I know this attitude is downright un-American but I can't help it. And I know that in the spring there are nice flowers, the trees turn green, and everything is "new" but it's all "yadda yadda" to me because... well... spring is an "in-between" season for me. No cross-country skiing and no kayaking. Take last weekend when I planned a trip to Oak Harbor (on Whidby Island north of Seattle) for a camping trip and paddle down to Penn Cove and Coupeville. I once lived in this area so it's familiar to me even though I now live 200 miles (and a mountain range) away. The weather for last weekend was rain. Not much of a surprise given that Oak Harbor is in the Puget Sound area. But to top it off, the tides (which can range some 13 feet) were at zero and slightly minus that weekend right in the middle of the day; noon and 1pm. Argh! I can handle camping in the typical Seattle-area rain but trudging across a quarter mile of mud flats with a 60-lb kayak is just not appealing. I'm just too old for that stuff. So I opted to go to the lake house on Moses Lake to do some spring yard work and hopefully grab a paddle. (Why I have a lake house in Moses Lake is a story unto itself... don't ask.) While most people think of Washington as "The Evergreen State" (it says so on the license plates) at least a third of the state is desert with an average 6 to 8 inches of rainfall. Moses Lake is a small city of 16,000 smack dab in the middle of this desert. Desert means no trees or, at least, no forests. And spring means wind. No trees to break the wind. When I did get a chance to launch a kayak for a 3 mile trip to the sand dunes and back I was damn glad I chose the Nimbus Telkwa (overkill, I know) for the trip. The slight 6kt headwind on the way down backed and picked up to a 20-25kt wind from port on the way back - with 1 to 2 foot whitecaps beam-on. Oh... and spring means that the ice has just melted so the water is... um... cold (with a capital "F"). An hour later I stumbled up the steps to find everyone else finished with dinner ("where the hell were you?") and the house too cool at 70 deg. I cranked the thermostat up to 80 on my way to the bedroom to change. Look, all I want to do is either go cross-country skiing or go paddle. Heck, I'd even do white-water but (have I mentioned this?) it's spring. Spring means snow melt and even though we had a disastrous snow-season in the Cascade Mountains it's raining and snowing now (spring, remember?) so there is enough water to turn most local rivers from Class II and III fun-paddles into Class IV-V torrents. My seonc-hand "quiver" of white-water kayaks was carefully chosen on the basis of low price and availability. Either I'm a poor judge of these boats or I need one that I can just sit in while it keeps me out of trouble and rightside-up. I am not very good at either of those; at least not in any of the w/w kayaks that line the dining-room wall of the lake house (hmm, could this be one reason my wife avoids this place?). If Segway ever builds a white-water kayak I want to be first in line. So white water kayaking in the spring is beyond my athletic abilities. And, as long as I'm being honest here, it's beyond my abilities most of the time. But I still like a nice run down a simple Class II rapids or a gentle ride in a not-very-difficult hole. Of course, in the spring there is precious little gentle water anywhere around and darn near all of it is difficult. If I were 20 again (or maybe if I could just *remember* 20) I might be at 6,000 feet exploring un-skiied slopes or running the Wenatchee or surfing some of the holes in the Spokane. But age has mellowed me... let me correct that... age has turned me into a wimp. I don't mind getting a little wet but if more than about 30% of me gets soaked I get... well... cranky. Spring is nothing if not wet what with the stuff falling from the sky and the wind blowing it right at you along with what seems like half the lake. And my skiing has changed from reckless abandon down steep bowls and narrow couloirs to quiet rambles on groomed and tracked trails. For excitement I strap on some skate-skiis (discovered at the local Goodwill store for $9) and see if I can go farther than the 1/2 mile I managed last weekend. When I was 20 I could ski down anything more-or-less covered by snow; now I need virtually perfect conditions and the promise of some sort of reward at the end. My wife baits me with promises of wild sex knowing full-well that I'll be too exhausted at the end to carry out my end of the bargain. But anything beats what spring turns me into. Spring turns me into the sort of guy who watches gardening shows on HGTV and cooking shows on the food network. To gain an appreciation for the irony in this you should know that I have a ceramic "How to Boil Water" magnet on the fridge that my family awarded to me when the kids were little. My son was 18 before he found out I didn't actually cook those Chicken Pot Pies we used to snack on when Mom had to work late. In the spring I gain weight, lose muscle tone and generally feel less like the finely-toned athlete I'd like to pretend I am. So that's why I hate spring. And, ya know, I'm not that fond of fall either. Headed for the lake house, Craig Jungers Royal City, Washington *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author. 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