Saturday, April 13, 2019

OJD is BACK for a Yak Attack! Returning to the Blogosphere...Can It Be Done?


Hello Blogosphere my old friend... I've come to talk to you again...


Hello everyone! Long time, no blog for sure. Some of you are going to get an update on the sidebar of your blog and be like...what the...? Is that...? Yep.

I've been crazy busy with life just like everybody else. Somewhere along the line, my wife talked me into trying to kayak here in southern Idaho. Turns out... I really dig it! She's been talking about it for a few years now. Finally, over the 4th of July last year, we bit the bullet and bought four kayaks from the local sporting goods store. The Swifty Perception 9.5' fits us perfectly.  I'll talk more about the gear we picked up in another post.

Edit: We have started a dedicated blog for our kayaking adventures. This old blog has really just come to be a place for me to put down my thoughts on anything and everything. I decided to keep it the way it is and not try to make it a kayaking blog. If you are interested in see our kayak adventures, come visit us at

Kayak-101.com


Now, back to our regularly scheduled rambling...

The Snake River in Twin Falls is an unbelievable natural paradise and I live about ten minutes from it. I can load up the van with gear and be at the dock in under 20 minutes. For sure, it is a new found hobby that I plan to exploit for recreation and relaxation.

Just as enjoyable as the kayaking itself is the amazing (to me anyway) photographs that I have captured during paddle time. A couple have even been auctioned off at local charities! Boy, what I wouldn't give to be able to figure out how to make a living selling my photographs. I'll post a few on here to give you an idea of what I've captured. But over the past year, I've collected hundreds and there simply isn't enough room on this post to even share my top ten. I'll have to create a tab up top of the page here to send you to an album, should you so desire.


Over the past year, wifey and I have adopted a ketogenic (low carb) way of eating. Mixed with last summer's kayak endeavors, we've lost a combined 100 pounds. She 40 and me 60. We feel much more energetic now that it makes us want to be outdoors even more. We have goals to improve our health, even more, this year. It just takes so darn long for the cold weather to leave...

Lisa and I after losing 100 lbs total (#LoveKeto)
We're finally hitting 61 degrees today and I'm making my plans to drop into the water in about an hour.  I'll need to quickly clean out some cobwebs from the yaks but it shouldn't take long. Then wifey and I will head down to Centennial Park in Twin Falls. That public dock allows us to drop in and paddle up to Pillar Falls. All total, it will be about three hours of paddle time depending on how much nature ogling we do :-) It is not uncommon to see various animals down there from deer to woodchucks, waterfowl and other small critters.

I just wanted to say hello to everyone still out there (all three of you!) and see if anybody has time to say hello back. I'm curious who is still blogging and who isn't. I can see by the links on my sidebar that many have retired from the hobby. This blog needs a facelift as well so I'll be tweaking it a little here and there. But I don't intend to change the look and feel much.

I'm going to post reviews of my kayaking gear, places to go kayaking and anything else I can find around this fascinating sport. And if any of you are ever in the area, drop me a line. I would love to take you on a personal kayaking tour of the Snake River Gorge.

Cheers!

OJD

PS., I forgot to mention the crazy bridge jumpers here too. The Perrine Bridge is the last bridge people base jump from legally in America so we see them every time we go kayaking. I post an article about that too. Simply amazing!