downtown Decorah is worth a visit - some nice restaurants and shops. We ended up at a hoppin' sports bar. The next a.m. I stopped at the Decorah Recycling facility and met with the manager and the landfill director there. Took about an hour then we were off to kayak - yippy!

Took off about 11 a.m. - beautiful day. River was busy but not packed like I'm sure it was all weekend. We stopped a bit after noon to eat our sandwiches on a sandbar. The river was high for August but not scary high. A couple bald eagles flew overhead. The terrain was lovely as usual - limestone peaks, exciting riffles to scoot over in my kayak. All too soon - around 2:30 PM we were done, pulling in at Hruska's Campground for our ride back to our car. Our poor Necky kayaks were dust covered from gravel when we arrived.

We got to jail around 4 PM. That's the Jailhouse Bed & Breakfast in Preston, MN for the Goldsmith reunion. Ken, Mary and Carol were there. Off to the Branding Iron at 6 PM for supper - met Foxes, Kelli and Denny, Vorwalds and Larry and Regina there. Somebody was having a 75th bday - noise level was jet engine level and not from the Goldsmiths!

Next day it was golf for some, Regina biked and I shopped with Mary. Last night's meal was catered at the Jail, followed by cards and hanging out. A couple grandkids arrived with their own children for that event - Annette with Megan/Caleb and Karen (Andy golfed) and Erik and Mark.

We took off around 10 AM and were home by 2:30 PM this afternoon - in time to go through the usual routine of laundry packing etc. Breakfast tomorrow with the homegirls - except Teacher (Deb) won't be there as she's on vaca. Another 3 day week for me as we're off to the Ozarks Thursday with friends. I like this schedule!