Staff Retreat, Part II

Dances With Logs shows off his j-stroke.

The second day of the staff retreat was a smaller, more dedicated group.  A few of the staff went to hit the king salmon run on the Sheboygan River, which is a rare enough event that we excused them.  Some had dog and/or kid duty.  Some we exhausted the day before, a few went back to Canada.

We had seven staff, and it was wonderful.  As we paddled along we encountered some arboreal obstacles that were tricky to negotiate, and Andy was challenged a few times, having spent most of his paddling life in kayaks or tandem canoes.  He received the Native American name Dances with Logs.  This lead to silliness, where others received their N.A. names based on physical or other characteristics.

Grey She-Wolf shows her fangs.

Marit became Crosses the Bow (based on her prowess on the cross-bow draw).  Jon was Makes a Wake, because he was always hammering it and throwing up a wave the rest of us could surf.  John was Fishes for Bass since he had a line in the water as often as not.  Mo became She Who Shivers because of her being cold the day before, but then we changed it to Wears A Rainbow due to her multi-colored paddling outfit.  Nancy was Grey She-Wolf of obvious reasons.  I was Few Feathers for equally obvious reasons.  

Crosses The Bow and Wears A Rainbow were the lone tandem canoe paddlers on this trip.

Fishes for Bass paddling the Wildfire.  The bass were hiding so instead we just enjoyed ourselves.  Makes A Wake is in the background making a wake.

The stretch of the Sugar I call the Maple Cathedral.  It just gets prettier as the colors change.

Makes A Wake and I playing obstacle course.  He went over, I went under, limbo-style.  I had to remove my hat to squeeze under the log to the far right.

Makes A Wake picking his way through a log jam.

A great day of paddling, about 11 miles, then a run to New Glarus to eat Stinky Burgers at the local bar and grill.  Some of the staff consumed nut brown ales and such.  I drank Sprecher Root Beer and smiled a lot.

I have the best staff in the world.  I could probably search the world and find people who are better at the technical aspects of their jobs, but those people would lack one important thing--they wouldn't be these people.

Respectfully submitted,

  Canoelover