Namaste Knit

Camping

My neighbor here at the campground is interesting. He has candles all over his campground and a huge supply of camping gear.

Am enjoying the fire. Off to bed soon though. I'm curious to try a state park in the future.

Yoga Slackers Tour

Grounded

I really really needed some time to myself tonight to feel grounded. Between a long walk and climbing, I feel so much better tonight than I have for quite a while. It was a fantastically lovely day.

A full day

Bouldering

Climb every mountain

I did my first solo evening climbing. I went the Sunday before last with one of my friends. I founddurung that trip that it was all to east to try and muscle my way up the wall. This pretty much meant that I fatigued fast and didn't go much of anywhere fast (plus I could hardly close by fingers). Some of the advice given to me last Sunday (thanks H) was that I was disconnected from my yoga while on the wall...think of using my leg muscles to move me rather than muscling it up the wall.

So, tonight I spent time boulder (climbing side to side at about a shoulder height) and went all the way to the top of 2 walls. I went slowly and consciously focused on each step and each handhold. It was indeed very yoga-ish and definately a blast.

Kite skiing

A few weekends ago, I decided to try kite skiing. I have several friends/co-workers who kite board (one is with skis while one is with a snowboard) and it intrigued me. I decided that before I invested much in gear, I would give it a try and take a lesson. I did some research (love research mode) and came across Pete Kuhn who gives lessons locally in Minnesota. I only needed to bring a pair of downhill skis (I borrowed some) and a helmet of some sort.

I met Pete out on Lake Waconia on a subzero Saturday morning. The class was supposed to be about 6 hours and I would get to try out several kites. The winds were pretty good (around 14 mph). There was only one other student (a ski instructor) so awesome student/teacher ratio. Pete started out by talking us through some introductory stuff about the kites and winds. We then tromped out to the lake minus skis to start but we did have a sled full of different sized kites. We started with a 2.5m ozone kite. Pete had us both put a harness on (they have a loop on the back that he could hold on to us with). We learned how to anchor the kite with ice screws and how to unfold/prep the kite. The trainer kite didn't attach to the harness but did have a wrist loop. If you got scared or in trouble, you drop the bar and the wind goes out of the kite although it is still attached to your wrist (saves you from peeling it out of the trees hopefully). Even with such a small kite, it pulled both Pete and I for a ways till I was able to figure out how to guide the kite more effectively.

Ultimately as the wind died down through the day, I was able to try a 4m and a 6m kite that were harnessed. I learned how to move the kite in vertical figure 8's (signing) so that it would pull me both upwind and downwind with my skis on. Since I was so green on skis (I've only gone 2x as a kid), maintaining balance while a kite is dragging you across the ice was a bit...well...iffy shall we say. Pete assured me that I was doing fine on my kite skills but would need additional skiing work.I had a blast and really enjoyed it!

Notes to self: subzero weather all day on ice is cold! Bring about 50 hand and toe warmers. Also note - Waconia has no bathrooms and no coverage. When you are: a) a girl  b) wearing 50 layers of clothes c) the trees have no leaves --- there are certain annoyances.

More adventures

This last Friday, I went skiing out at Buck Hill to get a bit more practice for kite skiing. It was close to subzero again although at least it was towards the positive side. I got there about 12:30pm and didn't leave until 8pm. It was a really abnormally quiet day at the hill since it was so chilly out. This made it really nice time to practice.
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Adventures continued....

I explored snowboard options around my area. It looks like Theodore Wirth Snowpark has an inexpensive option for learning and rental. Kite boarding options after I at least get familiar with a board.

Alpaca

You have to love a yarn store with it's own alpaca bunnies. We went to "Playing with Yarn" yesterday in Duluth Minnesota. Most of the wedding party went which meant the store was quite full. I managed to escape with only one skein of yarn but I did pick up Nancy Bush's new Estonian Lace book. Now the dilemma of what to knit out of there first.