Belated Kayaking Photos

Believe it or not, I've been racking my brain, trying to come up with some fascinating nuggets to share with you all.  Unfortunately, all I've got is pieces of lint and a couple of dust bunnies.  I'm all cluttered up with little things like "return shoes to store...sometime" and "eat spaghetti sauce before it spoils."  Yeah, that's worth memorializing in electronic ink.

So here on a Sunday morning I find myself waiting patiently for Miss Chef to arise, and see if she still wants to go kayaking at the US National Whitewater Center.  She had a late night; one of the servers is leaving for a summer job in the Hamptons, and I got a text message last night that she was at a bar with him after work.  I went to sleep, but I think she came in around 1 am.  I don't know how she does it.

Anyway, this all somehow reminds me that I never did share our last kayak trip with you.  I finally bought myself a dry bag for the camera, so was able to take some pictures on the water.  Without further ado, here they are...six weeks old, but fresh to you!

Miss Chef leads the way, as I am too busy fumbling with camera and bag to make much speed.

This was most of our view.  We went a different way this time, and found all kinds of small inlets and dead ends.  Not as pretty as in the fall, but it's nice to be surrounded by nature...or as much as you can be on a pretty well-traveled river.

Last time, in the other direction, we saw an actual osprey near an established nest.  This one hasn't been used, but these poles are dotted up and down the river.  I don't know who's responsible for putting them there, but it's reassuring that such programs exist.  This pole was at the downstream tip of a small islet.  (If you click on it to biggerize it, you can read the sign.  Obviously, there are no literate ospreys around.)

Some kind of slalom course belonging to the USNWC.  Not sure how it's supposed to be used, but Miss Chef and I played around with it a little.  These big, bulky sit-on-top kayaks are not designed for slalom work!

Ooo, look, wildlife!  Totally fuzzy...it's hard to manage a kayak in position and take a picture without scaring the animals.  In fact, there were two turtles here before I came fumbling around.

Ah, but when we cut through a narrow pass, we came upon these guys...

Yeah, semi-feral pigs.  Actually not a good sign for wildlife, as they are very destructive to the environment.  Bet they'd make pretty good bacon.  But since there was already another couple watching them, and I'm not in the habit of carrying a shotgun with me, we were pretty happy to watch them scratch their butts on the the trees.

And finally, Blogger and my slow DSL connection were kind enough to allow me to upload a short video.  You can hear Miss Chef laughing in the background.  Enjoy!