Little recap

In between work the past few days I've managed to:
~Get pepsi can stove working properly
~Hang out with Lindsay
~Add a new steed to the stable:

Bear Island Sea Kayak Trip

Today I returned from 3 days of sea kayaking! The whole trip was a lot of fun and was a much needed break from school. It was really amazing to be able to get away from civilization for 3 days and not have to answer the cell-phone/worry about ANYTHING. If that's what happens when you go kayaking...I need to get my own!



Alan, a fellow member of Team NORSA, let me borrow one of his family's many sea kayaks (their garage looks like an outdoors outfitter store!) and some equipment for the trip. The other two guys that came on the trip were Dan and Adam, both from the aerial robotics club (which is how we all know each other). Dan brought out one of his family's canoes while Adam rented a sea kayak from a shop out in Swansboro. Alan had his mom's (he's always been a momma's boy) Kruger Dreamcather, basically a REALLY nice kevlar canoe/kayak hybrid.
Dan
Adam
We played in the surf on the ocean side of the island a lot, got flipped over a bunch of times, Alan tried to teach me how to roll a bunch of times... we built kites out of those black trash bags and reeds that were growing around our camp site. The kite building actually turned out to be a little competition, since we're all aerospace engineers :) And guess whose was the only one, I mean two, to fly? Hehe, Alan and Dan couldn't get theirs to fly at all! Anyway, the whole 3 days were awesome, very well spent :) Be sure to check out Alan's (Sailing adventures of SOS) blog soon, I'm sure he'll have more pictures, too!

Pepsi can stove

Today after class I decided to try making one of those pepsi can stoves I've seen on the internet. It's a lightweight camping stove made from 3 aluminum cans, and it's really easy to make. The stove uses 90% isopropyl alcohol, which you can get at any drug store for $2 for 16oz. so it's reallly cheap (good for college students...) I'm going to use it this weekend on the sea kayaking trip, so it'll have some field tests. It only took me an hour to make the stove, and I was going pretty slow to make sure my cuts were right. I used these instructions if yall are interested:
PCT Hiker

And Alan posted a write-up about the adventure race this past weekend on his blog:
SOS

PS 10 points if you can guess what brand cans those used to be...

Been a long time

Ahhh it's been a long time. Yes this blog was abandoned for some time. The last post was at the beginning of last mtb season... well it turns out I finished 2nd in my class. I won the last XC race of the season for double points which was really rewarding. But then I fell into a slump of bad parts and school and didn't get much riding done until spring time rolled around.

Anyway, on to new (recent!) things! This weekend I went to my first adventure race, a 12 hour beast located in the Uwharrie forest of North Carolina. I raced with 3 other guys from Team NORSA who go to State, too. This weekend, I got free admission into the coveted NORSA team based out of my hometown DC! SPRAGAW! In the raffle after the race, I won a nice floor bike pump that I needed since the carpump broke, and some Hammer gels, bleh. It was a lot of fun, and there should be some more coverage on their blogs. Actually, it's seeing they're active blogs that made me want to write something in here. I'll give you links to those soon! Here's a link to the race website, and you can see my name on the racer list to prove I went! HA!
Bushwhack Adventures

Next weekend is fall break, I've got two extra days for my weekend, and we're going sea kayaking! Should be fun since I've never been in a sea kayak before. A couple of us are heading out to the outbanks of NC to do some paddling around Bear Island. Three days til that happens, can't wait!