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Showing posts from August, 2011

A Fly-Hike-Fly coming up

Because I'm crazy I'm going to fly to Tucson just for a hike in early October.  I'll be arriving at noon, stop by an outdoor store to get the necessities (mainly the camping fuel that I can't take on the plane) and be heading for the trail head for a two night hike.  After my hike I'll be spending the night at a hotel to wash up and fly back the next day. I picket the Saguaro National Park / Rincon Mountains since I already hiked in the Tucson Mountains and the lower parts of Coronado National Forrest / Pusch Ridge Wilderness.  The biggest challenge will be water supply.  The campsites should have water available for treating but I have to verify that before heading out.  I certainly will need a water filtration system.  I'm eying some gravity flow solution. I drafted a route but things could change depending on water availability, flash flooding (which are common there after strong rains and the trail head is on a gravel road that would get washed out)...

Little Kayaking Adventures

Ever since we took part of the DNR's intro to kayaking, while we stayed at the Honey Creek Resort on Rathbun lake in Iowa, did Oskar want to kayaking.  One night after sailing at Big Creek we rented kayaks from the marina and took them for a spin.  We got to check out some blue-green algae really close up.  These were the sit-on-top type that I don't care much for. This weekend we rented rented two single and one tandem kayaks from ISU's recreational services.  Saturday we went to Brushy Creek state park.  The dammed lake is fairly new and has lot of dead trees in it.  That makes exploring the lake with kayaks that much more fun.  A drawback that the lake has is that the shore doesn't offer places to beach a kayak for lunch.  So we ended up eating it on the lake.  Oskar kayaking on Brushy Creek lake Heidi and Melissa kayaking on Brushy Creek lake Lunch on Brushy Creek lake Its amazing how well Oskar can handle the ka...