It's an Exciting World

Adam and I set out from the last spot we took out, Palo Alto boat launch, at a little before 1pm.  The path we had plotted ran about 11 miles.  The winds were already pretty strong when we got in and they didn’t let up almost the entire day.  There was a short respite just before we got to the bridges.  At the bridges the winds and waves were turbulent, making it hard to stay straight and not flip as we went through.  We took a few breaks after the bridges, whenever we found shelter from the winds and waves.  Adam was having trouble with his kayak, as it was taking on water slowly.  He ended up bailing twice to deal with it.  I learned that for the next sections I’ll want a skirt for the kayak, as the bay only becomes choppier as we head towards its mouth.  The next paddle won’t be as bad, but the one after that will be a long way as we pass SFO.

We saw some nice wildlife on this round.  The bridges had sparrows nesting in them, and I saw the babies as we passed underneath.  We also got to see a large colony of harbor seals as we rounded the last point.  There were a number of pups still with white colorings among them.  They were on the shore and looked at us like we were crazy, then blorped into the water.

Adam and I met at the Alviso boat launch early on Sunday to catch the outgoing tide for our first leg of the SF Bay Kayak Trail.  We had everything go right, and the expected 5 hours turn to 3 hours for the 9 mile journey.  The only small hiccup in the trip was Adam taking a dip right as he got in, as he was just messing with his foot straps and lost balance.  The bay was glassy smooth until about 30 seconds before we got out and the wind picked up.  Adam rode the waves at the windfront into the dock.  We got to see many bird, an otter, a harbor seal, and a random white cat.  We have another few trips to plan before

Steph and I joined a few people for the Little Mermaid Ballet.  Steph got us great tickets at the front of the balcony.  I enjoyed most of it, and it wasn’t too hard to follow along with.  The parallel stories of the mermaid and the poet made it a bit harder at times, but it wasn’t too bad.

Adam invited us over for a nice dinner and games night.  I made some hard boiled eggs beforehand and gathered the small artichokes from the garden.  We had a great time cooking and eating together.  George and I made some deviled eggs and we tried many different things on top.  The best was probably the pickled garlic, which has turned out well.

We then played a round of Imperial Settlers where I got an absurd synergy, and ran away with the game.  The game ended up being pretty slow since most of us weren’t very familiar with the game.

George hosted the first episode of Game of Thrones, and had a small ceremony to inaugurate the final season.

I had organized a dead pool on the characters that had survived until the last season.  There were about 40 that we put on the list and people got to guess if they lived or died.  They could also guess what episode the character died in and get an extra point for getting that right.  The episode was great and getting to chat with everyone there was a treat.  I spent most of the day before that playing Feast for Odin with Tim and Adam.

Sunday morning Steph and I headed to the Game Kastle in Mountain View.  We met up with Chris, Brian, George, and Tina.  George and I headed to Milk Pail, while the others sold and bought some games at the flea market at Game Kastle.

Afterwards we went to George’s where he cooked some great carbonara.

We ended up playing three rounds of Gloomhaven and won all three.  We even pushed up the difficulty to 6 and won pretty nicely.  I took a few too many hits in one scenario, but it worked out.  We are all set up to do the final scenario next time everyone is together.

I filled in on a game of Betrayal Legacy with Steph, Michael, Michelle, and Justin.  The game was the same scenario as last time, but this time the traitor lost.  Steph still died, and the conversation with the group was pretty good.  I enjoyed it and would love to hang out with them more.

I joined a lot of people for a fun night of karaoke.  I sang mostly Disney singalongs.   I had a great time doing ‘A Whole New World’ with George; I took Jasmine’s part.

We went to a challenging Paint Nite with Michelle and Michael.  The painting was a lighthouse and had a lot more advanced technique and more precise painting required than many of the previous Paint nites we had been to.  Everyone had a good time, and the results were quite good.