In The Shadow of Longs Peak
Seminole Reservoir
Seminole State Park, Wyoming
Friday 11 June 2021 thru Sunday 13 June 2021
Friday 11 June 2021
Another retirement trip, this time a Rocky Mountain Sea Kayak Club outing to Seminole Reservoir in Wyoming. We were here two years ago, in June 2019 with David H, so this is a repeat trip.
I have to digress yet again, that I need to admit that so far my retirement is not what I imagined. I imagined I wanted to “go places and do things”. But it seems like I am not yet in that mode, though we have gone places and I am doing things. But as I mentioned in another journal, that I did not include “doing things at home”, like downloading and reviewing photos, transcribing writing, weaving, etc. in my definition of 'do things' and I am much needed time doing that.
This is the second weekend in a row where we have gone out of town. Much stuff was left packed in the truck which worked well as it did not take too much time to pack the boats and paddling gear.
An aside on food. I had my heart set on making a quesadilla which I did make when we got here. Though I could have made it at home, wrapped it and warmed it here and it would have been just as good. In retrospect, this is another example of over-doing the food. And I have to consider, pre-making food is time-consuming as well.
Anyway, packing took hardly no time; we made a quick stop at Whole Foods and we were headed out of town around noon. We went north on US 287, then west on 14th Street in Loveland, then north on Wilson, then Taft Hill Road, then north again on US 287 to Laramie. We arrived at Seminole around 4 PM, found our campsite which we had reserved, and quickly setup.
There are a number of club folks here: Jud, Sue, Dave, Marsha, Annette, Sandy, Harold, Tim, Dick and Leslie. The lake is down quite a bit from 2 years ago. Its pretty warm with a calm wind so perhaps we will skip the strong wind of 2 years ago. Hope springs eternal!
Saturday, 12 June 2021
We were on the water and paddling away by 9:30 or so in very calm conditions. Our first destination was the dam, same as 2 years ago. We made a quick stop on the north side of the reservoir on the way back then headed back to the put-in for some lunch.
Some folks did not paddle after lunch. The rest headed south, paddling maybe another 45 minutes or so. The wind was variable but there were no whitecaps, so I would say it was under 10 mph. I took a waypoint at our turn-around. I would say at this point we were about 1/3 of the way south. The sailing club, the most southern point that I know of was not in sight.
We did see three antelope. The wind calmed as we paddled back, a nice ending.
Sunday, 13 June 2021
This morning, while starting to get stuff out of the tent, I wretched my knee pretty badly and could not even walk on my own. End of this trip. We packed up and stopped at urgent care once we were back in Longmont. Got my own crutches. Darn!