Aug 14, 2012

Mrs. Sneed has always wanted to kayak, don't ask me why.  Kayaking is not something the locals are really big on around here.  Costco sell kayaks, but that is about your only choice around these parts when shopping for your kayak-related needs.

Maybe if you live in Ohio or New York or even a place like jolly old London, you can just load up the family kayak and have a paddle or whatever the act of kayaking is called.  Those places have lakes, rivers and streams.  I know this because I have Google Earth installed on my computer.

Out here, just north of the Mexican border, it is more complicated.  And by complicated, I mean darned near impossible to kayak.

This is a satellite photo of our fair city and the surrounding areas.  See anything that looks like water?  Don't be fooled by the blue objects in the bottom center of the image, they are copper mines.

Mrs. Sneed's kayak dream has been stoked by her kayaking enthusiast sister, who lives a mile or two from the Pacific Ocean and sends kayaking photos from time to time.

This all brings us to our cruise and the kayaking opportunity available to kayak dreamers.  We are signed up for a fun-filled kayak adventure in Ketchikan, which I'm told is a tourist town in Alaska.

Mrs. Sneed expressed concern that I might be "too big" to be allowed on the fun-filled kayaking adventure.  Specifically, that my weight would disallow us the opportunity to fulfill her dream.  The kayak people have a strict quarter of a ton limit.  Tight asses.

I wasn't actually over their weight limit technically, in my opinion. If they let me kayak naked and first thing in the morning, no problem...maybe.  But visions of being made to mount a scale in front of throngs of skinny people danced in my head.

"Nice try fatty, sit on the bench."

So, I have been trying to get myself in better shape, weight-wise. 

I use the term weight-wise because the lovely Mrs. Sneed has been doing real work toward getting in shape, exercising and such. She is losing weight and getting fit.  Show off.

Since May I have lost over 25lbs.  It turns out that if you substitute fruits for snack items and eat actual vegetables instead of  potato products and give up pizza as a staple, you lose weight without too much effort.  Who knew and why wasn't I told of this earlier?

The only downside is that I'm still about 15 lbs overweight, at least according to those so-called "health experts".   But hey, according to the kayak guys I'm in the pink of health. And that is what matters.


 




 




Things in this blog represented to be fact, may or may not actually be true. The writer is frequently wrong, sometimes just full of it, but always judgmental and cranky

4 comments:

The Bug said...

Wow - good for you! I've been trying to lose weight too - but not all successfully. I'm only down 8 pounds in the same timeframe. Sigh.

Bella Rum said...

Your weight loss is admirable, but you don't fool me. I know you did it because you l-u-v Mrs. Sneed.

Costco sells kayaks? Who knew?

Steve Reed said...

Yeah, I wouldn't think of your neck of the woods as prime kayaking territory. I guess you could haul it up to Lake Powell or some such place. But Alaska -- now there's a place for kayaking.

I haven't seen much kayaking here, even in the Thames. It's much cleaner than it used to be, but my guess is it's still pretty grimy, at least here in the city. Maybe people take their kayaks upstream.

Congrats on the weight loss!

mouse (aka kimy) said...

my daughter bought a kayak in june and as a matter of fact is out right now kayaking some waters here in ohio!!!

have fun kayaking in ketchikan....a good title for a book perhaps by m.sneed.