Dragon Boats and Art Fairs

Sunday was my first Dragon Boat practice. About 8 of us showed up at Redwood City to learn to paddle these boats. Sounded so easy. Pick up the paddle. One hand on the end. One had about a fist above the blade. Dip the blade in the water and stroke.

Hah! or should I say Ha! Ha! because the laugh was on me. We got into the boat and started paddling. A race is only 3 minutes long so we thought, no problem. Right off, our coach had us paddle for 3 minutes. I was tired. My forearm of my left arm ached. Is the time up yet? No. 45 more seconds. 30 seconds. 15 seconds. How could a second be so long? Finally. The 3 minutes was up. Whew! We knew that our work was cut out for us.

Next was learning the start. First, the starter says, "Drummers ready?". We put our paddles all the way into the water. "Start". Stroke, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, Up, Up, Up (stroke faster), 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, ready and stroke (slow into deeper, harder strokes), 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2......The race is on and keep stroking until you hit the finish line. Of course, all of this must be done in unison with the other paddlers. We spent the rest of the 2 hours practicing the start. By the end, we were tired and sore. I ached in my back, sides, tushie though not really in my arms and shoulders although I believe that to be the weakest part of me. Can't wait for next week and more of the same. Oh yeah! We had an audience. A little seal decided to join us in our efforts.

On Monday, I went for a bit more relaxing fare or so I thought. My friend and I drove up to the Mountain Arts Festival on Shoreline Blvd in Woodside. It should have been a 40 minute drive. However, my friend knew a "shortcut". As it turned out, we got very lost and ended up taking 2 hours to get there. It was a very scenic and beautiful 2 hours though so I didn't mind so much. Once we got there, we enjoyed walking through the Redwoods and looking at all of the arts and crafts. There was a good balance of painting, jewelry and handmade rocking chairs, quilts and other household items. We had lunch and the food was pretty decent. The prices were not cheap for anything and it seemed that $2,500 for the paintings I saw was a little pricey. However, we both enjoyed it and I came away with an awesome food cutting bowknife that slices right through bread, tomatoes and whatever else you may choose to challenge it with. I also bought some nice soaps to replenish my stock.

The evening was topped off by sharing a bottle of wine with my neighbor - the nice one not the concrete goddess although maybe we should have invited her? ;p

I have added a few more photos of paintings and some from my Carmel birthday trip for your enjoyment (and mine).