Trip to the Great North Woods -- Second College Land Grant

The point of this trip was to go to the Dartmouth College Second Land Grant in extreme northwestern new hamphire in Coos County on the maine border and stay in merrill brook cabin for two nights. an amazing experience

first of a couple recaps below, sent in a gmail to the general public.

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just sent this to a friend and realized that i could send it around to capture some of the magnificence of the past three days.

trip was incredible. we saw moose! on the drive up actually. there was one along the road (rt 16 up in the great north woods i think), that we pulled up alongside. i've got the photo on my phone, i just gotta upload it. then we saw one moose up ahead literally run in front of a minivan. it was actually kind of scary.

other than that we didnt see a ton of wildlife. some turkey, some grouse, a woodchuck, and maybe a beaver. still, the trip was unbelievably epic.

saturday Kane and i paddled upstream on the dead diamond, which was challenging, but at that point we only had one car. it was so peaceful and beautiful and untouched. the mosquitos really got to me, and i actually got a bunch of bites on my head of all places because i was wearing a visor.

Alex showed up that night and then the next day we left a car downriver and kayaked the entirety of the dead diamond river. took about five and a half hours with a stop for pb&js. so incredible. my favorite part was 'slewgundy', this series of deep pools. i'll never forget it.

the cabin was awesome as well, and it was tough leaving, but i was ready to get away from the mosquitoes by that time. i wrote in the logbook too, some funny entries. yesterday we paddled the magalloway out to lake umbagog which was giant and gorgeous. we paddled across the entire thing (if you look at a map you'll see that it actually stretches across to the maine border). went for a swim and made it home, exhausted and sore.

stopped for dinner at tilt'n diner in tilton, nh. made it back late last night. took a shower and a benadryl so that bug bites would ease down cause i'm so allegic.

i wanna go back there. it's a special place.

OK -- back to business

Yikes. Back to business? I was gonna say back to life, as in I feel like I am finally recovering from the kayak trip, but then I just randomly said back to business. Is my life business? Is my life, forbid, transactional (I manually inserted the HTML tags in microsoft word to get that word to be italicizied)?

Ugh, what a horrible word. Transactional. If money is the root of all evil, is a transactional existence all we have? What a horrible thought. We must detach ourselves from transactional thinking. Transactional thinking is inherently separating and demarcating. A different kind of thinking approaches the union of two entities as a symbiosis and power generating force rather than a one way connection.

Existing in a transactional state of mind and acting daily as a consumer reiterates common behavior associated with modern capitalism. By seeking to unify, unite, and join separate beings and associated actions, we can better connect with each other. We must recognize the second currency other than money/material goods: time, a new form of highly valuable currency in today’s rapid fire maelstom of electronically-mediated living.

I prefer unitive thinking. Unitive thinking draws each of closer to one another, recognizing that a lonely existence is bereft of greater human accomplishments such as compromise, teamwork, and love.

Only connect, only connect, only connect. Only unify, only unify, only unify.

Back from kayaking trip

So tired. Need to blog more. I will.

America's Cup Catamaran Capsizes

This is a good place to show you my beautiful kayak. I have not capsized it yet, and I don't plan to. I really, really wanna paddle really, really soon. Isn't she gorgeous? This is the color scheme I have too, looks just like that. It's LONG. Seventeen feet is a lot of feet.

Or at least I think this is the catamaran that will be entered into the America's Cup.

This movie is kind of terrifying, but undeniably impressive. If you’ve ever capsized in a boat before (I’ve only capsized small sailboats, and most of the time deliberately) then you’ve got an idea of how scary it can be.

One of the crew members got hurt. I’m putting this up because I love sailing and I love catamarans, and it’s also got some serious shock value. Couldn’t resist.

Virus shmirus

Here are some photos of the Mavericks celebrating in Miami after they won the NBA Finals. It was a good finals. So funny seeing Lil Wayne there too. What a nut.

What’s up folks. Wow, forgot I had a blog there for a moment. Weak sauce.

So I’ve been witness to a couple viruses recently. First my folks got one. I think it might have been because I disabled virus settings on their comp when they got it. My bad! I was able to fix it by watching a walkthrough on a different computer. All I had to do was show hidden files, then rename some hidden file in safe mode. I was happy with myself cause I’m not a windows guy, but also kind of ashamed. Lol, oh well. We move on.

I had a good weekend. Went down to Chatham, MA. stayed at the mill pond cottages. I’m gonna post this link up here because it’s recommended. We stayed in the windmill. A freakin windmill! Was awesome. Pretty cool waking up in a really old windmill with some rad views. It rained some, but we were still able to do outdoorsy stuff. Went out on the boat with K and Chris and Amy and D. we were out there for a long time. there were mostly just fishermen out there, guys in boats and guys in waders by the shore. Got up to like 30mph at one point, which was really fast. I’m just glad we didn’t beach the boat or otherwise run into any difficulty.

The Windmill Cottage at Mill Pond Cottages

Also went for a walk along lighthouse beach. Lighthouse beach is one of the best beaches in america. Don’t believe me? Ask dr beach, or whatever his name is. It’s huge and beautiful. There are a ton of seals that congregate at low tide. Like, hundreds of them on this one little sandbar. Some of them would come close to the shore, fishing, and it was awesome seeing them up close. They’re so sleek and big and fast and beautiful. Fun.

I just got some kayak booties. I’m excited about this. I’ll tell yall more soon, peace

Eeny, meeny, miny, moe

Catch the tiger by the toe

If it hollers let him go

Gooooood morning everyone. It’s a beautiful day outside. Gonna be hot out. I’m wearing shorts. I watered the plants this morning. I got a couple tomato plants on the back porch and some parsley too. Parsley tastes pretty good.

It’s gonna be pretty hard to be patient enough to wait for the tomatoes. I used to not even really like tomatoes, but last summer I grew to love eating farmer’s market tomatoes with basil, mozzarella, olive oil, and balsamic vinegar. Hmmmmm yum I can’t wait to eat that again

Speaking of, I haven’t been to a farmers market yet this year! I guess I’ll go to one this wknd. Gotta do it. Or I could try to find one to go to during the week. We’ll see.

Last night was cool. Matt F showed up out of nowhere. Texted me and before I knew it we were hanging out. Saw Ben and D and went to middlesex for a couple drinks. Good times, good to have you (briefly) back Matt. I really hope I see you again soon brother.

The photo posted here is of the lightning storm from last week. Craziness.

Hmmmmm lemme think of some other stuff to write, ttys.

The time has come

To go to Charles River Canoe and Kayak. I am excited.

I can’t stop reading the Dartmouth Outing Guide, reading about the second college grant etc.

More dartmouth blabbering – congratulations to the men’s varsity lightweight eight, who won a bronze medal at the IRA today. A great accomplishment.

Also – must see tv tomorrow – the college rugby sevens tournament. Dartmouth hasn’t lost yet! They play penn state. I’m gonna try to watch it.

Went to riverfest today in cambridge, which was fun, but last year’s was way better. Got jerk chicken which was fun.

Went to rack attack in framingham today and got a kayak carrier for my car. Booyah.

Gotta go to sleep, talk soon. -D

Survived the storm

Here's a photo of Coos County, New Hampshire. Northern New Hampshire. I want to stay at the Dartmouth Second College Land Grant cabins. A ton of them are reserved though.

Made it through the storm ok. Saw crazy lightning which was awesome.

Bruins lost, pretty weak.

Really getting into kayaking, I'm interested in a Chatham 17.

Rowed this weekend too.

Sleepy.

Filling space.

Night.