Mary Panttaja

We did a couple of things over the weekend that made our exercise more fun by making it a part of another activity. Like one would naturally do if we lived in the city and walked to the store. (Here in the country, I just hike down to the garden before dinner.)

We still needed to buy two more replacement boats and we managed to turne it into an diversified activity. To try out the boats, we rented them and took the first pair off to Sailor Bar on the American River and paddled around 40 minutes in the current. We swapped those boats out for a second pair and set up a river run from Sailor Bar to Elmante—about 4 miles on the river. We only brought one car, so we set the shuttle up with our bicyles. You have to think it through (bike routes AND river routes) and decide whether to bike first (and have the car at river’s end) or bike second (and have to go after the car).

So here’s how it went:

• We drove to the boat take out and dropped the bikes off—locking them up of course.
• We drove to the put-in and parked the car, packed the boats, and headed down river.
• We took out, swapped the boats (locking them up with the bike lock) for the bikes (changed shoes as well) and headed back up river to the car.
• Then we loaded the bikes, drove back to the boats, loaded the boats and were ready to go.

It was a four mile paddle and a seven mile ride. The drive was a little longer because of the roadways, but not too taxing. It’s an economical way to do river runs, but you could also use it for any paddling—across a bay, along a beach, or around a lake. We’ve used this technique on the Snake River to great effect. It would be more challenging in hilly country where the bike ride could become a real challenging part of the day. (One secret is that only one driver has to actually do the bike ride! Everyone else could rest. We don’t let ourselves know that.)

Yesterday we rode into town (normally 7 miles, but we added 3 miles to the trip to make it more work), had breakfast, dropped off prescriptions, and rode back (added a hill). We got our exercise, but also got some chores done.

All good and the bike riding gets to seem like an normal part of the day.