Re: [Paddlewise] Looking back

ralph diaz wrote:

> I know a number of PaddleWisers are in the same boat, i.e. having
> started paddling when older.  If you could re-visit some of your
> pre-paddling haunts again, only this time with a kayak, which would they
> be and why?

I fit the age descriptor well, but my path has been very different.  I used to
be a climber, with an intense focus on high places.  None of those places is
visitable by sea kayak -- except perhaps by the severely demented set that
likes to slide down ski slopes in WW yaks.  Hmmmm ... maybe that might actually
be fun.

OTOH, I live in a place that has **tons** of terrific flatwater to play on ...
which I totally ignored during the climber phase of my life.  So, learning to
yak, and discovering how easy and fun it is to poke around watery haunts has
enriched my life in an unexpected way.  I have "rediscovered" the Lower
Columbia.  One year, in response to a survey, I toted up something like 50 days
on the water **locally** -- days which put me in touch with the natural
surroundings we enjoy here in ways I could never have fathomed before.  In
addition, my region has a long and rich history of settlement and resource
extraction (gill net fishing and its canneries; logging and its mills,log dumps
and abandoned company towns).  All of that has made my leisure time more
enjoyable.

Finally, exploring old ground has led me to conversations with oldsters who
lived in the company towns, cannery operations, and the like -- connecting me
to those who went before.  Another benefit I had never anticipated.

Yeah, Ralph, after 50, "if it don't hurt, it don't work" but we also have a
better, more sanguine outlook on what we see.  Thanks for your reflections on
sex after 50 ... oh, I mean *sea kayaking* after 50.  (They ARE both "s" words,
ya know!)

-- 
Dave Kruger
Astoria, OR
older than average sea kayaker
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