Posts filed under 'kayaking'
In my commitment to community building in Seattle, I have been organizing a meetup group for sea kayakers in Seattle… now I have started a meetup group for sea kayakers in the gay community. I have not been able to locate a GLBT kayaking club anywhere in the Seattle area, so through starting the meetup I hope to see if there’s interest in the community to forming a GLBT kayaking club here. Portland has it’s own successful sea kayaking club, OutKayaking, so it’s possible that such a club could be successful in Seattle. Anyone interested in joining the Seattle GLBT Sea Kayaking Meetup can sign up for free. I will continue to organize the Seattle Area Sea Kayaking Meetup as well as lead a kayak trip or two through OutVentures.
April 15th, 2007
During the summer months, I thought ahead to the colder weather and wondered at what point I should put away the kayaking gear for the season. The answer is… I don’t have to stop kayaking!
Northwest Outdoor Center is hosting Christmas Carolling by Kayak on the weekend of December 8-10. They will be taking groups of 30 on Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights to go Christmas carolling to the houseboats on Lake Union. I’m leading a group from OutVentures on Saturday night, December 9th.
October 29th, 2006
I decided to take advantage of my “government-paid vacation” to spend some time at my family’s cabin at Crawfish Lake. The late summer weather was cool and a little rainy, but the weather cleared on Thursday and I was able to get in some kayaking.
Good news… I have a new contract position which starts on Monday. My new office is located on East Lake Union in Seattle… maybe I can kayak to work one of these days.
September 23rd, 2006
REI came through for me this weekend with my new kayak, paddle and sprayskirt (wearing a sprayskirt is the closest I get to dressing in drag). I drove to Portland on Saturday, had a beer, watched a movie, picked up my kayak and drove back to Seattle. This morning I tested out the new kayak on Lake Washington and the Washington Park Arboretum. I invited another member of Seattle Frontrunners to join me on the two hour trip. I think the new boat will take some getting used to, but I look forward to improving my paddling skills. All in all, it was a good weekend to get out and spend with other people; a welcome change from just sitting inside watching TV.
July 23rd, 2006
I went to Portland this weekend to pick up my new Wilderness Systems Tempest 170 kayak at REI, but found out that the boat I ordered was damaged in shipping. Now, I have to go back to Portland in a couple of weeks to pick up my kayak. I hope all this trouble is worth saving the $200 I would have to pay in sales tax had I purchased the kayaking equipment at the Seattle REI store. I have to say that REI is very good about making sure their customers get what they want.
The trip wasn’t a total waste because my brother, his finance, my cousin and I went boating on the Willamette river in my cousin’s speedboat. It was absolutely beautiful boating weather.
July 17th, 2006
While I live on a lake, one wonders why I would have a holiday at another lake. Well, for starters, my family owns a cabin on Crawfish Lake in North Central Washington State. For another reason, Crawfish Lake is quieter because it doesn’t allow motorboats (and doesn’t have two freeways crossing it). I got up early on Saturday morning (yes, early means 8am) and started on the five hour drive across the Cascade Mountains. I spent four days and three nights with my parents, eating free food and taking the kayak out on the water.
I also managed to read an entire book in just three days: Murder in the Vatican. I highly recommend this book to anyone who is Catholic, used to be Catholic or anyone who ever wonders how much political influence the Catholic Church has in the world.
I didn’t bring my camera up to the lake this trip and I only managed to take one crappy cell phone picture. I do however have a couple of nice photos of the lake from my archives.
July 9th, 2006
This weekend was the big Seattle Gay Pride celebration… this year in dowtown Seattle. I went down to the festival at Seattle Center on Saturday, went around to all the booths, talked to a few organizations about finding stuff to do, listened to live music and ate a bunch of junk food. I have to say that there is a lot more room for the festival at Seattle Center. On Sunday, I went to the parade and was even able to find a good viewing spot in Belltown despite showing up only 15 minutes before the start of the parade. I didn’t really meet any new people, but I did join the gay outdoor club, OutVentures. I hope to join them on one of their kayaking outings this summer, and maybe meet some new people in the process.
Seattle Pride was the third Pride celebration I have been to this summer. Last weekend, I went to Portland Pride in Portland, Oregon. The weekend before that I had a booth for WilburnWeb at Spokane’s pride celebration, which is organized by OutSpokane.
June 25th, 2006
