Eli and I went up to Michigan for a short kayaking and camping and gear testing trip. Eli’s headed west to visit a few national parks and wanted to see if he liked his gear and possibly would want to buy similar gear to mine for the things he hadn’t purchased yet. The MSR stove definitely won Eli over. It was bought the next day at REI in Ann Arbor.
Here are some pics of the camping side of things. It was too hot and I was too tired to lug the camera around while kayaking on the lake. It was very nice though.
Jason and I headed down the rapids on the Maumee between Waterville and Perrysburg. The video above is from the beginning of the trip where things were chill and slow. Later, I did not film cause I was too busy to not drown.
Kimberly, Natalie, Jason, and I went on a nice three hour trip around Ewing Island in the Maumee River today. It was quite fun. We all went down the not-so-rapid rapids and enjoyed a leisurely paddle downriver. In one of the little creeks at Ewing Island we met a fellow Advanced Elements inflatable kayaker. He said: “This is the first time I’ve seen another kayaker in an Advanced Elements kayak.” We should have talked more, but it was getting dark and the mosquitos were ready for dinner.
This weird skeleton was under about 2 feet of soil. Looks like it was a big animal though. No human.
These are the rapids we went down on. Jason and I had struggled two days ago, but this time we came from upriver. And the water level in the river had increased to a point when the rapids weren’t nearly as fast as they had been on Sunday.
Natalie and Kimberly are looking at the ‘rapids’ from upstream.
Alex is currently working at the American Language Institute where he teaches ESL, functions as technology advocate, and trains students and faculty.
Before A.L.I., Alex was a doctoral fellow in Philosophy of Education, Applied Linguistics, and ESL. He also acted as technology liaison.
During the doctoral stuff, he worked on marketing for Nokia. He also supported, designed, and developed Keynote presentations for Al Gore's The Climate Project.
Before all of that, he was a windsurfing instructor in Denmark, Italy, and Germany.
