THE END IS NEAR - And we're on our way to North Carolina -

I'm writing this review at 30,000 feet on an airplane bound for Atlanta. Jen and I are headed to North Carolina to speed the week at a beach house with her family, a summer tradition that pre-dates time. Over the next four days I'll be faced with the challenge of finding four different boats to paddle, (damn you Thom for suggesting 100 consecutive days for this game) but I'm up to the challenge. I've located an outfit that has enough boats available but working out the kinks of how to get to their location to paddle every day is proving to be a bit of a challenge. Their store is 45 min. by car from where we're staying which means that each days one hour paddle will require an hour and a half of driving. I looked their location up on a map and it looks like by water it's only six miles from the beach house to a potential landing near their store, so I e-mailed them with a hair brained idea of keeping the boats over night and paddling over every morning to trade one boat out for another. It may require an 8 block carry inland to their actual location but I'm not sure because after I mentioned the idea they quit responding to my e-mails. Perhaps I scared them away.

The plan right now is to find this shop on the way in to the beach from the airport tomorrow morning. Jen can drop me off while I paddle the first boat over to the house. The next day I'll paddle it back and swap it out for another...so on and so forth for the next four days returning Thursday's boat Friday morning then catching a ride back to the house with a willing driver. Unless I manage to get an hour in another boat Friday morning I'll have to catch up with day 99 late Friday night after we fly back to San Diego.

Saturday July 25th should mark day 100 and the final boat of the original 100 boats challenge. To mark the occasion, our friend Jay Murdock is cooking up a plan to include a paddle and lunch to follow with the folks from the San Diego Kayaking Club. It will be a simple out and back coastal paddle from our dock at Aqua Adventures with lunch at the deli next door to follow. I'm thinking about inviting folks (from San Diego and all of Southern California) to join me for a La Jolla to Mission Bay paddle on Sunday morning to mark day 101. Please let me know if you're interested.