Recent content by VA paddler

Monday, July 20 - Day 8: We have neglected to speak of the pie since its introduction some days ago. "Pie fixes everything" is the mantra of Moody's Diner here in midcoast Maine - well, this pie didn't fix everything, but it did make things a bit more bearable - especially since our morale...

Saturday, July 18 (Day 6): It was another grey morning in Quebec, best beloved... As the cylinders slowly began to fire and burn off the fog of the previous night, we roused and munched and caffeinated and packed and changed into our wet-chilly-summer-weather gear (which had been standard issue...

Norm gave us a ride to the top of the St John’s 20+ years ago. My buddy’s Virginia-plated truck had an anti-logging sticker on it and before we left Norm’s lot, he provided some good advice. Pretty safe here, eh? But everyone here makes their living cutting trees. Maybe peel that one off just to...

I have a rx OT Tripper that I bought in 2005 or 06, that I figure saw over 1000 miles of river travel from Canada to the Carolinas in the ten years I used it hard. I wrapped it around a tree on the James River (VA), when it was in flood, on a bachelor party float trip. We got it un-pinned by...

Crossing into CA has never been an issue for me. They ask, I say, no, no, no, no, no. They say, have a nice time. I drive away. On the way home I've had worse luck. Once they went through every drybag looking for the weed we didn't have. And left the contents sitting on the pavement for us to...

Thursday July 16 - Part 2 My new sleeping pad is very comfy and about 4" tall. So when my hand slipped off the side it made an actual splash. Even before coffee, I knew that wasn't right. Opening my eyes confirmed the suspicion. From about the waist down my sleeping pad was floating inside my...

Maybe something like a CostCo-size canister/ container of pretzels? 8-10L seems like a lot of space, though. I’ve got one of those bigger adventure medical kits & have hardly ever needed even a kit that big. But better to have & not need…

I was going to include this in the Odyssey report but guess this works, too. I’ve been a thermarest guy forever, but recently got suckered into buying the new inflatable pad from North Peak Gear. Great ads… It is 4 or 5” thick, holds all 6’2” of me, and has a built in pillow and a built in foot...

Erica, you may indeed have spotted our royalex tracks, but the culprit would have been Tom or I as Recped paddled a yellow canoe. Your photos reveal an entirely different river than the high water/ ice-out version we experienced.

Not sure how I managed to leave out one of the most riveting moments of the trip that occurred on the evening of the 14th… But between the rain drops, we managed to fit in our one and only round of croquet! Ben trounced me twice in a row.

It was a BIG pie!

Tuesday, July 14 (day 2) - We had a midnight supper of sauteed gnocchi & sausage, likely followed by a piece of pie, a cigar, and another cocktail before turning in. I slept in my tent and Ben slept in the pod. Out like a light on my new air pad; awoke to the 8am alarm, hollered at Ben to get...

That’s heavy, man…

Yes, yes… we’ll keep it riveting! Was reviewing the video this evening - quite good stuff!