somebody went on an adventure!

** This is not a picture of me. This is a random picture from Google Images.

Usually, I am a lazy slug. While I enjoy all sorts of outdoor activities, I'm usually too lame to actually plan, organize, and put into motion any of these activities. Have I mentioned I'm also poor? You know, relatively speaking. I'm middle class American poor, ie: I own a car and rent a sweet apartment but can't afford fancy toys.

Anyway, I recently started going to breakfast with a bunch of random lesbians from Craigslist. I think I mentioned that in my Pride post. Well, I met this one chick at breakfast who invited me to go night-kayaking in honor of the super-ginormous full moon last night.

Night kayaking?

At first I was skeptical, for so many reasons. Number one: I'd never kayaked before and I worried that my spaghetti arms wouldn't be able to handle it. Number two: I wasn't excited about committing to such a big event that would be so totally out of my control. I can always hop in my car (or onto a bus) and go home if I'm hanging out in town and get sick of it. Not so when you've been driven out to some town in Southwest Washington by some chick you hardly know.

But then I realized I was being ridiculous and I called her back and said "count me in!" (or something to that effect...) She called ahead and reserved a kayak for me at the rental place and away we went. IT WAS SO FUN! I love being on the water anyway and I especially loved the feeling of moving the boat along so fast with the simplest strokes of the oar. I also loved the workout! I'll never have to lift weights again if I start kayaking. And of course there was the gorgeous outdoors! We started out in a tributary then ended up in the Columbia River. It was so cool.

There were actually three groups of people involved, a group of lesbians who kayak together, a group of gay men called "Out Kayaking" and a group (of hapless heteros) arranged by the rental place. The plan was to kayak way far down to a sandbar, then to get out and chill for awhile till the sun went down, then to get in and paddle back with the big, fat moon on the horizon. It all worked out except the timing with the moon. The rental people even brought sandwiches and grapes for us to eat! So sweet, those rental people.

Paddling in the daylight was pretty cool, but paddling in the dark was AWESOME. I can't even really explain what was so cool about it, it just was. Cool. Really, really cool. The moon made a dim appearance just as we were rounding the bend back to the dock, but it was still gorgous and really superfluous to the experience which was incredible even w/o the moon.

After we were all back on shore and loaded up, we headed up the street to this loud dive bar in the bustling little rural metropolis of Richland, Washington. I have never seen so many super-butch men dancing with so many ugly women in my life. It was sweet! And there was an ancient garage band playing classic rock (people in the crowd yelled "Free Bird" I swear, but, to the band's credit, the didn't play it). We drank our beers in plastic cups and made the chit chat and then we dispersed. I loved every minute of it and if I had a place to put it, I'd take money out of savings and go buy a kayak TODAY. That's how fun it was.