TenaCity to WindyCity

                 TenaCity to WindyCity Runyak May 12, 2021 Flint to Chicago DAY 55 ALL PHOTOS AND IMAGES WILL ENLARGE WHEN  CLICKED  It's about time. I've been waiting 7 months for this day. I really missed my runyak expedition. I watched the May weather forecast until it was warm enough, and slow enough winds to paddle. My faithful paddle partner could not make it, she was in San Francisco. This would be my first solo day since DAY 40 of the 2019 season. That would have been on the Manistee River near US31. This is Duck Lake State Park  I arrived at my launch and where I left of last October. It was about sunrise, this pic was taken when there last October.  I did not run first as usual. Knowing the run would be twice as long as the paddle, I wanted get going while there were no waves.  The video shows that one can't get much better conditions when launching from a beach, no worries of getting the cockpit drenched wh...

                                  TenaCity to WindyCity Runyak October 14, 2020 Flint to Chicago DAY 53 ALL PHOTOS AND IMAGES WILL ENLARGE WHEN CLICKED This time we had better luck picking paddle a day. We arrived at dawn to water we could enter without getting wet. Well at least I did. Kate tried and got awash. Had to retry after draining Green Snake. Kate used my reserve kayak. I offered it, knowing her nearly identical kayak would not fit inside her Rendezvous. She instead brought a bike in case we needed it.  Our launch site for DAY 54 Muskegon's Meinert County Park.  Heading south on Lake Michigan as usual, many sand dunes.  Skies the limit. I used a new hat today given to me by Nick and Jeni Godlesky. I prefer my captain's hat but with it I have to shift the bill to block out the sun. I was bundled up quite well, the temperature was in the 30s. I was loving our pace for the first 5 ...

                                       TenaCity to WindyCity Runyak October 14,, 2020 Flint to Chicago DAY 53 ALL PHOTOS AND IMAGES WILL ENLARGE WHEN CLICKED I met Kate at Meinert County Park in Muskegon Co before daylight. We walked to the beach to look at the wave action with a flashlight. Not good. Waves were white capping on the shore. Well, Meinert is where we'd finish, hopefully our launch point, Claybanks Twp Park was launchable. We drove and got there as dawn arrived. The video shows be swamped everytime we tried launching.  I had driven 3 hour, I was not willing to turn around and just drive the 3 hours home. I decided to portage to Meinert Park. Five miles of carrying Swiftee. There was a time I would have dragged him but I learned the hard way that friction from dragging put holes in the the hull. I found carrying the kayak over the shoulders was actually faster. This was ...

                                    TenaCity to WindyCity Runyak September 18, 2020 Flint to Chicago DAY 51 ALL PHOTOS AND IMAGES WILL ENLARGE WHEN CLICKED Where am I?  A big change in driving to continue T2W. Since DAY 3 I'd traveled north when continuing. Today's best offering by Google Maps was to  head south to Flint take I-69 to Lansing then I-69 to Muskegon.  Upon driving 160 miles I arrived at Claybanks Twp Park in the dark at 5:30 am, using the phone flashlight to see, I climbed down 70ft of step to check out the wave action on the lake. In the pitch black it looked promising. I looked upward at the stars, it was beautiful, triple the amount of stars that could be seen anywhere back in Genesee Co.  From Claybanks Twp Park I began a 11 mile run to Golden Twp Park where I'd meet sidekick Kate to begin paddling. She met me 6 miles into the run, picked me up and we drove the...