Talking Story Archives - Page 50 of 114

Campus Point, 2011

Posted by Ken Campbell April 20, 2011 0 Comment 1489 views

I finally got on the water yesterday afternoon. I put in at Goleta Beach and paddled out, past the UCSB skyline, to Campus Point. There was a wind blowing at me on the half-mile run, and once I got to the point, there really wasn’t much going on. A few rides, shallow water, little point […]

Thoughts on death and surfing, part 4

Posted by Ken Campbell April 17, 2011 0 Comment 1071 views

I won’t say it was completely unexpected, only that it happened quickly this time. The landscape was a blur out my side windows. Cities and towns fell behind me in regular succession: Portland, Eugene, Redding, Sacramento, Paso Robles… I’m back in Santa Barbara again, where the sun is brightly shining, where the mockingbird sings. I […]

The News from Arcata

Posted by Ken Campbell April 15, 2011 0 Comment 1193 views

Kokatat has a good blog. There are a lot of stories here that make me want to go too. (Especially that first one.)

An anniversary

Posted by Ken Campbell April 13, 2011 0 Comment 1195 views

The time does fly, yes? It was twenty years ago this week that I started working for Tahoma Outdoor Pursuits as a canoe guide. It was up at Farrell’s Marsh, in Steilacoom, WA, a week of doing twenty-minute canoe trips for groups of 6th graders on the cloudy, brown water of the bayou. I remember […]

Butts in boats

Posted by Ken Campbell April 12, 2011 0 Comment 1195 views

I am not sure about symposiums. Or expo’s, festivals, or whatever the kids are calling them these days. I like them, I really do, but I don’t know whether they are still as relevant to the paddle sports world as they once were. It used to be that if you wanted to hear about so-and-so’s […]

San Juan orca; an update

Posted by Ken Campbell April 11, 2011 0 Comment 1586 views

There’s new guidance out for whale watchers, whether on commercial barf boats or in kayaks. Here’s a real good synopsis of the regulation changes and their effects on people and whales alike, but the main update for paddlers is that we have to stay 200 yards away from the orcas now, compared to the 100 […]

Nostalgia

Posted by Ken Campbell April 10, 2011 0 Comment 1074 views

Sometimes when I’m making dinner, I’ll look for old songs on YouTube. It’s good to hear the old ones, the one-hit wonders especially. Good to remember the way things used to be. There are paddling spots that bring out a similar sense of sweet nostalgia. The Nisqually Delta, where Jon the all-pro whitewater kayaker flipped […]

Cold

Posted by Ken Campbell April 8, 2011 0 Comment 1135 views

It’s supposed to get up to 58 degrees today. That will seem tropical compared to the way it’s been so far this spring. I suppose I should be grateful. All right. I’ll be grateful.

Doing the maps

Posted by Ken Campbell April 7, 2011 2 Comments 1172 views

I’ve been trip planning. A little San Juan stuff, Deception Pass and Marrowstone Island, plus other places closer to home, like the Tacoma Narrows. I have six multi-day courses on tap for this spring and summer and it’s that time when I have to sit down with the charts and the current information and plan […]

Gunfire and mysteries

Posted by Ken Campbell April 5, 2011 0 Comment 1045 views

The prairie is a natural interpretation of an egg crate. Little mounds four, five, eight feet high, make up the surface of the inter-forest grassland, like a living mogul course. No one knows how they were formed: Prairie dogs? Seismic activity? Native earth sculpting? Glaciers? Mima Mounds is an anomaly. The fact that we still […]