"Canoecoppia......."

My sister visited this past weekend, for the first time since I have lived in Madison. The 5 hour drive has been a hold up, but the main reason has been the taking care of our parents. She and a friend, Allison, drove over Friday and left late Saturday afternoon. Her interest in kayaking brought her to Canoecoppia, the annual canoe/kayak show, held in the Alliant Center each spring. It was a whirlwind visit, cramming a lot into the time they were here, but we had a good time and a did lot of laughing. :)

As you can see in this photo, neither she nor Allison like having their picture taken. Allison on the left, myself, and Sandy. They had perfect, although cold weather, for their traveling.


Here we are checking out kayak paddles. It is truly amazing at how light the carbon paddles are in comparison to fiberglass and/or aluminum.


Don is testing the convenience of a carrying rack for kayaks that swings down from the top of a vehicle. It makes it very easy to load a kayak onto the rack and a person only has to lift the kayak about waist high to get it into the saddle. When Sandy and I first got to the booth, the salesperson was a small boy of about 12, demonstrating the ease of it. :)


A VERY cool trailer at the show. It is a "pop up" camping trailer that weighs only 700#'s. Very light compared to most camping trailers. The reason of course, is that it is all tent, except for the roof and framing. The roof cranks up and has the tent stored in it, allowing it to come down and unfold to its full extent. It's a very innovative trailer that stores the tent in the top section, which can stay cranked up, locked in place using the panels that normally fold down for the sleeping position, but locked vertically to allow the trailer to be used to carry a 4 wheeler, bicycles, or other equipment, inside and underneath the fiberglass top. If you didn't use that feature, racks can be mounted on top of the trailer roof, and boats/bikes could be transported that way. Very cool!!!


We went to listen to Darren and his wife, Stephanie, give a talk on their family kayaking vacation to Alaska. I suppose it wouldn't be of interest to everyone (although, it was standing room only by the time the talk started), but to us, since they are old neighbors (having lived next to Don in Rob's house), it was. The photographs were fantastic and, of course, he and Stephanie have a good sense of humor so there were many laughs, too. Here he is with daughter Whitney, who came home from college (Brigham Young) for the show. OH! I guess I forgot to mention that it is Darren's shop, Rutabaga's (the paddlesport shop), that sponsors this show. :)

By the way, this would have been posted yesterday, but something was wrong with the server and wouldn't load the photos.