June 2003 Archives

So it's decided, we're gonna go Canoeing up in the Russian River on June 29th. I'll put all the information about it up here and also the pairings of people to canoes. Just comment or call or email me letting me know if you want to go and if you have someone in mind that you want to pair up with.

Questions and Answers

• When : June 29th, 2003 around Noon until around 5 or 6PM. The trip down the river takes 4 or 5 hours assuming we take some time to swim and eat lunch and stuff.
• Where : Forrestville, CA
• Where exactly : Where Mirabel Rd runs into River Rd in Forrestville. Here's a satellite image.
• How much : Each canoe and paddles and life jackets is 45$. Each canoe has 2 seats so 2 people can paddle. The typical set up is for 2 people to share a canoe and each of them paddle being 22.50$ each (cash only, no credit). If 3 people want to join up to cut costs or because one person is lazy, and have 2 people paddle and one person sit in the middle of the canoe and hang out. If anyone wants to do the 3 person thing let me know and I'll give you suggestions about how to do it.
• How long does it take to get to Forrestville : About an hour and 15 minutes.
• Where are we going to leave from : We can caravan from my apartment in Berkeley. 1712 Ward St. Apt. #D
• What time are we going to leave from Berkeley : We'll head out at 10AM, try to get to my place at 9:30 or a bit after. Make sure to eat breakfast before you come over or bring some food to eat on the driver up, canoeing takes a lot of energy.
• What should I bring : (Listed in Order of Importance)
  

  So Vital that failing to bring these items, means you shouldn't go at all.

  • 22.50$
  • River shoes (Tivas, or some kind of sandle shoe that you can get wet, and still wear and that you can climb on rocky river bottom with. Old shoes work.)
  • Sunscreen

  Important

  • Lunch to go in the cooler
  • Drinks (it's gonna be hot and you will get very thirsty. Bottled water is a good idea) [No glass]
  • Change of clothes to leave in the car so you don't have to ride home wet.

  A good idea.

  • A hat.
  • clothes that you don't mind getting wet in
  • sunglasses
  • a pack to put your water bottles in and BUNGEE CHORDS to attach it to that canoe, so you don't lose it when the canoe tips over.
  I will bring a cooler and bungee chords to put in Jack and My canoe to keep the lunch. If someone else wants to bring a cooler and bungee chords, then we can fit more stuff. Optional however.
• Where can I find more information on this : Check out the place that we're going, Burke's Canoe Trips

Who's going

I'll update this with the pairs of people as they get decided.

• Gene and Jack
• Kristen and Allen and Michele
• Sean and Dustin and Dustin's Girlfriend
• Jacob and Dianna
• Ivan and Norm and a Friend
• Kaveh
• Melanie Schauweker and her friend Tracy
• Erica and Jason

So I'm in Seattle, it's been a hectic few days but it seems calm now. I packed up my motorcycle and left at sunup on Friday . Somehow this time (unlike my San Diego trip) I didn't have as much stuff to pack. It was nice to not have my saddle bags bulging at max capacity. I had driven this route a number of times before so it was all scenery I had seen. Beautiful though. I headed north on 680 to 80 to 505 to I-5. Turns out the Interstate system is called the Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways. I-5 is pretty much just OK going into northern California. It gets good when you start climbing into the Cascades up near Lassen and Shasta. That whole stretch is great all the way into the middle of Oregon when you come back down out of the mountains. I got lunch in Yreka around noon, continued north and then stopped a little north of Rouge River to nap. It was nice to be able to sleep outside and not get bugs on you or be bothered by the grass since with motorcycle riding gear, you're pretty much immune to the elements. I slept for some period of time and then continued north. I got into Portland around 6 and rode to Dave Vigil's house. We went and walked down Alberta St. in the Concordia district. Very neat, the whole area is restricted so that only non-chains and locally owned businesses can exist. We got dinner at this great mexian / asian / american / italian restaurant (4 separate menu sections). Had lots of good beer. We walked all around and Dave showed me everything to see in the world of the hip and socially conscious Portlandite. We headed back to his place and I went to sleep. Woke up at sunup and packed up to head to Seattle. This leg of the trip wasn't very fun. The backstory here is that since around Monday, I'd been having really weird heart stuff going on, unlike anything I'd had before. I have what are called PVCs or premature ventricular contractions. It basically feels like your heart skips a beat. Anyhow, that's going on, sometimes for 3 hours at a time. It's been scaring me and on my ride from Portland to Seattle it was doing it the whole way. Distracting and scary. Makes the ride unfun. The day prior it had gone on for about an hour around lunch and and hour when I arrived in Portland. So I arrived in Seattle earlier than I'd expected, rode to my sister and her fiancee's apartment. Met up with my family, who were assembling to go to my sister's graduation at Husky Stadium. I decided to call Kaiser to see what I should do about my heart cause it was getting beyond what I was comfortable with. They said I should go into the ER right now so I had my Dad drive me to a hospital. He stayed with me which I was against (since I wanted him to see his daughter, and probably the only Wood of this generation, graduate). They checked me out and so forth. It was nice to have company. Back at the house, where Emily, my mom and Geoff were, Geoff's car had died. My Dad's car was at the hospital. Anyhow, to make a long story short (too late) nobody ended up going to graduation, no walking, no cap and gown, I got some drugs to calm me down we came back to the apartment and hung out and talked. Later we went to Volunteer park and had dinner, then climbed the water tower there, which I'd never done before. Great views from the top of it. I headed to my hostel in downtown and slept in a bunk in a room with a bunch of european guys. I got up Sunday and rode around west of Queen Anne then went to Em and Geoff's. They went for a long walk (not off a short pier) and I hung out. We then went into downtown and saw The Italian Job remake which I really liked. I'm looking forward to seeing the original. I rode back to my hostel and found that I had the fortune of staying in the same dorm room but all by myself. This fortune would turn out the next morning to be misfortune when the latching mechanism inside the door handle to the bathroom, inside the dorm room broke. Standing in my underwear, I first attempted to get the latch open by using part of the innards of the toilet. I then attempted to remove the hinges without any tools and could only get one off. Had anyone been in the dorm room with me I could have just banged on the door and asked someone to help me from the outside. No such luck. I stopped and took an inventory of the stuff available to me in the bathroom (which wasn't much). In the medicine cabinet (which was empty) there were two glass shelves. The shelves were held in by brackets. I took a bracket out and pounded it into a thin flat piece of metal. I slipped the metal into the gap between the door and the wall and using another piece of the toilet pulled the latch in and opened the door. It took about 10 minutes but I felt like the king of the world. Rode around capitol hill and the U district. And here I am now at Em's place.

So I'm always driving or riding around San Francisco seeing these little street signs with a bicycle on them and a number indicating some kind of a route number like a highway or interstate, but for bikes. Well I found out what it is. The San Francisco Bicycle Coalition maintains a map of all of the SF bicycle routes. The map is amazing. I recommend downloading it and checking it out. It indicates routes to get from district to district utilizing low grade (not steep) and low traffic directions. Enjoy.