30 July 2007
Fish boils, miniature golf, big powerboats, crowds of souvenir shoppers–somehow it’s all fun. Diane and I are having a good time spending time in Door County, Wisconsin waiting for the next race (at Brainerd, in Minnesota–a track Peyote raced at back when it was a pup.
Man, it’s easy to see how people get so fat here. It’s terrifically hard to find something healthy to eat. Diane and I ordered baked chicken yesterday at what was supposed to be a nice restaurant and got what looked like Shake n’ Bake. By the time we scraped all the greasy crap off the chicken we had a pile on our plates that looked like two servings of stuffing. I’ve been trying to minimize the effects but I bet I’ve gained five pounds here, in just a week. Plus there’s enough food on every plate to feed three people. We’ve been eating out a lot–got to quit that. There are a few nice restaurants, the rest are tourist traps and burger joints. One excellent restaurant in Ellison Bay–T. Ashwell’s. Wonderful staff, knowledgeable bartender, excellent food. The wine list is short, but extremely well thought out. Worth a detour if you’re anywhere within a hundred miles, because as near as I can tell it’s the best you’ll get in that radius–and maybe a lot further.
I’ve been doing a bit of paddling and sailing on the Starboard 12′ 6″. If this board surfs well then it’s a real winner. It’s as stable as the Laird, but it turns beautifully, you can climb all over it (except that the nose is really slippery–I can’t find surf wax here in Wisconsin. Heck, in Maui every convenience store has a selection), and it glides like no other board I’ve tried. It never seems to stop moving. It’s also beautiful
Starboard 12’6″–note the mast base and the nice carry handle. I wish it had a bunch of tiedown points. I’ll add those when I can.
I took the board for a long paddle the other day, and then did some sailing. There’s a long dagger fin you can put in as a centerboard that let’s you point upwind really well. With the relatively light wind I figured that was a good idea. the wind was gusty at first, making me wish for a harness. I tried running upwind, and it pointed so well that I decided to run downwind to check out some houses that looked interesting along the shore. I ran downwind a couple of miles and then decided to return. Bam, the wind died to a soft breeze.
On a regular windsurfer I would have been well and truly screwed, but with the SUP sailer it was just boring. I stood next to the mast and tacked my way slowly back. Took about half an hour, but I made it back. Good thing, I looked at a map later and discovered the road turns away from the shore for a long way. I would have been tramping through people’s yards. Rich people from what I could see, and I suspect they might not have liked my invasion.
Diane got some shots of my long, boring tack back. Pretty sail, eh?�