May 30, 2004

What a crazy week in Washington DC for me.

Saturday: I arrived in time for the Valley Mill Shop Grand opening, which is a Jackson Kayak superstore, along with IR, Sweet, AT, and more. I wrote an article on the opening earlier but since a picture is worth a thousand words, go to:

http://www.potomacpaddlers.com/vmksgo/index.htm

for a bunch of cool photos, including photos from their sick ramp into the onsite pond. That was Saturday.

Sunday:

I taught two 4 hour clinics for Valley Mill Kayak School on Sunday. It was very cool for me to have customers paddling Jackson Kayak Funs for the first time. There was Caroline who has her own Fun 1, and Irena with her 2 Fun. Everybody else was demoing them. I started to lose my voice by the afternoon class. Then it is Potomac Pizza for pizza and beer at 10pm till? Great weekend.

Monday-Wednesday: Instructor clinics for Valley Mill Kayak School instructors, as well as working with the Jackson Kayak plant on production, staffing, etc. in cooperation with Brian, Marty, Tanya, Lorraine, etc. by phone and email. Interesting, fun, but challenging to get the job done properly. Potomac Pizza every night for dinner and beer, not a sustainable lifestyle, need milk or water or something, perhaps some sleep to go with the milk.

Thursday:

1. Train Slalom with the Olympic Coach (Sylvan) and the men’s Olympic Slalom Team- Scotty Parsons and Brett Hyle. I won’t brag, but let’s just say I held my own, enough said, it was very fun and mentally rewarding.

2. Maryland Shoot-out: This is a great freestyle kayak event that was conceived by my friend David McIntosh who moved to Hood River, OR a couple of years ago. Valley Mill has kept it going and there are 6 Shoot outs during the season. Very cool. The location is at Maryland Chute, or in that rapid somewhere. In this case it was at the top of the Center Chute at the “ledge”. Check out

http://www.potomacpaddlers.com/cl426co/index.htm

for photos. I am proud to say that I have won every Shoot Out that I have entered going into this one. This shoot out was a good level for loops, tricky woos, blunts, cartwheels, orbits, etc. and by doing those moves, I was able to win again, awesome.

3. Dinner party at Jana Crouse’s house- wine party- late night, enough said.

Friday:

Get up really early to go and do slalom workout number 2, this time at the artificial whitewater course, “Dickerson”. First I fought DC traffic for an hour and a half, then I had to paddle up the river to the course since I don’t have a pass anymore and that was a 30 minute endurance paddle. Then I worked out and was able to really put my slalom skills to the test on harder whitewater. I was rusty to say the least on the first three runs but by the end I was ready to take on anybody interested in a race.

Late to meet Jana: bad, however, I had the pleasure of getting Jana Crouse into a Super Fun for her to practice her roll and demo the boat for the first time, (good)along with Trudy in the 2 Fun. I also paddled down the river with John, the proud owner of over 30 whitewater kayaks, and he got to try my Fun. I let him paddle it until I couldn’t take it anymore and asked for my boat back. That was when we got to Rocky Island for some surf waves that require a fast boat. I think John will now own 31 boats.

Lotus Lads Paddle with EJ was next at 3:30-7:30. Valley Mill Kayak School ran shuttle from Carderock to Great Falls. I got in the bus last only to find that there was about 40 people there and most of them brought their paddles on the bus (instead of putting them on the trailer). I got everybody to stick their paddles out of the window as if they would row the bus, like a Norse ship. It was very cool looking from the outside of the bus. I taught a bunch of people to hand roll. (it takes me an average of 5 minutes to teach somebody the hand roll now, I have a great new system. We arrived at the take out, which was also the site of the “kick off party” for the Potomac Festival at Carderock. The party was fun with lots of great food by Potomac Paddlesports and Mountain Surf providing an endless keg. They didn’t have cups for a while but the quart Gatorade bottles work fine. I found that I was one of the last to leave, and I think it has to do with the fact that I lost my watch and never know what time it was- it was getting near time to go to the river for the Potomac Festival.

Saturday: Potomac Festival Pro Freestyle and Great Falls Race

The site of the freestyle event was at “portage” rapid. The feature was a small wave/hole with lots of fluctuations. Sometimes totally green, sometimes you could super clean cartwheel and loop really big. The rides were only 30 seconds, for some reason, and that meant you could have 15 seconds of green wave, so it took some focus on the wave itself and some adjustments in your ride. I would blunt and backstab when it was green, and loop and cartwheel when it was breaking- apparently that did the trick. I made the top 5 from prelims along with Luke Hopkins, Spencer Cooke, Jimmy Blakeney, and Joey Hall. We then cut from 5 to 3 and it was me, Luke, and Spencer. The cut from three to two took Spencer out leaving Luke and I to go for the win. I had a good ride getting both the blunts, backstabs, and loops in my 30 seconds and Luke did loops and a clean cartwheel, and a blunt. My backstab, and perhaps the air on the loop did the trick to win the event.

Great Falls Race: It was announced that it was cancelled so only about 15 racers entered. Since the Fish Ladder is blocked off at the 3rd slide and you would only have about 5 racers down the falls at this level or the back canyon of the fish ladder, we raced down the 5th slide (15 seconds) then did a 60 second attainment up the river to an eddy on the other side. In the end it was Jason Beakes with the win, I was second, followed by Nec Poberj (Olympic coach’s son).

Saturday night party: Colin Kemp brought the Jackson Kayak demo fleet to the party and was able to watch people get in them and see their eyes light up. To this day the most common comment for somebody who I put in the boat is: “This is the most comfortable kayak I have ever been in.” I fear that the lack of experience with the Happy Feet Footbag by dealers and kayakers trying the boats on their own takes the comfort level from 100% to 80% and the size of the person who can get in a boat goes down huge. If you ever feel like there is something that isn’t 100% comfortable, or you feel like you can’t get in a boat that is small enough for you, you are doing it wrong, period, so call me or email me so I can talk you through it at the shop if needed.

SALMON DINNER!!! Who ever heard of a salmon dinner at a kayak party? Unbelievable!! Dinner was incredible, then there was video presentations, and finally an aggressive park policeman who needs put in check. The party was closed down early, and Pervis Major had to deal with a policeman that wanted nothing more than to arrest him. Pervis is too smart to fall victim to a cop that is baiting him, way to go Pervis!

Sunday Morning (right now) having coffee at Starbucks, on wireless network, and getting ready to go run Great Falls with Sharky and Joel from Ottawa Kayak School (www.ottawakayak.com) . We will do multiple high water runs today and get our adrenaline fix. I am paddling my river running/playboat the Fun, oh yea. Win the rodeo yesterday, run great falls today, then play the waves below the falls. As long as I can truly enjoy my boat like this, then life is great.

Off to Rock Island later today, by air. Then leave for Vail on Wednesday.

EJ