I was in a bit of a hurry, but I wanted to go somewhere different, so I drove an hour and a half away to Harriman Reservoir in Vermont.

I paddled past the  glory hole and dam, keeping a safe distance, of course. (picture taken by a different Cory, not me)

I also spotted a rope suitable for swinging into the water at a great height, made somewhat more dangerous by rocks below. No one went anywhere near it when I was there.

Overall, this was surprisingly like Somerset Reservoir. That was a pleasant surprise. For some reason, I thought it was much more developed. Better than the one I saw at Somerset, I saw TWO bald eagles this time, soaring overhead for almost a minute. But no otters.

GPS data later. It was mighty windy, and the wind somehow always seemed like it was against me. I didn't travel the full length of the reservoir, but about half and back was still tiring. There appear to be nice parking areas on either end. This would be a great place to park cars at either end, paddle one way, and get a ride back.

I left  My Tracks recording GPS data for the drive home, so the map this time is slightly less awesome. I hand-edited the data and gave it back to Google Maps, but it insists on breaking it up into multiple pages of directions, and the last bit of the trip is missing from the embedded map.

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This was where we launched (photo taken after we were done). I met Anton in a small parking lot nearby, and the first thing I heard was, "that water is VERY green!" The water was very green.

This little man-made area was very neat. Everything except the water seemed to be basically in good condition with a video game style "nature overtaking man-made structure" aesthetic to it. I'm sure it was intentional. I later learned that it was  Clute's Drydock, formerly used to repair and construct barges.

So we took to the water thick with duckweed, and I arbitrarily chose a direction. This is what happened:

We ended up turning around, and the water cleared up a bit. Enough to paddle. We made it to the Mohawk River but not before "paddling" through another area of seaweed.

The Mohawk River was busy with people pulling people on tubes with boats, fishing, swimming, and doing whatever else it is that people do on boats that aren't paddled by hand.

Here's roughly how the bit of our trip on the Mohawk River went.

• "Which way should we go?" "Against the wind."
• Anton inspects an old twisted up aluminum rowboat.
• "Oh, that's an island? We have to go around it!"
• We go under the I-87 bridge.
• "I think the wind changed direction. And the current is strong in the wrong direction."
• We explore a marina.
• We turn around and head upstream.
• We pass a nice area to stop and take a break but opt to move on since there are a bunch of people around.
• We pass some ducks sleeping on a rock.
• Anton disturbs all of the ducks.
• We paddle for a while until we find another place to take a break.
• A boat with a Canadian flag zooms by, making waves that get me wet and throw my kayak into some rocks as I'm trying to dry it out.
• We head back to "Duck Rock."
• Ukulele.
• We head back and head home.

"Duck Rock":

Saratoga Lake is technically the first place I ever kayaked though only briefly in a recreational kayak. At over twelve miles around the perimeter, I knew it would be some great exercise and leave me exhausted.

I started from Saratoga Lake Marine Park, which is a state park, which means it cost me $8 to park there. It was mostly empty on a Friday.

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The most peculiar part of my trip was a giant orange boat with a conveyor belt which constantly carried seaweed up into a big storage container.

I didn't get a good picture of it from the front for predictable reasons, but I did find  an article that explains what was going on. It turns out they have to mow the seaweed.

It was a beautiful day. There was only a gentle breeze, and save for ripples from boats zooming up and down the lake at high speeds, the water was quite calm. There were bunches of people fishing and houseboats packed with people and some swimmers. This is what goes on most of the time when I am at work?

Lake Lonely was rendered poorly named by  the Canadian tools programmer / ukuleleist following me around in a canoe.

We launched from a boat launch at the intersection of Crescent Avenue and Poe Road, each paying $5 for access and being warned that they close at 5:30pm. Anton considered enough to ask what happens if we don't make it back in time, and the attendant / owner was basically speechless, much to my amusement, before he finally came up with something about towing vehicles.

We took a spin around the lake, admiring some of the gigantic houses as well as the deteriorating shacks along the eastern side. Exploring some of the streams on the northern side, we found ourselves in the middle of the nearby golf course, each bringing back some souvenir balls retrieved from the shallow water. Having exhausted that direction, we turned around and head down the stream toward Lake Saratoga, reaching the fork before we had to turn around.

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This was by far my most epic kayak adventure. First off, I couldn't decide where to go. I've found plenty of sites of people listing places around here, and I've had some success looking at maps for nice-sized lakes and then reading up on how to get to the water, but I couldn't get everything to align for this trip. And the weather reports were generally nice but predicted some rain and wind.

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This was a two hour drive to an undeveloped lake in Vermont. The driving was about an hour not on highways but on 40-55mph roads, half an hour through villages, and then half an hour on a dirt road that I wanted to be rallying on the entire time.

The "caravan menace" was in full swing:

All I can say is that this place was beautiful.

I mean, really beautiful. The only signs of civilization I saw the entire time were the cleared ski slopes of Mt. Snow off in the distance, which guided me back to my starting point, a dam by the boat launch, and just a few other people in small fishing boats, canoes, and kayaks.

I saw wildlife!

	The first thing that really floored me was a bald eagle which flew almost directly overhead. I wasn't expecting that. So much so that I didn't get my camera out in time. But I got a nice view of it from underneath.
	My second real surprise was a group of otters, popping their heads out of the water in full Whack-a-mole fashion. They were probably about ten feet away when I first noticed them. Did I accidentally invade where they were swimming? They certainly weren't scared off by me. They continued alternately poking their heads out of the water and swimming under for quite some time as I tried to maneuver to give them some room and get my camera ready, but I failed to get any shots of them. Those guys were my favorites.
	After I thought everything was all done and I was headed home, a relatively small black bear crossed the dirt road in front of me.

In the end, the weather worked out perfectly. It was about overcast about 50% of the time and sunny the rest. The wind was gently against me half the time and then helped carry me back to where I started. I had some trouble getting water out of my kayak as I turned around at the far end, but I managed. I need to read up on how to do this right in the future.

As excellent as this trip was, I'll probably tone things down in the future. I wasn't ready for the workout I got, not that it was bad to get it. The rest of the kayakers all stayed in the southern half of the lake from what I saw. I saw some rowboats paddling around near the far end, but I suspect they got out there with motors. Though maybe I'll see a loon next time?

My  roof rack arrived today. Anton  bought a canoe yesterday, but he hadn't had a change to try it yet. After work, I assembled my roof rack on my car, and we set off to do some paddling in the hour or so before it got dark.

This time it was Round Lake. It is pretty aptly named. It was about a twenty minute drive away. And then we had to park alongside the 55mph route 9 to access the water. I didn't realize until we were leaving that I parked under a "no parking" sign. I'm not sure if it was for the road I was on or the area down below. The sheriff behind us as we arrived didn't seem to mind. Neither did the other people parked near us.

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For the first time for me, the weather was beautiful. There was an occasional cool breeze, but nothing strong. The lake was flat except for some ripples as boats zipped around. There were a handful of people fishing and some other people out in kayaks and canoes, but it is a bigger lake than I expected, and I hardly ever actually saw any of them. There is a neat little airstrip adjacent to the lake, and a few small planes took off and landed while we were there, for our amusement.

Arriving:

Anton picking his nose as we set off. He's really getting in there:

I don't think that's how you're supposed to use a canoe:

This is a pretty OK place to spend an evening!:

Then it got dark and we went home. Then I copied the pictures and GPS data off of my phone and wrote this.

This Friday came around, and I was thoroughly excited about going out kayaking again. I am determined to go out at least once a week, and I figured that since I am taking Fridays off, this should be no problem. Checking the weather, thunderstorms were predicted basically all weekend, with only showers on Friday morning.

Figuring that was my only chance, I strapped the kayak on my roof in my garage while it rained outside and then took off.

This weekend's venue was picked by a Mr. Plummer at work, as I randomly asked him where I should go, and his familiarity with nearby parks for the sake of hiking allowed to pick a place arbitrarily that suited my needs. Also  http://www.albany.com/parks/ helped. In the future I think I will cross off parks listed there with a "boat launch" one by one.

I am worrying more and more about the effects of a boat on my car roof. I think I will invest in a roof rack soon.

There were some fun winding roads on the way to Thompson's Lake. It was just beyond Thacher Park, which is another great place to spend some time. It rained most of the way there but started to clear as I approached the lake.

Then it started raining again.

I paid a $7 vehicle use fee, as this was a state park. The place looked fairly nice. It was primarily a campground. I carried my kayak past a playground, small beach, and a swimming area to get to the lake, and each were populated with children and families at various times.

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I went around the outside of the lake, which took a little less than half an hour. I was wet at this time, but it was probably more from me splashing myself than the rain, which persisted. I made a few zig-zags of the lake to fill out almost an hour of time. Then it started to get a little windy, which was only a problem as it made me start to get cold.

I strapped the kayak back on to my car and headed home in a full downpour.

There were problems with this:

• Strapping a boat to my roof in the rain when I am starting to get cold is not fun. I am definitely willing to overlook a little bit of work for the parts of this that are fun, but I think that is too much.
• The kayak acts like a rain barrel. I was pleased it hardly filled with any water when I was on the lake, but when I took it off after I got home, it was substantially heavier.
• The straps around the kayak wicked water into my car. I was rained on the whole trip, and I worry for my car's interior.
• Some people were waving at me from inside a lodge nearby. I had half a mind to go in to dry off, but I wanted to get home badly at this point.

This week, for the third time in only a few months, I found myself without Internet access at home.

The first time, it went like this:

• The cable modem indicates no connection.
• I call Time Warner Cable.
• They tell me they shut me off, because of "leakage."
• They scheduled someone to come check things out (but they couldn't come for quite a few days...frustrating).
• They plug some measuring device into my cable, which indicates a small but apparently acceptable amount of noise.
• They remove the ground from my cable connection.
• They repeat, and the amount of noise remains the same.
• They reconnect everything, turn me back on, and figure that I was disconnected by mistake.

The second time was my fault:

• HTTP requests were being redirected to a "your computer has been causing trouble, we're disabling you" page.
• A local user account with an apparently easily guessable password on one of my computers had been compromised and was running a number of sketchy-looking scripts.
• I wiped and did a fresh install of the affected machine.
• I should add that I had to call Time Warner Cable to sort things out, and they turned me back on before even asking whether I had the machine under control, though they did threaten disabling me for longer if it happens again.

The third time went like this:

• Cable modem reports no connection.
• I call Time Warner Cable.
• They ask me to try power cycle the cable modem, fiddle with the cable.
• No, that doesn't improve anything.
• They schedule an appointment.
• The guy comes out, plugs in his meter, looks at it for a few minutes.
• "Your signal's perfect."
• He replaces my cable modem, and everything is fine.

It's slightly less annoying now that I have a  Droid Incredible with an unlimited data plan.

For some reason, until recently, I had never gone kayaking. My family owned a canoe. I've rowed row boats. I've paddled paddle boats. I had never kayaked.

Some weeks back, I was with a group of friends at  Saratoga Lake, and four of us hopped in kayaks and paddled around for a bit. It was fun, and it made me say I would get a kayak.

After looking around a bit, I had a lengthy and informative conversation with someone at  Eastern Mountain Sports, who basically steered me to the  Pungo 120 but emphasized that they were having an event on Saturday where people could try all of their models for free. Despite wanting to buy one then and there, I held off, went down on Saturday (today), and tried a few boats. It was fun. The staff were great (though one dropped and lost his radio in the water, hehe).

Then came the first problem. I went straight back to EMS, but most of their kayak enthusiasts were busy at the water. I knew exactly what I wanted, but of the few staff members there, one was clearly brand new, and the others were clearly overwhelmed by everyone else. It took some time finding the right things. I got the boat, a paddle, and a life jacket that were on sale as a bundle. There was confusion about this, which items were actually part of the special, where they were, .... But eventually I got everything I needed, one of the staff members helped me strap the thing I bought to my roof, and I was off.

Where to? I searched around (the Internet) a bit for a lake nearby with public access to the water. I picked The Great Sacandaga Lake, arbitrarily. It was about an hour away. I wasn't really sure where I was going to launch, but I drove around a bit and finally found a public boat launch. There was apparently a beach area where I would be charged $15 for parking, as a non-resident, but I couldn't launch there. I ended up carrying the boat to a boat launch where there was a formidable line of people putting motor boats on the water. I snuck in between two of them, and I was off!

That's what my route looked like. There was a strong wind. I was tired before I started. I had also paddled for a while in the morning, testing boats, and I'm not in any kind of shape. I headed into the wind and stopped now and then to adjust the numerous adjustable bits of my seat and paddle. I was hoping to find a quiet moment to bust out a ukulele and sit back and snack and whatnot, but the water was really choppy, both from the wind and from boats zipping back and forth near me, and waves overtook me every few minutes, despite my best efforts to avoid them.

Here's some data from my phone, which was sitting in one of the kayak's compartments, gathering GPS data. It and my other cargo stayed dry, but I was soaked by the time I was done.

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I paddled into the wind until I was tired. At about that point the clouds started to look intimidating, so I turned around. The wind basically carried me straight back, and I mostly just steered.

That's what the kayak looks like on my car, all ready to go home. I found a metal loop under the rear bumper, which is just perfect for hooking a strap into, and a big threaded hole in front which worked fine, too. For some reason it was much more stable on the way home than the way there, which was a relief. Shortly after I had pulled away from the store, one of the straps started buzzing. I found that giving each bit a half-twist, though less aerodynamic, helped silence that.

Conclusion: All in all, I had a lot of fun. The weather, despite the wind, was beautiful at the lake, while it was incredibly hot and humid back home. The water was a really nice warm temperature. Such a big lake was probably the last place I should have gone, but there is no shortage of other places for me to explore around here.

This is the report that  YouTube generates for  my channel, with several important comments from myself. I suppose my goal is for me to one day be more interesting than a four hour drive on the New York state thruway.

They are parked  like that every morning as I drive into work. And then I park.

Need to avast with this zombie drawing.

A  philosophical zombie.

I still can't draw zombies:

I did not know things were actually shipped this way.

From left to right, in order of acquisition:

1. My first ukulele, a Makala I picked up at the  North Carolina Ukulele Academy in Wilmington, North Carolina when visiting family. If I think someone is going to accidentally sit on or back a car over one of my ukuleles, I will try to make sure it is this one.

2. My concert size "Surf"  Fluke ukulele with rosewood fretboard. When I got my Makala, I kind of laughed when the store owner recommended a Fluke or Flea because they can be stood on end on a table. But he was right, and my Fluke is sitting next to me on my desk right now.

3. A solid mahogany Pono I picked up at  Aloha Warehouse in San Francisco. When I want to pretend I'm a real musician, I'll have this around. It also came with a nice hard case.

4. A Kala koa Tenor cedar-top with a pickup that I just got from  The Ukulele Shop while driving through Virginia. I intend to use this when I want to play loudly.

A message accidentally sent to the drawing topic email list became a new topic.

I just wanted to get my point across and get out, on this one. Boticelli, the teenage mutant ninja turtle who wielded guns.

Grargh...artists making me draw people... Well, I'm happier with it than I expected, and she provided good background music while I worked, so it's OK.

Not to change course, I attempted to emulate  my favorite web comic ever. Except I lacked funny. And now I can't remember if there was a comic where Beartato and Reginald were actually dressed as vikings.