OKC Kayak Word Soup

Well,  the Helper Elf Reunion came and went, and short of a little repetitive motion syndrome, I believe that it was a total success.  Over thirty helper elves ate chicken tacos, homemade brownies, and some other grub while relabeling 10,000 brochures.  I had a bit of an evil grin on my face every time I returned from the back bedroom with another case of brochures to be readdressed.  Seven cases (brochures not beer) and an hour later, task master, Linda Manaugh, had the crew label the last one. Kudos to her for coming up with the padlock on the door idea, so that nobody could leave until the job was done.

The evening wrapped up around the front yard campfire (you may be a redneck if……)  Linda Lipp was so craving roasted marshmallows that she agreed to eat some that I had left over from my high school class trip.  She claims to still be hallucinating from ingesting these.

Several of these late night party animals awoke at 4:30 a.m. the next day to volunteer their time further at the Redman Triathlon swim event.  Kudos to you folks that helped us provide the kayak support for this amazing event.

By the way, I still am recruiting “new elves” for the Wildlife Expo this coming weekend.  Those 10.000 brochures will come in real handy!

Thank you my dearest friends!

Dave

I spend the bulk majority of my life either in a kayak, talking about kayaks, or leading a trip.  Whether it be a kayak paddle, hike, birdwatching event or what-have-you, this is also what I do in those rare events that I do find some free time.  Yesterday, the weather forced me to have one of these busman’s holidays.

The weather, you see, was absolutely perfect for a daytrip to the Wichita Mountains National Wildlife Refuge.  The only problem was cloudless skies, temps in the seventies, combined with a weekend day translates into lots of folks that I would have to share the place with.  Now, nothing against scouts or families with screaming babies, but, this place is kind of like my church.  If I am going to be doing some recharging of my batteries, deep soul searching or heaven’s forbid, confessing, I don’t want everyone and there brother to be there right along side me.

Normally, I probably would have waited until some weekday when I could have more of the place to myself, but the call of the mountains proved too tempting.  Furthermore, I reasoned that I could always try to scare off the other visitors by making up lies about how the trail had been washed out by the recent rains, or that their safety was in jeopardy due to the rabid (and hungry) mountain lion.  As it turned out, the ominous forecast that had been predicted for today made all this unnecessary.  I am sure the allure of cotton candy, carnies (did you know that Oklahoma has the highest overwintering population of carnies of any state in the Union?  Don’t take my word for it, our state tourism website brags of the fact.), and meat on a stick kept a lot of these folks away as well.

My hike turned out quite splendid.  I saw very few people, and lots of neat nature stuff.  This was followed up by a trip to my favorite place to get a burger in the state, Meer’s Restaurant.  Only problem was, someone had eaten all the peach cobbler before I got there.  Oh well, cherry pie with homemade ice cream was a suitable substitute.

Anyway, as a former boss of mine would always close his postcard from the faraway destination he was spending his vacation.               Wish you were here………………  Not Really!!!!

Oh, and in case you were wondering what exactly it was that I was needing to confess and get off my chest, it really was me who made that awful sound followed by the acrimonious smell at the movie theater last Friday night.

Hello everyone.

The Redman Triathlon is rapidly approaching. OKC Kayak and family will be again providing the kayak support for the swimmers. This is a lot of fun. It is incredible watching hundreds of swimmers entering the lake and splashing around all at the same time. If you would like to be a part of this and have some experience in a kayak, give us a shout. Basically we are babysitting the swimmers from the water. If they need a hand, they can grab onto our boats or we can summon the rescue boat.

The event takes place at Lake Hefner on Saturday, September 20th. Kayakers will need to be on the water by 6 a.m. Boats should be dropped off the evening before, as you will not be able to park anywhere close to the event at all (plan to arrive early). If you can help out, contact Dave Lindo at 405.830.9689 or by email (dave@okckayak.com).

If this sounds a bit too early for your liking, we could also use a hand with the kayak pool at the Wildlife Expo (Last weekend of September– Friday, Saturday, Sunday). If there is a four hour period or so that you could help out, this would be incredible. Last year we put around 3000 people in kayaks that weekend. This too, is a remarkable experience to watch so many people (especially kids) getting excited about trying kayaking.

Many thanks,

Dave Lindo