Weather's Been Keeping...

...me off of the Surfboarder, which sucks, because that's one of the main ways that I had been planning on getting into better shape.

A couple of things have been keeping me from getting out on the board as much as I would like...first off is a lot of rain lately, and second is the fact that now whenever we get home from work it's already a bit too dark to board. I have a light hooked up to the Big Stick, but it's only one of those jogging lights. It does a good job of showing cars where I am, but it doesn't do a very good job of showing me anything that might be in the way while it's dark on the road.

I really still enjoy boarding with the Big Stick. If you know me, you know that I have a habit of picking up a hobby then just kind of stopping in a very short amount of time. However, with the Big Stick, I am still going pretty strong. I really like getting out with the stick on the Surfboarder. I actually have gone over to the walking trail a couple of times and it's one of the better places that I've found to paddle. 99% of the trail is really nice smooth pavement. The other 1% could stand to be repaved...that doesn't include, of course, the wood bridges that go over the water. I found that last time I went there I ended up paddling around the whole thing twice, which as best I can tell is about 2.6 miles. I wanted to do at least three laps, but it was getting really hot out when I did it.

I actually have enjoyed paddling so much that I think I'm going to ask Cathy for a bamboo Big Stick for Christmas. After talking with Dave from SoCalSkater.com, I have determined that I would actually be better off with a 6' Stick instead of the 5'6" one that I have. The bamboo Stick also has a bit more snap, which should help me get going faster. Dave told me that his 5 mile paddle had been taking him about an hour with the 5'6" Stick, but as soon as he switched to the 6' bamboo Stick, he cut that time down to less than 45 minutes. That means that before he had been doing about 5 miles an hour with the shorter stick, but with the longer bamboo Stick he's up to nearly 7 miles per hour. I would like to get going faster if I had the opportunity.

I think over the next few weeks (when we're not in Vegas) I'm going to start trying to find a few more places to paddle. I have two in Lansing in mind...one is at a park with a small lake near an apartment that I lived at for a while, and the other is the River Walk in Lansing which is a great trail for bike riding, but I'm not sure how awesome it would be for paddling. I also want to check out a park near my parents home that they took me through once. It seemed like it might be PERFECT for some land paddling.

Oh yah, I forgot to mention, Dave has actually put part of my review up as the main description for the Surfboarder. That's pretty cool.