8-31-04
Looking around me in the inky blackness I suddenly realized I had no idea where Clint was. I lifted my paddle out of the water and listened carefully with my one good ear. I could hear nothing but the burbling of air bubbles under my hull as the windsurfer slowed to a stop.

"Clint!" ...long pause.

"Over here dad." he replied from somewhere off to the north.

"What're you doing way over there?"

"Just waiting for you," came his calm reply.

"All I see is black shoreline with a few house lights, where's the marina?"

"If you stare at it for a while, you can just make out a headland about a mile away on the left," he said from his invisible kayak out across the dark gently heaving water of Puget Sound.

"Ah, I see it now. So that's Longbranch Marina?"

"Well, actually the marina is around the point and back in the harbor, I passed it when I did my circumnavigation of the peninsula last month."

"Ok, I believe you," I said, "It's just that it's getting so dark. If you're wrong, the next point along the shoreline looks like a 3 hour paddle," I complained. We paddled on into the darkness, staying close to the barely visible shoreline so we wouldn't get lost in mid channel.

Note to self: bring a compass and a flashlight next time.

     After about 30 minutes we passed the headland only to see a long sweeping shoreline ahead, visible only by the slightly lighter shade of black where the forest met the water in a short beach. Dang, I thought, another long paddle before it opens up into the harbor.
    We paddled on into the night and finally turned a corner into a large harbor with many lights along the shoreline. Approaching it from the water looked so much different from the view from the road that we still had no idea where the marina was. There were many lights of various colors and size, but nothing that resembled the long string of lights we expected to see from the boats moored at the marina.

"Which one should we paddle toward Clint? I can't see worth a damn without my driving glasses."

"See that blue light way off to the left? I think that might be it." Clint said tentatively. We soldiered on through the calm waters of the harbor for another twenty minutes until we could finally see the dimly lighted row of boats that signaled we had found our way to safety. I yodeled for Sue but heard only a drunken holler from the shore in the wrong direction.
     That wasn't like Sue not to be there. She is as reliable as a Swiss watch, especially where her two most important men were involved. I'd called home on the cell phone after both of our long crossings to leave voice mail messages saying that we would be at Longbranch marina by 7:30 at the earliest. It was 9:30 now, where was she?
        We'd last seen her around five in the afternoon a mile off the Nisqually Wildlife refuge where we'd rafted up to have a late lunch and transfer the waterproof bag containing my digital camera and the single cell phone shared by our family of four.
    For boats, Sue was paddling with my eighty year old parents in dad's canoe, while Clint was in his hand built Pygmy kayak. I was sitting on the deck of my 18 year old windsurfer.It was a poor mans kayak for sure, but seemed perfectly seaworthy, despite spending the last seven years serving as a home for snails and spiders in the bushes of our back yard.
    What we hadn't quite realized when I said goodbye to Sue and the folks was that it paddled with the efficiency of a barge, compared to the Porsche like handling of Clint's Pygmy kayak. Two strong strokes in his kayak would send it accellerating off like a greyhound. He would coast along effortlessly while I paddled for all I was worth in the barge and got further and further behind. Poor man's kayak indeed!
    Still, we were having one of those memorable father and son bonding adventures and I was happy to be there under any circumstances. Kayaking is Clint's favorite sport now, right up there with bmx acrobatics. I'm glad to see that those many canoe trips over the last 19 years in dad's old canoe had caught his attention.
    Sue and my parents paddled away towards the boat ramp a mile off to the south while Clint and I, like the proverbial tortoise and hare, paddled toward our first major crossing: the two and a half mile wide Nisqually Reach between the Nisqually delta and Anderson Island.
     As we paddled into the main channel, the water changed color from a muddy green to a deep blue. There were a few motor boats around, trolling for fish, but mostly it was just me and Clint out there in the middle of the wide open Sound.
      But four hours later with nine miles under our keels we were done having adventures and just wanted a ride home. She was supposed to have paddled back to the boat ramp, helped dad load his canoe on the car and driven the roads around Puget Sound to the marina. She was clearly not there as, knowing Sue, she would have been out at the end of the float listening intently for our arrival.
    We pulled up to the silently waiting yachts, darkened on a weeknight, and hauled our boats onto the dock. I heard some cursing from Clint's direction and remembered that he had never pulled a kayak onto a dock before. By the time I got my windsurfer up and walked over to assist he was already carrying his kayak under one arm toward the ladder leading toward shore. I grabbed an end and we walked up the planks toward the road. As we passed under the sign welcoming visitors to Longbranch Marina, headlights approached on the road and we recognized the truck.

8-30-04
This is the first Monday of my 4 week vacation. Our entire family went climbing yesterday at exit 38 on Snoqualmie pass. Clint(19) is usually the missing member but during his road trip he did some scrambling at Arches National Monument. He and his buddies wanted to go higher but had to turn back as they didn't have ropes...or know how to use them.
      When he returned a couple weeks ago he was all fired up to go climbing again for the first time in about 3 years. While he has been around climbing since before he was born (Sue climbed in Joshua tree, 5 months pregnant) and has toured all the climbing areas on the west coast with us, he never really got the bug.
     Unlike many of the other climbing families, we never forced him to climb, but he did have to at least accompany us on all our climbing trips and vacations as he was growing up, with the result that he was always there hanging out at the bottom of the cliff. He would usually play with Lisa and occasionally take a top rope if the climb looked easy enough.
     About 4 years ago he decided climbing was stupid and started hanging out with his bmx bicycle riding buddies whenever we went climbing. I figured he might eventually come to recognize that climbing was a good sport, and relatively safe for an adrenaline sport. Nothing is totally safe of course, but climbing is generally only slightly more dangerous than the drive over. You can screw up in the car, and you can screw up on the cliff, but at least on the cliff you don't have to worry about drunk drivers.
      Sue and I couldn't believe how strong and confident he was climbing yesterday after a three year layoff. He aced everything he got on. We thought Lisa would be much better than he due to all her practice, but Clint was considerably better. Part of it was his heavily muscled arms, but I think the biggest reason was simply his maturity. He has the calm, analyzing mind of an adult now and when the fear starts to rise he is able to calm his mind down with logic.
      Speaking of mind control, I am climbing pretty good right now, for a fifty year old has been. We had walked down to the East end of the climbing area where the harder climbs are located. I usually try to avoid the long 5.8 slab routes down there because they are a bit run out and have scared the dickens out of me in the past. These are the kind of long bolt protected routes that ought to have a sign on the bottom: "Don't even think about climbing this unless you are cruising routes rated at least a grade higher!"
        What makes the climbs scary is the long spacing between the protection bolts. Also, looking up the routes from the bottom they look blank due to the way the rock has fractured. From below, the cliff appears very smooth and featureless. The holds don't appear until you are within a few feet when you suddenly see this dark hole in the rock.
        When you stick your fingers in, they sink up to the first knuckle or deeper and the edge is quite sharp and pointing skyward. It feels like grabbing a door stop at the pointy end. They are very secure holds; what we in the trade call bombers.
        Yesterday I used my "one step at a time" tactic. Instead of freaking out about the whole climb, I treated it as little mini climbs that go from bolt to bolt. Anywhere there was a bolt, I knew I could always retreat if I got gripped.
       To survive as long as I have in this sport, I've had to develop little mind games that go something like this: about 50 feet up the route, I didn't like the looks of the distance to the next bolt. Hmmm, perhaps if I just take one little step up, and memorize the moves back down to the bolt, I won't feel so committed. If I don't like it, I'll just retreat to the bolt.
    I stepped up, carefully memorized the moves and noted that the bolt was only 2 feet below my rock shoes. I felt a wave of ice cold fear sweep through but fought it off by thinking about the easy moves back down to the bolt. From my higher position, I could read the moves leading to the next bolt much better. They continued to be solid hand and foot holds with a bomber sinker right at the clip.
        I carefully stepped up the cliff on the tiny half inch foot holds, letting my mind stay a couple moves ahead as my body found the groove of climbing. I can do this, I realized as I gracefully swept up the cliff in a series of elegantly linked moves. All my fear disappeared as I lost myself in another magic day of climbing, the king of sports.

8-28-04
School is out for the summer! It's too bad Sue and Lisa go back next week and we can't take a family vacation; still, at least I don't have to be back at work for a full month. On Thursday, the first day of my vacation, Sue, Lisa and I drove up to the Fremont bridge in Seattle where we parked the truck and road the Burke-Gilman trail.
     This bike path runs from the Fremont bridge over the Montlake Cut all the way up to the north end of Lake Washington, a distance of 12 miles. Sue turned back at 5 miles but Lisa and I rode the entire way. It was fun spending some time with my rebellious teenager. I never quite know what to say to teenagers, even mine. Doing stuff together outside seems to make it all easier.
      One of the more entertaining moments of our ride together was when she asked me how the gears worked on her bicycle. She'd never given them any thought before. As we pedaled along I put my finger down on the big gear in front and explained how there were more teeth on that one. She thought she was on her biggest gear but I pointed out that she was actually on the middle gear in the front. When she finally looked down at her front sprocket she realized she had another 7 gears and shifted into her top speeds.
    At one of the many bike stores along the bike path I bought a little electric odometer for my ten speed. Just for fun we tried to get up to 20 miles an hour. Jeez, I'd never known how slow I usually ride. 14 miles an hour was really hard to pedal and we couldn't get past it on the level. Our average speed was about 6 miles an hour. Turns out later I'd had the wheel diameter set wrong so we may have been going a little faster.
     We turned around at the north end of Lake Washington near the Kenmore Air Seaplane facility. There must have been at least 20 seaplanes in the parking lot, with more in the water and in the air. Reminded me of a hornets nest except they were noisier.
     When we returned to the truck we drove up to the REI store and Lisa bought a pair of rock shoes. Now we all have our own pair of rock shoes. Clint sort of wants to go climbing when it finally stops raining, but Sue thinks he might back out. She thinks he's afraid Lisa well be better because she's been climbing lately.
     I had a lot of very talented students last quarter. Some of the students are simply overflowing with talent and everything they touch turns to gold. I don't really even need to open their homework to grade it because I know it will be another A+. This is the final project handed in by one of my Illustrator students. This guy spent a year at Cornish Art Institute in Seattle but ended up coming down to our college. He'd heard that we were just as good as Cornish for a third of the cost.
     We must be doing something right to get that kind of a reputation. Most, but not all of my top students come from the Graphics department which has been around since the sixties. I am a 1974 graduate of that program and it's still running although they did close the pressroom this year.
      They still have the pre-press classes running as well as the graphic design class which moved into our building. Seems like a lot of artsy types head for the graphics program. When I see them in my intro to Illustrator class they are brimming with creative energies which I encourage by giving them projects with open ended parameters. "Make it pretty!" I tell them, "As long as you use the tools we covered today in the lecture, you can hand in anything you want, just make it pretty."

8-21-04
Went for an 18 mile bike ride today with Sue up to an old Church camp where my parents are staying for the weekend. This camp has been around for at least 40 years and possibly longer. I can remember going there in 1966 back when it was all dirt roads and the Narrows bridge was brand new.
      I was in the six grade back then and going to church camp was a big deal. Mom and dad used to drive me up there on Saturday morning from Olympia, then return in a week to pick me up Sunday afternoon. It's still a long way to drive, but back then, with the dirt roads and all, it always seemed like a huge expedition just getting to the camp.
      It was a beautiful camp built around a couple of smallish lakes with about a dozen rustic log cabins scattered around the deep forest surrounding the lake. Quiet trails linked all the cabins with the main lodge where food was served. I learned to fish in that lake, becoming quite an experienced bass fisherman.
     I learned, over the course of several summers, just how to pop the lure and convince the big lazy bass that the plastic popping lure was really a frog. One day in particular stands out in my mind. Well, actually two days. The most important day was when I fell head over heels in love with a winsome young lass whose name I've forgotten.
     We were standing in the cool shadows of a tall fir tree outside her cabin when I discovered she new how to kiss much, much better than I did...but this is supposed to be a fish story. So, there I was, standing in the warm lake water, my toes kneading the weedy bottom as I gently twitched the tip of my fishing pole. Each twitch made a satisfying pop as the lure jumped in the water.
     Suddenly, with a great swirl of water my yellow lure disappeared from the surface. The line screamed out of my black Garcia reel as the monster bass made a beeline for the bottom. I stood there in shock for a few moments before cautiously trying to reel in a few yards of line. Hmmm, felt like it was stuck on a log.
    The rest of the story is lost in the mists of time, although I do recall eventually landing the old beast and taking it up to the cook/caretaker who told me it was the biggest bass he'd ever seen taken from the lake. But then, he might have told that to all the kids.
     Time marches on, but my folks still go up there every couple years for church camps and retreats. Who could have known that I'd end up living and raising my own family just 9 miles away from the old camp. We needed some exercise today and pedaling the nine miles up to the old camp sounded like just the ticket.
     Rain was predicted today, but after several weeks of hot August weather we didn't believe them enough not to go. We believed enough to take our raincoats though. The ride north took about 90 minutes with frequent breaks for Sue whose knees don't seem to like bike riding.
      The old camp looked as pretty as ever and my folks were surprised to see us. They'd planned on driving by tomorrow on their way home had we been in, but seeing us pedal up on bicycles caused quite a stir. What they are doing is known as a "retreat". There were a few kids around but it was mostly people over 60 trying to get away from it all. I felt kind of like a gate crasher pedaling up on my old beater 10 speed out of the blue.
     Mom and dad were gracious as always and hammed it up a little posing for pictures and hearing the latest news before we pedaled off for home. As we were getting ready to leave the rain started up, and not just a light sprinkle. Rain began pounding down in earnest I looked over at Sue in alarm. All we had on was sandals, short bike shorts and cotton tank tops.
     Fortunately we'd remembered the raincoats and were able to stay warm on the slosh back home. Cars are a lot noisier when the roads are wet and they barrel by at 70, inches from your left elbow. Still, it was an adventure and the exercise was great.
     In other news, Clint returned safely from his cross country road trip Tuesday night at 4 in the morning. He had lots of fun, but made the mistake of taking most of his pictures with my 1.3 megapixel digital instead of the film camera I'd loaned him. It's a quick little point and shoot but the pictures are almost all very low quality.
    I called my Aunt Mary Ellen over in Leavenworth today. She said the Dryden fire burned right through their property but didn't harm the house at all. They have an earth home that is built out of concrete, steel and stucco. The roof is covered with 6 feet of dirt and built out of steel and concrete, with only one side exposed to the elements and it's mostly large windows and stucco. The only way the fire could have gotten in was if it blew out the windows.
      The fire crews hadn't been expecting the fire to come down to their part of the canyon and were miles away. She said the house had to fend for itself all alone and did just fine. The only damage came from the firemen who drove by later and saw the grass burning on the "lawn" up on the dirt roof. This was comparable to seeing a fire burning on the grass of a road bed on the top side of a concrete highway bridge.
      The noble firemen didn't know this and simply assumed someone's attic was burning. The rushed in, ran up the stairs and ripped 6 holes in the false ceiling trying to get at the "attic fire". They must have felt foolish when their tools ran up against the underside of a steel and concrete highway bridge. But, how were they to know? They were just doing their jobs.
        I remember watching my uncle build that house over the course of about 8 years. We'd always stop in to see them when we were climbing at the pinnacles on the next ridge over. When he started dynamiting the house back into the cliff we knew it wouldn't be your ordinary retirement home. By the time he was finished he'd made most of the local papers and been featured in a home builders magazine as an example of how to build the ideal earth home: cool in summer and warm in winter.

8-14-04
My schedule is slowly opening up as I approach the end of the quarter. I have one more lesson plan to tweak before I'm done planning lessons for the quarter. This is a final project I've given before, and the group to whom I am teaching is in their 4th quarter (experienced and smart!) so I don't expect any problems.
      When the quarter ends in a couple weeks I hope to do some painting and climbing for a while...might not even boot up for a solid week. That would be a several year record.
      We've heard from Clint 3 times in his cross country road trip. He would have been perfectly happy shining us on for the entire time but Sue got antsy. She had a feeling that Clint's buddy Craig might be a better communicator so she called Craig's mom. Sure enough, Craig (Clint's co-pilot and chief map reader) has been calling almost everyday. From Craig's mom Sue learned that they were in Arizona. Last time Clint contacted us via email, he was in Virginia.
     Sue left a firm message with Craig's mom for Clint to call home. He did, but we were out and he left his second voice mail of the trip. He said he was fine and they were resting with Craig's grandfather for a day or two. The grandfather took them on a 95 mph motor boat ride. I guess this was not your average grandfather.
      Clint tried again this morning when I was online doing bills and left another voice mail saying he was in LA and heading for a skate park in Ventura, after which they would start up highway 101, hitting all the skate parks on their way home which might be this Thursday.
      I've been exercising just about everyday, either riding bikes or skating. Unfortunately I forgot the importance of staying hungry for large parts of everyday and packed on three or 4 unwanted pounds. I got complacent when I cracked the 160 pound barrier. Still, I've made awesome progress and have no doubt that I can get down into the mid one fifties if I stick to my 'minimal eating and lots of exercise' diet.
      Thursday I was giving my last lecture of a digital illustration class. I sent them out for their ten minute break and was relaxing in my office chair checking email when the lights went out. They blinked on and off about 5 times before going out for good. Everyone erupted from all the offices and classrooms and filled the hallways in the dim light of the emergency lighting.
     People headed for the exits, most of which were locked from the inside, just like last time. The middle exits in the long building work, but they really need to get that fixed. After about 20 minutes I saw the full security crew walking down the hall with the head honcho, they were talking on radios about the locked exit issue and seemed happy to have finally seen it in real life instead of just hearing complaints.
     A few students drifted back into the darkened room where we sat around and talked about life without computers for a while until it became clear there was would be no more computer lecturing as it was lunchtime. The power came on after lunch but no one could log in to a work station, the network password was dead.
     In the morning I brought in my laptop and wacom tablet to demonstrate the power of a wacom tablet to my intermediate flash students. It's not easily moved and packed around, but these students are serious scholars and it seemed like something extra I could do for them to pay them back for being great students. I set up the wacom and laptop, then plugged in the projector where I hoped to demonstrate the wacom and then move into the final lecture. It was not to be.
    The laptop wouldn't send a signal to the projector. It has a crt out plug, but for whatever reason the projector couldn't see it. My old laptop used to handle it just fine and I assumed the new one would also. After futzing around for half an hour I gave up and tried to log into my normal instructor computer. My students had logged in at nine and were up and running. By waiting until nine thirty, I'd unknowingly tried to log in after the IT department had begun working on the campus wide log on issue.
      They'd broken it again and I was left with no working computer that could project. Ah well...I gave the lecture anyway, trying to be extra descriptive as I worked the exercise on my laptop. Thankfully it is a small class and no serious harm was done.
      I've been reading a new book loaned to me by one of the other teachers. It's called "the non designer's design book" and it's written by Robin Williams. My students are always asking me what font to use and this lady is the master. I checked out her web site and could tell immediately why I liked her writing so much.
        We could be soul mates. On her 'about me' page she proudly described how she hitchhiked 7000 miles across the country back in the early seventies. I've never heard that wandering lifestyle described in such glowing terms. She makes it sound like a necessary part of growing up to be a creative soul. I, on the other hand have always been careful to hide that part of my life from strangers, unsure how they would react.
     I know in my heart that going on a 3 year walkabout was probably responsible for at least some of the creativity I ended up with. Still, I've always wondered: what if. What if I hadn't fallen into the whole hippie, free love thing? What if I'd simply turned down that first joint and dumped those losers I thought were my friends. What if I'd gone to college like my brother and sister. Would I be as wealthy as they are now?
     Would I be happily married and looking at a great career with a guaranteed pension or pot of gold at the end of 65 years of interesting work? Who knows, and frankly, who cares? I've done the best I can. Lifes a bitch at times but so what. Life's also pretty dang cool a lot of the time. If the weather lets us, we're climbing again tomorrow. Clint will be home later this week, the new car is running fine and I'm looking at 4 weeks off in 10 days. Who says you can't have your cake and eat it too? Now, if I could just figure out how to make up for that missing pension...

8-9-04
Went climbing yesterday with Sue and Lisa at exit 38 on Snoqualmie pass. I've not been in a few weeks so had to start on easy stuff again and build up my confidence. Lisa (16) was all gung ho to do an overhanging 5.9 climb, but I just couldn't justify leading it until I was sure I was warmed up.
       The climb has a disturbingly long run out over a ledge. If you fall before you clip the crux bolt, you might bounce and slide to a safe catch, or you might break an ankle or worse. There is intermediate protection available, but it only removes a few feet from the long drop. I might be over exaggerating the danger. People lead it all day long and I've never seen anyone slip in 9 years of going up there a dozen times a year. I think the basic principle is that it's easy up to the clip, and after that you're quite safe.
     We monkey'd around on all the easy stuff nearby until 5 pm when I began feeling up to par. All the crowds were gone and the lead went about as usual with my strength ebbing away while pulling on the last few holds over the edge to the safety of the anchor bolts. Thank goodness for all the bike riding and weight lifting I do to keep my arms strong!
      I stayed on top this time to belay my little girl. She was able to get up to the vertical section without much trouble and traversed to the end of the crack but kind of stalled there, asking me what to do. I told her to get some weight on her feet by kind of scratching at the vertical rock. She did, but still couldn't reach the first jug in the crux.
        After resting on the rope for a minute she realized she was quite safe, found some tiny toe slopers and did a miraculous lunge. I saw her entire upper body sort of elevate upward a full 3 inches and she was suddenly able to grab the first jug. Her look of terror changed to a blinding smile of pure pleasure as her hand felt the friendly jug. I exhorted her to grab the next jug higher and pull for the top before her strength gave out.
       Soon she was over the top and laughing, flashing that blinding smile and slightly embarrassed at the small watching crowd on the trail below. It's funny how Lisa likes climbing, but Clint thinks it's stupid. I guess they've each needed to find something the other couldn't do.

8-6-04
Heard from my son Clint yesterday. Since he left on his "tour the nation" road trip a week and a half ago, we've only heard from him once, and that was a 10 second voice mail saying that he was in Ohio. As I was checking my morning email yesterday at work, I noticed a strange email from someone I'd never heard from before. I was about to delete it when I noticed it wasn't spam, it was from my adventuring little boy…who's not so little anymore.
       It's hard to describe the feeling of pleasure and relief that washed through me when I clicked on the email and saw the long scroll bar. He'd taken the time to sit down at a computer at his buddies house on the East Coast and write home to mom and dad.
       All his hard won writing skills were in evidence in the letter. These were the skills that had won him his scholarship in college over the next two years. He's having far more fun than I am these days, so, without further ado I'll simply quote his letter in it's entirety.

8-2-04
When Sue and I got home from our painting trip to the mountain yesterday (Sunday), we found Clint had left us a voice mail. We've not heard from him and his two buddies since they left Tuesday evening on their cross country road trip. They are spending 3 weeks touring the nation in Clint's '96 Extra Cab Toyota Tacoma, riding all the famous skate parks on their bmx bicycles.
       The connection wasn't very good, but under the static we could hear our 19 year old son, sounding rather road weary, telling us that he was "checking in" from Ohio. They had stopped to see Mt. Rushmore and Devils tower along with a number of bmx skate parks.
      What he didn't mention was the amount of marathon driving they must have been doing to get that far in 5 days and still have time for sightseeing and riding. Also not mentioned was how and whether they were sleeping, their tendency being to sleep under freeway overpasses or in Safeway parking lots (but Mom, campgrounds are so expensive!).
        Still, he is having the adventure of his young life, doing something he's dreamed of since he was in grade school and discovered the thrill of getting big air on a bmx bicycle. He has, once again, one-upped his old dad since I have never: a) driven across the country, and b) spent more than 2 weeks on a road trip. Well, that's not quite true...I did spend a month on a road trip when I was about that age, but it wasn't done in a nice car with a couple good buddies who all had money in the bank.
       My road trip was more in the nature of a walkabout. I'd heard there was going to be a Woodstock like event in the town of Colorado Springs near Denver. It was supposed to be a "celebration of life" where like minded people from across the nation gathered in love and harmony to...well, celebrate life. This was the seventies after all.
      I think it might have been the "Rainbow family festival of Life" around 1973. News of the coming event was all the rage in the hippie community of Olympia and everyone who could possibly get away was going. It's funny how I can remember that month so many years ago better than I can remember last week.
       I'll write more about that later. I think there is a book in that story. But back to the present, Clint's being on a road trip is a double edged sword. We miss him, and worry about his safety out there on the open road as all parents do when their children leave home.
        You give them as much love and common sense as you can, then stand on the branch and watch them as they rise up on their little legs and unfold their wings. The ground is so far away, and the branch is so high. They pump their wings once or twice, feeling the power, then they leap out into space and fly.
      He's never let us borrow his home built Pygmy kayak, but when the cat is away, the mice will play. Sue and I took it down to the lake Saturday and practiced the self rescue techniques, rolling it over, climbing back using the air bag attached to the paddle and pumping out the water. It all works very nicely in the calm water of the lake, but I've heard it is much harder in a storm.
       I'd brought along my windsurfer and was surprised at how easy it was to paddle around with Clint's extra paddle. I'll need to buy one of those back packing seats for back support, but even without a seat, I could easily keep up with Sue, just sitting on the board and paddling around the lake.
        They make sit on top kayaks that aren't much different than my windsurfer. The advantages being the sit on top kayaks can't fill up with water. The disadvantages are that you are totally exposed to the wind and waves, but I have a dry suit dating back to my winter windsurfing days and used to spend up to 6 hours a day sailing in the worst winter weather Puget Sound could offer.
      I painted yesterday at Christine Falls on the way to Paradise at Mt. Rainier. I had the under drawing completed from my trip up there about a month back. Yesterday I was able to jump right into color and quickly learned I knew nothing about painting water sculpted rock. I took some pictures and may be able to finish it in the studio. Usually though, I either feel pretty good about a piece on location, or it's history.
     After the light departed at 2:30 PM we packed up (Sue had been reading in a patch of sunlight nearby) and drove up to Reflection lake at the base of Pinnacle Peak. Sue hiked up the trail towards the summit while I set up my easel on the road below and began work on my second unfinished painting, a view of Pinnacle peak. Unfortunately, a month ago the peak was surrounded by long fingers of snow in the gullies around the base. Now that August had arrived, the snow gullies had all melted away and I was looking at a brown mountain. Not to worry, I happened to come equipped with an overactive imagination, not to mention a photographic memory for useless details like the color of snow on the side of a mountain.
      I found the traffic roaring by to be somewhat distracting, but my need to paint was even more distracting and I was able to find the right colors and bring the unfinished piece to life.
         I love to juggle colors. It's kind of like gambling. You never know when you might hit the jack pot and come up with a winning combination of colors that actually improves on mother nature. I don't have any firm theories on choosing the "right" color, I simply grab a pretty stick and stroke it on the paper. If it doesn't look good, I grab another. To beginners I know this must seem horribly disorganized, but after years of practice it get's much easier. At times it is almost like taking candy from a baby. On a good day of painting, finding the right colors and stroking them on the page is indecently fun and can become addictive. On a bad day of painting...well, I won't talk about a bad day of painting. I'd better get to my lesson plans. I start another weak of teaching tomorrow.

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