Full Moon Reflections

We are putting the miles behind us. Tailwind or headwind, downpour or warm shoulders, we paddle. Well, we at least float. We've taken up the habit of procrastinating on sunny days. Instead of paddling, we lean back and catch some floating shut-eye. We wake with pink faces and unaware of the time. Other days, when it rains, we put our heads down, enter a state of zen, and paddle until we get to camp.
Our first event was a huge success. Yesterday, we hosted eight hours of eclectic music, 20 gallons of soup, and several barrels of delicious beer, compliments of Summit Brewery. By 10:30 a.m., youngsters were running around with face paint and sidewalk chalk. By noon, their parents stood, watching the kids climb all over the St. Paul Fire Department truck and the St. Paul police car. Fortunately, anyone who went in the backseat didn't have cuffs on. The public servicemen donated their time and resources to entertain the kids and adults alike. Later in the day, the party got cranking, people got to dancing, and before we knew it, we were getting more barrels. The raffle was a huge hit, too. The Bending Branches paddles and Joe Mauer's signed baseball were huge money-makers. We raised just under $2,400. That puts our running total over $10,000. That's a lot of dough that's going to help out a lot of people in Haiti.
Tomorrow, we hit the River again, get back into our stride, and migrate with the geese. Sometimes the crew ends up in a V-pattern and I wonder if it's instinct. The full moon has been wonderful, reflecting off the River at each bend. We may try to use the still large waning light to do a night paddle. Weather looks to be cooperative for the coming week. Temperatures are undeniably lowering. Leaves are turning summer into autumn. We will chase these colors to the Gulf. We've determined we'll begin the journey of borders tomorrow as we leave Minnesota's body and instead have it on our right, while Wisconsin will be on our left. This is all quite exciting. We're getting a bit rough around the edges- real River Rats.

Local Yokles

This past summer i was away from WNC from May-August, needless to say prime time for some bareback Green Runs. I was really looking forward to being back in WNC and running the Green. A bunch of my friends stuck around and ran the Green all summer and you could really tell because everybody looked super strong out there with extremely clean lines. Seems like some of the locals had even decided to start running Hammer Factor with their legs on top of the boat for extra style points.
Check out Jeff Payne with his feet on the deck!

Hope everybody is getting excited about the turning of the seasons.

arlyn-

L'UNION FAIT LA FORCE

So a few months ago some of our friends from the northland asked us to design some Tshirts for a philanthropic paddle down the Mississippi River to help raise money for Haiti relief efforts. They are paddling 2300 miles from Lake Itasca,Minnesota down to the Gulf of Mexico with various riverside BBQs, frisbee tournaments, and concerts planned along the way with hopes of raising $50,000. We thought this sounded great and jumped at the opportunity to get involved. So, teamscum has partnered up with the Paddle to Haiti crew in an effort to help raise cash. The 'L'Union Fait La Force' T's will be available in about a week and the proceeds will go towards the cause.




The crew put on the river Sept 2 and were last seen camping in the rain at Stump Lake. You can follow the adventure on their BLOG and Tshirts will be on sale in about a week at the teamscum.com shop -

HOMEGROWN 6 RESULTS

HOMEGROWN 6 WENT OFF LAST SATURDAY and if you missed it you missed a good time. With over 150 photo and 23 video entries, this year was the strongest showing of highly motivated amateur whitewater photographers /videographers to date. Some of the highlights included celebrity MC Daniel "Terrence" Young making it all the way through the Carnage Video category before the Jager caught up (what proceeded to happened to him the rest of the night is another blog post), nearly 60 full seconds of 4 foot tall jugs brought to you courtesy of Blaine Patrick, Colin Hunt took home a new Pyranha kayak, Zach Dean did not win 1st Place General Video, the LVM Jumbotron only got knocked down once, and Chalwa wrapped it up with some live reggae. You can view all the winning photos and videos here>>


General Video

1st Place // Colin Hunt
2nd Place // Zach Dean
3rd Place // Juice Jones
Hon Ment // Ryan Bailey
Hon Ment // Saunders Southcorvo


Carnage Video

1st Place // Logan James
2nd Place // Patrick Blaine
3rd Place // Preston Woods
Hon Ment // Ben Perrin
Hon Ment // Max Posner






Action Photos

1st Place // Nick Gottlieb
2nd Place // Lauren Farrell
3rd Place // Warren Williams
Hon Ment // Jason McClure
Hon Ment // Pete Lucic




Artsy Fartsy Photos

1st Place // Andy Hinton
2nd Place // Lynne Larosa
3rd Place // Carolina Beltran
Hon Ment // Ben McKee
Hon Ment // Katie Cahn


Thanks to CWO for the awesome venue, all the generous sponsor contributions,the patient judges who evaluated the massive pile of entries,and most importantly everyone who showed up and took the time to send in an entry. Get your cameras ready cause we're gonna do it again next year bitches.