In the true Washington spirit, Ken and I spent the weekend honing our outdoor adventure skills.
On Saturday, I went to my first running club practice and ran up some hills. It was great practice for my running future out west, as it seems there are hills and mountains everywhere.
Next, we hosted brunch (not outdoorsy) and walked over to REI (very outdoorsy!) to look at tents, sleeping bags, etc, and more specifically for me to buy one more out-door run outfit. I only have one pair of long pants and one long-sleeved shirt, but running club meets outside twice a week.
After we returned, we packed up our masks, snorkels and wet suits and drove up to an indoor pool for our first water session of scuba training with one of Ken's friends from work. Did you know that the first (popular) underwater breathing apparatus, invented by Jacques Cousteau and an associate, was called the Aqua-Lung? Aqua-Lung is also the name of one of Ken's affiliate companies, AND the brand of wetsuits we wore in the pool.
I learned to check and assemble my gear, clear my mask, how to say "where's the boat?" in Scuba, and how to clear my regulator if it falls. I learned to clear my mask and regulator both on the surface and in the deep end.
Once we had mastered these two basic skills, we dried off and headed over to a bar to drink local micro-brew beers.
Wow, can you get any more Pacific Northwest than that? Well, we did! That was only Saturday!
Sunday, Ken and I borrowed some kayaks from Susan and took them for a spin in a Lake Sammamish. Did you know that kayaks, developed by the Inuits and Aleuts for hunting, were introduced to Europe in the mid 1800's and to the Olympic Games in 1936? At Lake Sammamish, neither the air nor water was particularly cold, which was pretty impressive to a girl from the east coast. At this time of year, it could easily be snowing in New York.
The evening concluded with a viewing of Ken's favorite film, The Life Aquatic, which speaks to us much more deeply now that we can properly clear our dive masks.
It WAS snowing in NY today, though it did not stick!
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