I can't believe June is half over already! It seems like I was just making a list of all the things I wanted to do this summer, and now I look at my list and think, "I don't have enough time to do all that."
I narrowed it down to three things. Well, three things in addition to the regular summer stuff of camping, festivals, and fairs. I decided I would join the breast cancer survivor dragon boating team, I would re-learn how to ride a unicycle, and I would learn how to geocache.
I'm making some progress. I've been to two dragon boating practices and haven't caused any injury or mayhem. I haven't tipped the boat over and dumped 22 people into Silver Lake, so that's a good thing. These practices are open to the public, so anybody could come down on Wednesday night from 6:00 to 7:00 and watch us cruise up and down Silver Lake.
I know what you're asking...what is dragon boating, right? Well let me tell ya, it isn't like the canoeing trips I did with my Potsdam peeps back in the day. That's a whole other blog post that will involve intentionally capsizing people, floating bars, and getting tangled up in trees or on the rocks.
It also isn't like the rowing competitions you see college or Olympic teams doing. Those are the equivalent of a marathon, and dragon boating is more of a sprint.
There are dragon boat races and festivals from March to late into the fall from Canada to Texas. In our area, there are races in LaCrosse, Dubuque, and Fort Dodge plus some in the Cities.
Each team consists of 22 people: a drummer/cheerleader type person in the front (optional), a stern operator (captain and coach) in the back, and 20 paddlers (ten rows of two) in the belly of the boat.
Whereas canoeing uses a J-stroke at about a 45-degree angle to the water, dragon boating paddling is straight down into the water, straight back, and then straight up out of the water. And we do that 45-50 times per minute.
If you want to see it in action, watch this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCrTQ5BG00E
Sometimes a person wants to compete at an event but the rest of the team cannot, so that person can be a sub on another team. This is referred to as a Boat Slut...willing to jump in just anybody's boat! Hmmm...not sure if that's good or bad!
Our team will be competing in Dubuque, Iowa, on September 8 and 9 if anyone wants to travel to watch. We will also be marching in the Plainview Corn on the Cob Days parade in August.
Which brings me to another goal. I am no stranger to the Plainview Parade. It was an annual event during my childhood, first as a spectator and later as a part of the parade with my unicycle posse. And then that one year as Goat Queen attendant, but that's another blog post entirely.
I haven't been on a unicycle since before my children were born, and the unicycle I had got destroyed in an unfortunate tractor versus unicycle incident so I'm not even certain I could even DO it anymore, but I think I could with some practice.
Herein lies the problem...there are no used unicycles out there. Believe me, I've looked! So I"m going to have to break down and buy one if I really want to reach this goal. They are expensive for having only one wheel. Wouldn't you think they'd be half price of a bicycle, but no, they are not.
I"m still pondering that little issue and wondering if I really want to spend over $100 on a whim that may turn out to be an EPIC disaster but then again might turn into the funnest thing of my golden years. We'll see.
That brings us to the last goal for the summer, and that is learning how to geocache. This is basically a big old ongoing treasure hunt. As long as you have the GPS coordinates to a nearby geocache, you can do this anywhere in the world. I thought I'd start with Pine Island and surrounding area and work my way out. It would be a good option for those lazy weekend days when Captain says, "What should we do?"
I get that the gist of it is that there are caches, or treasures, out there that people have stashed. It could be as simple as an old RochesterFest Button or it might be a Superior Lake agate. Hard to tell. Each cache has a logbook that needs to be signed, and then you have to log into the website and log that you found that cache online.
I guess you can swap treasures also, although I may have that particular tidbit wrong. But say I want that Lake Superior agate. I would have to leave something of equal value in its place and I suppose I would have to tell the Geocache Master, whoever that is, what I did.
I just thought it sounded like a fun way to explore our immediate neighborhood and also be able to explore further away from home if we want. Plus it gets us out of the house and into the great outdoors. We like that kind of stuff.
I hope that you have fun plans for the summer and that you maybe try something new and different this summer. If you do, I'd love to hear about it!
Images used:
https://metabolicmemory.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/meme-you-can-do-it.jpg
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7a/Dragon_boat_budapest_2010.jpg/400px-Dragon_boat_budapest_2010.jpg
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcS-sftY5-bGlgg9H3kK3g5_RFYY7QIIiT3nbhHOXUoDI9Ur0Xkv
https://www.prainc.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/geocache-398017_1920.jpg
No comments:
Post a Comment