Whitewater kayak class is in session

John Karch explaining whitewater basics to a pool full of students.

This is week nine of the first of two 10-week whitewater kayaking courses offered by the Chicago Whitewater Association in the West Cook YMCA swimming pool. After the winter and spring sessions, the club offers a series of beginner trips on increasingly challenging local rivers. It's a wonderful way to learn to paddle.

This is our spawning ground. We started learning to paddle here eight years ago. We were awestruck by the skill and generosity of our instructors, who volunteered their Sunday evenings teaching us to paddle and roll and let us borrow their boats and gear.

A few months later, they were out on their first river trips.

Culminating in a trip to Wisconsin's Wolf and Peshtigo Rivers.

This year, we are the lead instructors at the West Cook Y. (Full disclosure: We're substituting for our our whitewater mentor, John Karch, who isn't available every Sunday this year but whom we expect to take the course back from us when he can.) It only took us nine weeks to realize that we could post our handouts on our blog, saving paper and ink and making the material more widely available.

So that's what we're doing here. Below you will find handouts on hypothermia, safe river kayaking, gear checklists and more.

Hypothermia - from the Wilderness Medical Associates Field Guide.

The American Canoe Association "Paddler's Checklist."

The ACA's Guidelines for river paddling.

For those who want to assess how well their skills align with river classifications, the ACA offers these skill assessments:

We just created a resource list for our students. We'll post it here soon.

The concrete shore

Beside the entrance to the port of Leith is a housing development. Tall, anonymous-in-a-European-way blocks of flats stand on infilled land that used to be part of the harbour. The path that leads past them is our nearest access to the shore, good for looking across the Forth to the hills of Fife, or westwards towards the Forth bridges and the sunset. The blocks of flats I find strangely desolate, so I prefer to look at the firth as it opens up towards the North Sea.

Yesterday evening the sea was a luminous, icy blue. The setting sun picked out an oil tanker.





Below, the little lighthouse at the end of the harbour breakwater.

Monster hunting

Back in July we had a French friend of my daughter's staying with us. On her previous visits we've been very much Edinburgh based, so it was time for a quick tour of some of Scotland's other delights. Our first stop was Loch Ness and a spot of monster hunting. As you see above, we were lucky enough to spot the familiar long neck rising from the 755 feet deep waters. In the ladies' toilets of the The Loch Ness Exhibition, that is.
The exhibition is a tourist magnet. We arrived just after opening time, but already the car park was busy. The exhibition was more balanced than I had expected in its presentation of the 'mystery' of Loch Ness (conclusion: probably not enough of a food chain in the loch to support a beast of the size of the supposed dinosaur relic). But there was the inevitable, heart-sinking, no escape exit through the gift shop.
Outside however was a glimpse of the delightful passion with which people have pursued the monster. This little yellow submarine was used for research dives during the 1960s. It looks like something out of The Clangers, or The Wombles. When I took this shot I didn't notice the boat in the nearby field, perhaps because it's nothing unusual. In Scotland you quite often come across boats moored halfway up a hill, as we'll see later in this tour.

The Loch itself isn't one of the most scenic in Scotland. It's long, and very deep, and often gloomy, as it was on our visit. There are no towering peaks along its shores. Still, it does give the impression that something may lurk in its depths, and it does have an iconic ruined castle - Urquhart Castle - from which this next shot was taken. Note the restraining rail courtesy of Historic Scotland, lest any tourist should topple over into the waters below. I wonder what the clansmen would have made of safety rails?

On our visit the castle was bristling with tourists. Every shot of battlements and craggy walls that I took turned out also to include dayglo waterproof jackets from across the globe. There was one bit of military excitement. A couple of F-16 fighter jets roared down the loch, just captured in the shot below. I know they were F-16s because I was informed by an American tourist who had been in the US Air Force and was overcome by patriotism at the sight of these planes screaming up the loch. I imagine the clansmen would have traded the safety rails for a couple of F-16s.

Our base for our 24 hours at Loch Ness was Kilmore Farmhouse, a B&B at Drumnadrochit which I can thoroughly recommend.

Wander No More

Our Phaeton wanders no more!

Fear not; I don’t mean that we won’t be wandering around North America as planned.  We still intend to do that, but as we drive the highways and byways, we will be doing so with improved steering play and wander.  The SuperSteer SS100 Bell Crank will see to that.

I could enumerate all the reasons and explanations Mui gave me when he said he wanted to have this bell crank installed.  In all honesty, my eyes glazed over as he talked and I tuned him out.  So, I’ll refer you to the SuperSteer website instead.  All I know is that Mui was happy with the results of the install as he drove the backroads today to return the Phaeton to storage, and expects to see even better performance when we next roll down the highway.

Garden Beans With Shallots and Basil

Garden Beans With Shallots and Basil, originally uploaded by ParsecTraveller.

This is an easy side dish that can be made in a few minutes. I used 'Tenderpick' beans from my not-so-healthy plants. Sweet basil (also from the garden) was added, as were shallots from Trader Joe's.

Green Beans with Shallots and Basil
Serves 1.
1 cup fresh green beans
2 shallots
5-10 fresh sweet basil leaves
1-2 tbsp. butter
salt
Peel and mince the shallots. Tear the basil into small pieces. In a pan, stir-fry the green beans, basil, and shallots in the butter (medium-high heat). When the beans are tender, serve immediately and garnish with leftover shallots from the pan. Salt as desired.

Back to Beechmont

Today was the ride that I was meant to do last Sunday, had I not been suffering from some after effects of the dental work. Once again I basically placed no expectations on myself whatsoever regarding setting any speed records on the climbs, I just rode. I have to say that this was a surprisingly liberating feeling (that said, I did own one particular hill just for the sheer hell of it). The ride was a relatively simple climb to Binna Burra at the start of Lamington National Park, then return.

However, the area surrounding Beechmont seemed to have that other worldly feeling about it that it has so often in the past. Perhaps it was because of the unusually low temperatures for the time of year (21 degrees C on the range), perhaps it was just the southerly wind sweeping across the plateau, or perhaps it was just the greenery. Whatever it was, it motivated me to move toward recapturing the detour along southwest road just outside the village, along another spur of the Beechmont Range. I really wondered why I don't take this detour more often. It was 1995 when I first visited this area, and in that time I've only ever taken the detour three times.

I really should make the effort to get out there more often, but how often have I said that in the past?

California Cream Cups

California Cream Cups, originally uploaded by ParsecTraveller.

Earlier today a friend and I went out to Highway 58 and drove east towards the Carrizo Plains. On the way there, we stopped at Shell Creek Road, a famous wildflower location, where we saw vast fields of millions of these cream cups. I have never seen such massive displays of the cream cups, even at places like Bear Valley.
Spring is just getting started here in California - the wildflowers will put on quite a show in the coming weeks.