Like taking a Big Wheel out on I-35

Seattle is well known for being filled with outdoors activities, and we jumped into them with both feet Wednesday.

We started off by doing a hike down behind Jeff & John's house on the City of Bellevue trail network. Easy hike from their house down to Coal Creek, where along the way we saw some disgusting slugs, tons of wild blackberries, some monster spiders, and ferns galore. One section was only .1 of a mile, and went quick downhill, but that same .1 took an eternity heading back up the hill. When we made it to the creek, Chaz took some time to look at the rocks around the bed. He's turned into quite a rock hound since taking geology at SWT; he found some cool ones, even a couple of pieces of coal. We've had great weather, so that's been nice, and the hiking wasn't all that bad.

Our other excursion was Chaz's idea: kayaking on Lake Washington over to the Arboretum. Sounds cool, eh? He found a place to rent the kayaks, Agua Verde paddle club, the weather in the afternoon cooperated, and it seemed pretty doable, even without experience on the water. I had my doubts, mostly because having no experience and seeing kayakers doing rolls in the water down rapids (on TV of course), I figured I was going to get soaked and drown. They got our boats unshelved and in the water, fitted us with spray skirts and life jackets, gave us the $2 lesson, and we were off on our aquatic adventure.

Getting of the dock was no big deal, the paddle was easy to work, and the rudder wasn't too bad at first, but after leaving the dock heading out into the channel between Lake Union and Lake Washington, panic began to set in. We were assigned to get across the channel before heading east, and to stay close to the shore, since we were the smallest craft on the water. No shit we were the smallest craft.. a third of the way across the channel, a 54 foot Argosy tourist boat starts heading right for where I'm at, albeit a long way off.

Oh crap. *PADDLE*PADDLE*PADDLE*PADDLE*PADDLE *PADDLE*PADDLE* I change course, and sure as hell, the boat changes course as well. AIGH! *PADDLE*PADDLE*PADDLE*PADDLE *PADDLE*PADDLE*PADDLE* Sure, this is my idea of fun.. taking out a tiny vehicle that I can barely control out in the middle of a lake, and having big rigs aiming right at me. As the boat came within 300 yards, it was closer to the coast than I was, and if I kept paddling, I'd be closing the gap more than he would, so I stopped paddling, and just stared as it went by. Fine, so you're not going to run over me, just get out of the way. The wake rocked me a bit but I survived. The ordeal was hardly over however: we had to navigate a narrow 'cut' to get over near the arboretum, and that had lots of chop from wind and other craft. It took us about 40 minutes to get to the arboretum, but once over there, things were a little easier. The kayak moved easier on the still water, and I had a bit more control with the rudder there. We paddled out among the lilly pads, the ducks and herons for a good while. It turned out to be pretty fun, and not too wet, but in the back of my mind I had to save energy to get back across the cut and down the channel to the paddle club.

Needless to say, we enjoyed the paddling about, and made it back relatively unscathed, with only numb butts & legs from the trip. Fortunately the paddle club's restaurant had margartias and a deck above the lake where we could recover in short order, at least emotionally... the sore arms from the paddling might take a little longer to recover.