Kayak parties occasionally take place on dry land. We just spent our Saturday evening at REI, surrounded by adventurers. One adventurer in particular, Susan Marie Conrad was the reason we got together tonight.

She kayaked the inside passage and got more than a t-shirt. She got a life changing experience and a book!

Inside: One Woman’s Journey Through the Inside Passage

The party consisted of free beer and pizza (and healthier foods, which I opted for to make up for my beer) to start out the party, with live music from the author’s partner and his band (Burnt Breakfast), then Susan shared her presentation, with incredible pictures and select readings from her book, about her journey.

A few highlights of what she shared:

About 150 chocolate bars got her through

She visited Butedale – population of 1 (Lou – providing moorage and ice cream)

She could do both those and still lose weight because she needed to consume 4000 calories per day!

It’s about the journey. About being on the water. She wasn’t trying to be first, she was just on an (brave and awesome!) adventure.

 

The Q&A time was the most fun. I think really interesting adventurers don’t always realize just how interesting they are and how even the seeming mundane stories to them are intriguing to the rest of us.

Paddled so quickly because she was trying to out paddle her fears. 6 days.

If she did it again she’s do it slower.

And she did go back with her partner to certain parts to jog her memory for the book and might take 3 days for something she paddled in one day.

“It’s nice to slow down and smell the barnacles along the way.”

Also, she was fit so paddling wasn’t a problem, what made her travel exhausting was all the land (including big tide changes for landing / launching)

There was a raffle as well (we didn’t win but one guy won two tents!) and a toast from her partner that was really sweet and shows how much he supports her passions.

We bought her book, of course, and I’m looking forward to reading it (I’m sure I’ll write another post about it when I do). She seemed pretty awesome and dynamic from the few hours of the event so I’m sure her book is going to be a fun interesting read.

Today was so fun! I don’t get to spend every Saturday with my husband between my work some weekends and both our continuing education classes that happen some weekends but we got to spend a wonderful day today together. Gardening in the morning, spending the afternoon with a friend (trying to get Periogies but the line was out the door! So we opted for Indian food), then this event.

I’ll close with Susan’s question:

Where do you go? What do you do to change your attitude?

Believe in yourself and go for it!