Flashback (More Than Just Lakes)

When kayaking in the Adirondacks, it's very easy to get into a routine of paddling just on the lakes.  However, there are many opportunities to paddle on rivers.  The photo above is of the Oswegatchie River.  I know what some of you may be thinking, but by New York standards, this is a river.  Anyway, the Oswegatchie Rivers meanders around, covering a lot of territory.  Distance covered by kayak versus distance as the crow flies varies greatly.  The river averages about 16 feet in width with vegetation on the banks that rise up 6 - 8 feet in height to create a walled-in effect.  After 2 weeks of paddling mainly on lakes and one or two " open rivers" that were of  a more conventional appearance, this paddle on the Oswegatchie was quite a departure from the norm. Very unique experience and highly recommended!

Top Ten Things I Love About Retirement

Borrowing from talk show host David Letterman - here is the official list of the top ten things I love about retirement - in reverse order, of course:

10.  No more driving in traffic jams.
9.  No more dealing with jerks in the workplace.
8.  No more strategic planning meetings.
7.  No more employee performance reviews.
6.  No more coming in Monday morning and having to answer politely to the same old tired question - how  was your weekend..........It was fine
5.  No more rushing out the door to get to work on time.
4.  No more having to answer the phone and speak to clients.
3.  No more dropping what I'm doing because the boss didn't plan ahead.
2.  No more endless meetings.

And the number 1 thing I love about retirement  -

Walking our dog Sky in the daylight!

T-Minus 10 and Counting

      Okay, the holidays are behind us.  It's time to get very serious about our transition work.  3 months have gone by since we started the countdown.  Where did the time go?  The time frame from Thanksgiving to Christmas is always at best just a blur because of all  the events, shopping and the excitement related to the holidays.

     The weather during December was gray and damp, although we did have 2 1/2 nice snow events.  So the weather presented an excellent opportunity to finish our customization of RecipeMaster. We did manage to get our recipes entered and have pulled a few from the internet as well.  One special acknowledgment -we  did receive the recipe for the "Abyssinia Special".  Thank you Kim and Eric. This recipe encourages us to make the run to Alaska, sooner rather than later. That's where the freshest ingredients (Halibut, Dungeness Crab) can be found.
     We did a backup of all our photos to CD's in addition to a backup on the external hard drive.  The CD's will go into storage and the external hard drive will be used on the boat.  All the photos and slides we had from the 35mm days were scanned by Sharon back in September.  Our wedding video, Grant's Baptism  video and videos from the boys early Christmas's have been transferred from VHS to DVD and copies were also made for the archives. Can you believe we still had videos on VHS, a little ancient, don't you think?

     Santa Claus helped equip the galley with some new utensils,  pans  and some collapsible items such as a colander and a dish rack.  The collapsible items will definitely help with the limited storage space onboard a boat.  Outfitting the galley is of the highest priority!