1st Annual Used Outdoor-Gear Fair Minneapolis

Date: Jan 31, 2009
Setup: 4pm onwards bring your gear (please bring blanket to protect the tables)
Sale: 5pm-7pm
Potluck: 7pm onwards
On to the pub: 9pm (i.e. that’s when we kick you out :-)
Location: NEC, 724 Lowry Ave NE, Minneapolis, MN 55413
http://www.mapquest%20.com/maps?

Let’s get together to swap, buy and sell our used gear!

Let’s get together to swap stories, talk stoke and exchange e-mail addresses!

Bring your used gear and or cash to buy used gear from others and a dish to pass for the potluck after the sale.

The vision is, that everybody who has outdoor gear for sale or wants to buy some has ONE place to go to sell and buy, versus having to peruse the boards and then travel all over the place to have a look etc. And since it's fun to meet a lot of folks who are passionate about doing outdoorsy things, there's a potluck after the sale to have a chance to socialize and talk stoke.

There's quite a bit of outdoor gear that is useful for a wide range of sports, like functional wear, etc. Also, maybe a chance to think of adding a new activity, talk to people who do it and pick up some gear to get started as well as find people to get started with.

Invited are a variety of outdoor clubs, which do things like kayaking and canoeing as well as skiing, snow shoeing, skating, rollerblading, hiking, back-packing, climbing, etc. and any other individuals who are interested, but don't belong to any of the clubs, so feel free to spread the word to your friends!

Please check the website http://www.rapidsriders.com/ for more info and updates as well as to ask questions you may have about this event.

NOTE: You will be in charge of looking after your own goods! We will not be liable for any losses. So I suggest you partner up with some buddies for the sale so you can watch each other’s merchandize, while one of you is getting a drink, checking out the sale for themselves or going to the bathroom. Also, bring change, so you don’t miss out on a sale, just because you couldn’t figure out the money!

Address questions to: Rosie D, at the above website

Address your thanks to: Kathi L, without her we wouldn’t have a great place for the event, by organizing a community dinner so that we get the place for free!

Siren's Call

Friday July 20

Nora had asked me, if I wanted to go to Taylors Falls on the St. Croix with her. I somehow rationalized myself into taking the day off despite looming deadlines - and what a gorgeous day it was!!!

The pictures below are from another equally gorgeous day at the same spot but taking the steam boat. You have to look close, but there are actually a couple of playboaters who I may meanwhile know, but I don't quite recognize their boats and gear. At the time I got all concerned, because I saw this one guy working it really hard and still not escaping this spot. When I told my friend, that we need to get help for a rescue, she explained to me, that no, he's just surfing. Aah. You can imagine I felt a bit like an idiot :-).

Exhausted from the week's grind and too little sleep I didn't have the fight in me to actually run it, although the current low water level would have made it a fairly mellow run. Tried not to beat myself up for letting Nora down on that one. And I didn't have to, because she nearly wacked me with her paddle, after I had "learned" what trespassing is :-) The guy and his wife were super-nice about it and extremely eager to help me out and show me a good route. After all, they clearly could tell that I had in no way meant to be, where I had ended up. "Vat, sis is not se vay to se osser side of se britch? Sorry!" So no harm to the reputation of good kayakers done, phiew!

And hey, ferry work is good too and since I had lost my ferry this spring I definitely want to get a lot of practice in. And I can tell that my abs are getting stronger from concentrating on better body rotation on the flat stretches, I can still feel some arm toning, but I can live with that :-).

We broke for lunch and had greasy food. Just as well, that I don't usually get to do that. I don't think it would do anything for me and my "under water work" :-).

Nora showed me a great way of getting the boat over a stretch of too shallow water without us looking like bent old hags. Sticking the paddle into the bow of the boat and pushing it probably made us more look like housewives with very strange pinafores and even stranger hoovers before we were afloat and on our way back upriver again. But we were not alone...in fact we were being "ferreted out" by a cute little and wet wanna-be otter who ran alongside with us on shore with his head peaking out over the rocks every so often, checking up on what we were up to. And yes, we bumped into Jeff, a hard to mistake greenland paddler with his homemade yellow boat.

It's such a pretty river, so here's some more impressions from my first trip to the St. Croix with my kayaking friends Roxanne, Courtney & Tom, a couple of years ago and just a little further downstream from the rapids.