Paddle outings don’t get much nicer than this. 6 of us gathered to brave the sunshine, upper 60’s temps, light breeze, and clean water of Grassy Creek and the Barbee Lake chain.
Starting from the Grassy Creek launch, we headed towards the lock, finding the water was high enough that no lock operations we needed; we just sailed (technically paddled…) straight through it. Making our way through the creek, we bounded out into Sawmill Lake, touched onto Irish Lake, then into Little Barbee, Big Barbee, and finally into Kuhn Lake. At this point either Ward or Steve said they had made it an hour out, sunlight was limited, the wind would be against us, and so they were heading back. After giving them some grief about their commitment, Jay, Mike, Tadd, and I joined them and headed back, enjoying the breeze and some wave action. We don’t get onto the Barbee chain much, and the funny thing about heading out is you frequently don’t take good notes on how to get back. And thus Tadd and I at one point found ourselves gaining a “bonus paddle” as we “took a wrong turn at Albuquerque” and ended up in a dead-end lane. This turned out to be a good thing, as aside from the extra paddling option it also allowed the slower paddlers to catch up and we all ended up paddling back in together. Not content with ending a perfect evening too quickly, Tadd and Mike took the new boat I brought for a spin and proclaimed it as “excellent”.
And speaking of excellent, Tadd surprised us with a substantial batch of his mom’s home-made cookies. And they indeed were excellent! Naturally some good conversational surrounded our cookie snarfing, and we eventually all headed out into the night. Great paddling call Mike! And thanks again for the cookies Tadd!
Steve
