Potomac River 2019

    I had not done this trip since 2015 so when the opportunity came up I jumped on it. I did not think I would be doing Bear Island this year due to storm damage so it made a nice replacement. It turns out, right after I committed, Bear Island opened back up and that trip was a go! We will see if it is still open after Dorian clears out!

    Since Maryland is such a long drive from Georgia, I went up to my buddies in NC early and spent some time fishing Kerr Lake to break up the drive. We did not take a boat out but the dock fishing was fun none the less. We used small rods to catch Brim for bait and larger setups to target Catfish, Striper if we were lucky. No Striper this trip but I managed a nice brim and Cat.

  The next day it was off to Maryland. We got a little cabinet at Little Orleans Campground. Overall it was a good arrangement and we did not have to sleep in tents. Basically, it is an RV with a little room built on. The kitchen and bathroom were a little cramped but the "living room" was very roomy and held all of our stuff. I opted for the couch rather than the bunk beds and my buddy and his girlfriend took the full bed in the RV. There was a nice front porch and the lighted back area had a picnic table, fire pit, and BBQ area.

  We stayed Friday, Saturday, and left Sunday AM. This gave us two days to float the river. My buddy, Steve, has a large family and I think the majority of them live on the East Coast near this area. At least most could drive to the campground within a few hours if not less. The first days' float was small compared to Saturdays float where we had about 30 people. This nade for a lot of fun but it could be difficult to fish at times. You just had to socialize with the various groups and then paddle on to a secluded area or gap in the participants.

    The road to the boat ramp was extremely rough and it took a toll on my trailer. I couple welds broke loose from the top rack and I backed into a stump I could not see. Steves son did a quick repair to hold me over for the Bear Island trip and the stump only caused a small dent I can knock back out.

    At the end of the second float, one guy took all the drivers back to get the trucks. There was a caravan and I was about 5th in line. A couple trucks in front of me lost the group and took a wrong route. We ended up having to turn around on the narrow road and to top it off in the dark. I swung wide in some tall grass and did not see a deep hole/ditch and dropped the front passenger tire into it. The funny part was, I went back and looked at my dashcam footage and I actually got out and looked all around for clearance. I went back to save the footage the other day and it was past my storage time and deleted :( The two guys I was following were great about helping to pull me out.

    When the truck dropped in it ripped the running board off and jammed it up into the rocker and door. It also buckled my front bumper at the lip around the tire. That was not too bad but it did lift the paint at the edge. Once I got back to Georgia I called and set up a repair with my insurance company.

Awesome trip as usual. Great friends and lots of fun!

Review: Keen Newport H2 Sandal

Keen Newport H2 Sandal (men's)

    This is my first review of what I hope to be many. Well, first if you do not count that crappy chipper I purchased. I consider that more of a rant.

    Please bear with me as I develope a style for these reviews. I will try and give the products a decent use before posting a review. All too many times I read through reviews only to find the reviewer just received it and loves the experience they had rather than the actual product.

    I purchased my Keen Newport H2's August 10th, 2019 from Amazon. I found it slightly cheaper on other sites but with Amazon, I get the Prime shipping as well as donations to my favorite charity from each qualified purchase through Amazon Smile.

    I paid 86.97 and had 28 colors to chose from. I did notice some colors were sold out for various sizes. I went wit ha 10.5, my regular shoe size and 14 colors were available. Reviews were all over the place on whether the sizes run large or small so I just went with my normal size. Please note that the Amazon listing stated they run a half size small. I guess it really depends on your feet. Just be sure you are ordering them from a retailer that is easy to work with on exchanges/returns.

   I found them to fit nice. The right seemed to be a tad tighter than the left, which fit perfectly, but it was not an issue that required me to return them. The only thing that stood out was they were a little hard to pull the back strap over my heel. I found if you get your foot in as far as possible then pull on the top tab to ensure your foot was all the way in, the back strap went on a lot better. I feel they made the strap snug so you do not lose them in the water. Once you get them on, for the most part, they are comfortable and will not fall off.

    The first thing I did was wear them around the house for a day. I had no issue with pain or rubbing. I did feel like the heel strap sat a little low on my heel but you soon get used to it.

    The next day I decided to give them a workout on my treadmill to see how my feet felt after a decent walk. I set up my treadmill to take me through 2 miles of various streets in downtown DC. These were for the most part flat walking with an occasional hill. I averaged about 2 miles per hour in 46 minutes. I felt a little pressure on my outer toe area but I would not say I had any pain. I definitely did not develop any blisters. I would say they are good to go out of the box.

    The next real test was a two-day river float in the mountains of Maryland. The river was shallow for the most part and had lots of opportunities to get out and walk the river bed. I found the shoes gave me the confidence to walk on the wet rocks and kept me on my feet. The protective area around my toes shielded me from any injuries from the rocks.

    The 100% polyester webbing seemed to dry fairly quick once you were out of the water for a while. The shoes are tagged "waterproof" but they will certainly get wet. I found that once they dried, they felt a bit gritty to wear with the dirt residue left behind from walking in dust and dirt. I only had to remove them a couple times over my entire week-long trip to dump a rock of two. For the most part, stuff stayed out. Of course, these are all normal for most any sandal you wear in outdoor areas that are not covered in concrete or asphalt. I think if you hosed them off when you take them off, they should be comfortable to wear the next day. Once you are done with your adventure you can just toss them in the wash.

Here are the shoes after the trip and before any cleaning ...

Here they are after washing them in the washing machine ...

 

Overall, I am pleased with the performance of the shoes and I look forward to using them again. I would give them a 8 out of 10 stars! I will update this review if any new details develope.

Kayak Trailer Light Fix

The kayak trailer had a cracked housing on one of the rear lights. I had an upcoming trip so I decided to fix it so I did not run into problems during the trip.

The housing had cracked the last time I used it so as a quick fix I glued part of an old store discount card over the crack. I knew this would not hold for long but help eliminate losing the light until I could address it.

    I had a few old lights in storage so I decided the cheapest route would be to retrofit the LED lights into the old case. This was not hard to do since most of the old case matched the LED case. The only thing I needed to add was a hole to route the wires out as the old case did not have this.

 I took the LED light off and disassembled it...

Then I took the housing, I was using as the replacement, apart and cleaned it up.

I had to drill a hole to allow the wires to run out as the old set hooked up a different way...

Once I had the hole in place all that was left was to put the LED components into the cleaned-up old housing and mount it.

Once the light was buttoned up I wired it to the trailer. I used wire connectors as well as shrink wrap to keep things dry.

Just like new!

    Since I was preparing for a trip, I added new pool noodles to the top rack and put my Malone Sea Wings on so I could haul my kayak as well as my buddies canoe. I also added my new Ducks Unlimited tag to the rear.

Since I was traveling from Georgia to North Carolina, then on to Maryland, I packed the trailer bearings as well.  

 The trip had an extremely rough road to access the boat ramp and the light held up great. The passenger side turn signal quit working on the trailer but that turned out to be a damaged connection under the truck from the bad roads. I also broke a weld on the top rack that was holding the canoe.

    I left the trailer, with a temporary repair, and kayak in NC for an upcoming Bear Island trip. I will do a permanent repair once it gets back home.