August 26th, (Sunday). At first glance, you might say another trip to Upper Lake Clementine? Really? However, this is not just another trip to the best place to SUP/Kayak in the area. It was my first SUP day with Julia and what a pleasure it was. There I got telling you all about before telling you about how crazy this day was planned for. Here’s the plan for the day..
- Wake Up – Pack the boards
- Hit Upper Lake Clementine
- Drink & Eat at Auburn Ale House (woot woot!)
- Drive home to give my jeep to my oldest
- Jump on the Moto – head to Bounce u for my youngest birthday
- Drive the moto to Julia’s house to pick her up
- Off to downtown Sacramento for Cabaret
- Then back to home.
(Logistics is my middle name – especially with 3 kids, 3 different sports, ton of activities and tons of fun to be had).
NOTE to self – Less IPA – Yah right.. ha ha ha ha.. – Look to the far left for the water splash – yep that’s you know who in the water… baaaahhhhhhhhh
Okay, back to the morning. We hit the uppers park rangers shack mid-morning, started our climb down the “rocky road” as Noah would call it and it was so great to share this spot with somebody very special. We jumped in the water, Julia rocked it right off the start. Plus she’s a bit competitive, which is good since I am the same way. We did a little racing, paddling and a lot of laughing. We hit the normal turn around point (buoy), however we were not ready to go back, so we paddled on. We ended up going another 30 minutes past that point and found this amazing camp ground that you can only boat into. It was right on the beach with fire pits, tables and a really cool place to chill by the water. Now I can’t wait to kayak in the tent and gear to spend the night. The weather was amazing, water levels were normal for the season, but what really stood out from this trip are the moments of falling in the water. I fell in once, when my board was pushed (not naming names here… but… you know who you are… LOL). I also realize that if you call out a squirrel you may be the one falling in.. (just saying)..
I would be simply crazy if I didn’t give it a 10/10 kayak day.
- Water clarity – beautiful, clear and felt great falling in.
- Entry / Exit – Same – excellent..
- Environment – Nice folks. always say hi..
- Company – Julia was with me and it was amazing to take her to the best spot.
- Weather –warm, little breeze on the way down, which helped on the way back.
- Cost – Poppy Pass ( surprise surprise surprise). (surprise again).
- Water Level – same as prior.. good point for the year.. just stay to the left when going downstream..
- What the specific gear was – 11’6″ BIC sports paddle board and the surftech generator board.
After the SUP morning, we headed off to Auburn Ale House, my favorite place in just about the world. It was a MUG CLUB kinda day, with a good pour of PU240 (Imperial IPA) and some good food, we were energized to get on with the day.
We parted ways for the afternoon and I was off to Bounce U. Here’s my insight from that place..
- Wear shorts (pants are not helpful)
- Dress light, you never know what type of American Gladiator’ish event you may be in
- Never let your teenager out do you…
- Glow sticks are still awesome, even when you’re the daddy
Let’s spend a few moments talking about the spider web attraction. It’s a 6 tiered rope tunnel, that has a slide at the top. It has mixed stretchy and non-stretchy straps at each layer so you need to bounce and position yourself up each layer of the web. Well this sounds pretty awesome from the outside, but after you add my tight moto jeans, my weight, the sure desire to win, it was pretty hecka funny. 1st round my oldest girlfriend won to the top in front of my oldest & I. I was last, it was not cool, but I finished it 3 times with only a small flesh wound to show for it. After a really cool party for my son (thanks to his mother for planning it), I was off to pick up Julia on the moto and head downtown.
We hung out for a bit at her house and then headed to Cabaret and oh what a great performance. It has been awhile since I have been to a performance and I can’t remember why I haven’t gone, I just know that it something I enjoy to go to. Jerry was on fire during the performance and it was great to see him again (I worked on a project with him at Intel and his company years prior). The main actor blew the audiences mind. He was beyond amazing. After the show we hit up Players (on sunrise). – it was on the way home and you know what it was pretty good. Plus this drunk dude was signing every song on the radio and it was comedy.
What a busy, fun, amazing day.