Four Man Barefoot

Headed back to Indiana to celebrate my 28th birthday with the family.  For the last few years myself and a few friends have rang this in by having a midnight barefooting session.  That usually turned into a 2AM barefoot run.  It was always a pretty awesome feeling to deepwater start in the middle of the darkness and cruise down the length of the lake.  A few beverages always heightened the experience.  The we'd have to lay low for a half hour to make sure the athorities weren't clued in on our activities.

                                                  The OctoFooT

Well this year it was much more difficult convincing everyone that it was a good idea again.  It was decided to go for a Four Man Barefoot in the morning.  The most we've had up is three in the past and a four man once only it was behind two boats side by side.  One of the challenges is to have four barefooters at our cabin at the same time.  The final crew turned out to be: Myself, Neal my older brother and two friends from a few houses down Mike and Brian Carsten.  I had footed once previously this year, Neal practiced the day before, Mike had a couple runs under his belt and Brian was a few years off.

The lake was quickly filled with some morning yahoos so we had to make a quick run of it.  After a pre-foot prayer, NASCAR style, we hit the water.  We all managed to get up without a problem until we came to the first turn.  Neal and Mike sank and fell due to being on the inside of the turn and losing speed.  Me and Brian gained speed as we dropped 400 lbs of man meat that were skiing on their feet.  We made it all the way to the other end of the lake and halfway around that turn.  One of my longest runs ever.  And a fine way to ring in the Birthday.

Bringing Out the Strobe

That night we had a cruise around the lake with the fam.  I got a chance to mess with some strobing with the camera that I haven't done nearly as much as I would have liked during the summer.  So much to learn.  Some of the shots turned out decent, most didn't.  I'd really like to get another flast to experiment with a few different flash angles to eliminate the hard shadows.

This photo turned out pretty good of Sharon and Alex staring up at who knows what!

Paddling The Pigeon River

The next morning Agata and I tied up a couple kayaks to the top of the Gnarmobile and headed up to Mongo, Indiana (classy name) to kayak a 3-4 mile stream.  The Pigeon River runs through a nature preserve and it was a vapid but nature filled paddle.  Saw multiple turtles, haha.  It was really scenic for the normal northern Indiana cornfields everyone thinks of.  Will be making the trip again next year.