zachary’s kayak life

July 17 to 22  2011

The week started with a spectacular thunder storm. It was quite a show, and luckily it only lasted one night before calming down to a wonderfully sunny and excessively hot  week.

Monday wasn’t so bad, Maybe 30-35 Celsius and the paddling was great. We spent most of our time at Corner Wave, the level was  1  3/4 so corner wave was amazing. We played at S-Bend for a while (I worked on Phoenix Monkeys) and had a bow stall contest that I ALL MOST won . That night supper was great (as they always are at Liquid Skills), home made lasagna.

Tuesday was the same, Corner wave, Bow stall, S-Bend, the only difference was…..We ran Dragon’s Tongue! IT WAS AWESOME!!!!!

Wednesday we switched to stern stalls in our contest which was a really good challenge.

Thursday I wasn’t felling to good so I tagged along and played video boater for the day which was lots of fun, got a few good shots to:).

Friday I was feeling much better and since it was the last day we decided to run the middle which was great. There was nothing at the lorn so we went to play at Chopping Block and Brain Douche, we jumped and did a seal launch off BFR. The last Rapid, Black’s, was amazing, we spent at least an hour the  throwing huge loops and snappy spins and to add to the fun there was this rock that you could boof over and get lots of air!! Then came the no fun part packing and leaving, I said my good by’s and left for home. On the way back we stopped at Mr Spuds and ate a delicious Poutine.

The whole week was awesome and I am definitely going back next year, but luckily I don’t have to wait that long because I am going back in August !!!!!!!

Zachary:).

May 28^th 2011

5:30AM!!!! A little to early for my taste, But when you live 1h away from Ottawa & you have to be there by 7:00 in the morning you kind of don’t have a choice.

The reason for being so early was MEC’s annual paddle fest, which we attend every couple years or so.  My parents go and teach all day (I usually have to help with one or two clinics), they teach things like Intro to Kayaking for women, Family Kayaking and Rolling, which leaves me with lots of time to go look at booths and demo all kinds of boats. I tried some see kayaks and a wave ski (which was hard enough to paddle forward without flipping, but turning around? Almost impossible!! ).

At some point Emily found a three person kayak made by Point 65n, it was kind of cool, it was made in sections that were attached together so you could add or remove sections so that you could sit as many or as little people as you wanted in it.

So Cheryl, Emily and I decided to try and roll the thing, it was a success so we added a 4^th person (My Mom) and to our surprise it worked again, now we just need to find out if it was a first.

My all time favorite of the day was definitely the stand up board. OK, what I said in the title, about learning how to standup paddle without getting wet is a complete lie, I fell in the water at least a dozen times in the first few minutes. By the end of at least 1h, I was soaked and quite cold but it was so much fun that I just got back on and kept on paddling. I did this for pretty much the whole day, I even took a clinic on how to standup paddle, I learned all the proper strokes and how to do a couple tricks (Stern Squirts and Nose Spins).

For super we went to one of those shawarma express restaurants, which was quite fine with me .

3 Person Roll!!

4 Person Roll!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Failed Attempted at a hand roll.

When we arrived it was a beautiful day, warm and sunny. We signed up for the rodeo while eating free Tim’s donuts and coffee, then the tent was put up (with more donuts ) .
The competition was held at the Calaghan Wave feature, after a few practice rides, it started.  The Results for the juniors were 1st  Me,  2nd   Joel Brennan,  3rd   Alex Preo.

That night at the super  there was a 1h waiting list for the food but the hamburger was definitely worth the wait! then it was the awards for the rodeo and a raffle for a Jackson Villain ( I got a 2h kayak lesson with Billy Harris for the competition but not the draw) .

The next morning we went to watch the extreme down river race, which was EXTREME, after the race we decided to run the river bellow the race which was lot’s of fun:). On the way home, we stopped in Belleville to surf the Electric Chair which was a blast.

Mack Fest is a great festival for beginners to advanced play-boaters and river runners, I would recommend it to anyone!!

Zachary.

Last weekend I tried C1 Slalom in Valleyfield, it was fun but painful, it makes you appreciate sitting down!! I tried it in the current, swam once, I can barley roll the thing in the first place, and it was really cold . I was told that I was decent at it though and if I really wanted to I could start training, but after 3 hours I was pretty much done, I liked it and all but C1 just isn’t my style. After that I got in my play boat and went to paddle withe Brandon and Adam for a while and I got my first Phoenix-monkey it was awesome, I believe that my reaction, once off the wave, was yyyyyYYYYYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHhhh and my dad’s was pretty much the same . After we had a couple chocolate bars. To finish up the day we ate some pizza for supper while watching some comedy tv.

Zachary .

We left for Alberta on the 16 of August and we arrived 3 days later, the 18; when we arrived, I trained for 3 days before the competition. We were 13 in the preliminary round, 2 heats of 5 and one of 3. I was in the second heat. My first and second rides were good but I screwed up on my third ride, I finished 5th in the prelims . We were 10 in the semi-finals, I needed to finish 5th or higher but I finished 7th, not quite enough . After having watched the finales, we left for Glacier Park in the US.

On the way, we stopped for a hike up mount Rae, we were gone for 5hours, when we got to the end of the trail my dad and I guided by Jim (who we just met) continued to the summit at an altitude of 10 000 feet.

At Glacier Park we went for a walk to see a nice waterfall were we dunked our heads in the glacial water and I saw my first glacier .

Afterward we went to visit our cousins in Frank for the weekend. On Saturday we went to see an old coal mine, which was very interesting and on Sunday we stayed at the house because we were tired and it rained all day.

The next day we arrived in Radium Hot-springs and we got to swim in the hot spring.

The next morning we went to Glacier National Park of Canada and we hiked up to go see a glacier and a rain forest. Much prettier then in the US !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Afterward my mom and I went mountain biking on mount 7 (it was insanely steep ), then  we paddled the Kicking Horse in Golden, the water was low but it was still fun.

On the way to Edmonton the next day, I ran into a bear on a trail and we stopped to see the Colombian Ice Fields. In Edmonton we spent most of the time in the West Edmonton Mall and in the indoor water park and we visited a museum on Alberta’s Oil.

On the way back home we stopped to paddle at Sturgeon Falls, we surfed on lake Superior in 20 knot winds so the waves were huge and we stopped on the Ottawa River.

And that’s my vacation !!!!!!!

Zachary.

June 13 2010.

It was a nice day, sunny and warm. We played around for a couple hours before the competition to practice and ate a very good sandwich, which I devoured.    The rodeo started at 1pm with the juniors, and I placed first with 181 points, I got a couple loops and cartwheels and almost stuck a back loop . Then it was the woman’s which Cheryl dominated and half way through, we invented a new move, the ROCK AND ROLE (you flip, bash a rock and then you role!!!!!!!!!) sweet trick!!!! :0 . And the men’s which was taken by our very own C-1er Francois Lizotte. At the end of the day I tried a slalom boat witch was lots of fun, but I think that I will stick with playboating.

By the end of the day everyone was tired but happy and had a lot of fun.

Zachary:)

Observe well (note the new trend, chewing on your nose plug rope!!!!!!!)

January 18 2010.

We found this train museum  on our way to my dad’s cousin’s, we also saw a motel called the Red Caboose Motel where you could rent a caboose for a night and the restaurant was in an old dining car, neat right? Well the museum was even better!!! In it there were so many trains that it took us two hours just to look at them and another half hour in the model train fun zone. The fun zone was the best, there were five model train sets and a huge Lego city with working trains in it. You could even control and play with one of them, which I spent a lot of time doing . In the main hanger, there were trains of all sorts including freight trains, passenger trains, electric trains, old steam trains (including the first ever train in America), rail plows, trolleys and a rail bus which was called the Doodlebug .  They also had almost every type of train car that you could imagine and you could look in most of them, you could look in the trains too, and in one of them a guy who volunteered there gave us a tour of it, showing us the motor, how it worked, the controls and how to drive it. I was amazed at how little controls there were and how simple it all was, I had expected the cabin to be covered in controls, but no!! There were only a couple gauges and like 8 leavers. I also found out that it seems very easy to drive a train, but it’s also, in my opinion, excruciatingly boring, which I figured out while I was in a simulator. After that we went in the gift shop but did not buy anything .

It was definitely a place worth visiting and I would be glad to go back any time.

Zachary .

January 10 2010.

We went to visit friends (Stuart, Hua, Jessica and Steven) in Pennsylvania and with them we went to Washington to visit the Air and Space museum. It was amazing, there were so many displays. There was a section on the evolution of the plane, astronomy and space flight, they had the story of the Wright Brothers, of World War 1 and World War 2 in the air, there were sea planes, race planes, passenger planes, fighters, bombers, rockets, satellites and even part of a space station. My two favorite places were the engines and turbines and the flight simulators, they had turbines from a lot of different planes, and they  were real and open so that you could see the moving parts inside which made it easy to learn and see how they worked. The flight simulators? Those were incredible, they were two people, a gunner and a pilot, it was fun, your goal was to destroy at least 5 enemy fighters in 6 minutes, Stuart and I only got 4. But was it ever fun!! You could do flips and flip the whole thing upside down, which, by the way, is very disorienting. It took us 5 hours to go through the museum and by the end Jessica and Steven were done, so Stuart and Hua went back home. Then we went for a walk outside took a look at the other museums and went to see the National Monument. It was really windy, so we went back to the car and got a hot chocolate at StarBucks.

Now I am hoping that we will go back to visit another museum.

Zachary .

September 31s to October 12 2009.

#1. Lunch and dinner at our uncle Fred’s house with the Family.

#2. Playing a game of  jousting with Zane and Zack, taking turns being the horse. We had played this semi violent game the last time that we were there, which was 4 years ago.

#3. Going to the Texas state fair on Friday.

#4. Spending a whole day playing with Zane, Zack and Zecke .

#5. Watching Zack try, and failing, to eat a 3 and a 1/2 inch burger.

#6. Teaching Zane and Zack to kayak.

#7. Going to a party at one of there friend’s place, it was a lot of fun by the way.

#8. Mapping our trip through Arkansas with a book that we got at the welcome center.

#9. Stopping at some good restaurants.

#10. Stopping at more restaurants.

#11. Walking on a 126 foot sand dune next to lake Erie, and we ski jumped all the way to the bottom, on the permitted side of course .

#12. Sleeping at a lot of hotels.

#13. A very pretty drive between the 401 and Highway 17.

#14. Finally arriving on the Ottawa River.

#15. Getting back on the water after 6 days!!!

#16. Playing on one of my favorite wave, Corner Wave, with my favorite boat, my new star.

#17. Sleeping in my own bed after a month of traveling.

#18. We’re back from Valleyfield,  it’s October 12 2009, and therefore marking the end of our Vacation.

“WARNING” These lights that you are about to read are not HIGHlights. If not willing do not read.

#1. Saying goodbye to our cousins and crossing the Texas state line.

#2. Having it rain for almost the whole drive.

#3. Too-many tole roads.

#4. Too-much traffic in Toronto.

#5. Leaving the Ottawa River 2 days early because of snow.

I hope that you have enjoyed my Vacation To Texas saga.

Zachary:).

October 2 2009.

Our cousins, Zane, Zack and Zecke, came home early that afternoon so that we could all go to the State Fair together . After we got there and paid to get in, we bought 100 tickets which were only 50 cents each, not to expensive, I thought, at our local fair they are $1 each, but, I was soon proved wrong! At our fair the rides were 3-4 tickets and you paid for goods and games with change, but in Texas it was 10-15 tickets per ride and 25-50 for one ride which was a 200 foot swing !! . You also had to buy a game card to play games. So anyway, the first thing we did was go see the bird show which was really good and when you donated money, you gave it to a falcon and it would put it in a pot. Then we went to eat, I had a really good souvlaki pita with tzaziki   and a Dr-Pepper, yum. It was now ride time and the first one was a log ride were you went down small rapids and a big slide, we all got wet, but at least it was warm. We then went down this huge slide on a crazy carpet, then we looked at a couple people do the big swing, my dad tried to convince me and my mom to do it, but there was no way that I was going to do that and my mom was of the same opinion. So we went on a roller coaster instead, it was fun. Same with this hand gliding ride which I did with Emily and Zane. We played one game were you had to climb across  a horizontal rope ladder, I failed at that miserably . The last ride that I did was definitely the best and it was one that at the beginning I thought was crazy, like literally crazy!! The car show was immense, there was almost every manufacturer and you could sit in every one of them . We must have been there for at least 2 to 3 hours because we left when it closed. It was the best fair that I had ever been to, not to mention the biggest!

Zachary:).