Off to Salt Lake City...

...for the Outdoor Retailer Summer Market show. For those of you outside the industry, it's hard to imagine, but the closest thing to it is Toys R Us for grownups (or not-so-grownups). All the new stuff that we'll see next Spring is there, sometimes in prototype form, but most of our vendors keep their cards pretty close to their chests until the show. Rumors abound, and if half of them are true, it's gonna be a great show.

We have appointments booked for five of the staff from 7:00 breakfast meetings to dinners to late night parties...15 hour days. Sorta tiring after five days, but since I don't drink I have an advantage on 99% of the other attendees. They nurse hangovers, I go for a nice run. :-)

I'm stoked to see the new P&H Cetus LV (low volume). I ordered one for myself for Spring sight-unseen, but I've paddled the regular volume and I love the hull. Mine's Poppy Red deck, yellow seams and coaming, yellow keel strip and a clear carbon-kevlar bottom. I am opting out of the metallic flake gelcoat, I am just not cool enough for that.

I am extremely fortunate to work in such a cool industry. Outdoor Retailer is a lot of work but it's also like a family reunion. These are our business partners, but they are also our brothers and sisters, and I love 'em all. Even Kelly Blades (see below). Kelly is a stitch, and has taken the new dry suit testing to a new and unprecedented level. Not surprising, given his former run as a Ringling Bros. clown, Clown College and everything.