Canoe Vibes

Mark Vlaskamp - author of Canoe Vibes - is the co-owner of a paddlesport company in Houston, TX, outdoor writer/media contributor, & canoe enthusiast.  

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I’ve been at this canoe-blog game for a while now.  Hey, if you know me…this has been a long while.

I saw my gear arsenal grow from a do-it-yourself hobby bin in the garage, to more of a MTV Cribs episode mixed with a taste of A&E’s Hoarders.  I suffered through the ‘How to Use a Semicolon-Gate of 2k14’ and peeked through the ever-present writer’s block and Houston rainy season to find the emergence of my tenth post and a small sense of online identity; no longer just a wannabe river bum and a template website.  I smiled through seemingly countless redesigns of my canoe rigging layout, busted the learning curve on tracking a canoe straight, and played with a blog format that err… let’s just say it’s better now.

In such a rapidly changing space, it’s hard not to get pulled into an ongoing analysis of where we are compared to where we want to be.  However, the analysis of where we’ve been compared to where we are now, while almost never appreciated, is somewhat important in reaching where we’re headed next.

To continually improve and not let my procrastinatory-nature take over, I operate with a sense of ‘controlled paranoia’ pushing me forward.  For me, this paranoia is a constant force of dissatisfaction with current success that keeps me looking over my shoulder like Bonnie and Clyde on the run from Central US Law Dogs during the Public Enemy Era sprinkled with the remnants of the Great Depression.   After going on their outlaw spree, Bonnie and Clyde did a pretty darn good job avoiding the police officers who were looking for them like a kid searching Mommy’s closet on Christmas Eve.

Great Clyde, this paranoia sure is doing a good job keeping the cops from catching up with you from behind.  However, at some point, don’t you have to stop and reevaluate the past success you have had in order to successfully continue running?

I’m not telling Clyde to high five the neighbors and post a tweet about surviving another day on the run.  All I am saying is find what is working for you, reflect on it, and stick with it.

While I’m not running from the cops, I am running from complacency – complacency in a budding hobby and complacency in a remotely successful blog per my low standards.

On my baby - Canoe Vibes’ - nine month birthday analysis, a handful of good trends have caught my attention. And, unlike my outlook on paddling California’s dried up rivers anytime soon,  I feel pretty confident about these positive trends.  In my Usain Bolt-esque sprint from the cops with Bonnie and Clyde, I am going to take this time to stop looking over my shoulder and reflect on positive trends that are unfolding.  Read More >>

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I got off work early and went for a run on the nearby running trail along our local waterway.  While wrapping up my run after a depressing chest cramp reminded me that twenty five is not the new eighteen, I crossed paths with an interesting young couple carrying an inflatable tandem kayak to the base of the severely flooded bayou.

People carrying kayaks, canoes, or paddleboards naturally spark my interest.  I make it a challenge to myself to rattle off the make and model before the boat gets close enough to actually get a good look.  But this was different.  Instead of my attention staying focused on the boat, my attention was fully focused on reeling my lower jaw back into its closed and upright position.  There is no way these noobs were going to try to paddle this flash flood, right?

Here is some perspective.  Over the last four days, central Texas has been slammed by rain about as bad as this city has seen since Hurricane Ike in 2008.  The rain has since filled up all of the rivers, lakes, and bayous.  This water, now landed, is en route through south Texas – and through Houston - to its final beach bash in the Gulf of Mexico.  The city – while good at producing heart-breaking sports moments and even better at whipping up a hearty plate of Tex Mex food – is about as good at flood control and water drainage as Kanye West is at conceding defeat. Read More >>>

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The Theory of Relativity: Hidalgo Falls Trip Report

Tuesday, June 9, 2015

In post-Einstein life on this rock flying through space - life where people still find ways to complain about the weather, their job, and those political parties deemed perpetually terrible instead of being thankful for the flying rock - there are things that are absolute and things that are relative.

Time is relative, right Albert?  Time varies based on how fast you’re moving.

While my knowledge of science gets pretty hazy at anything above 8th grade introductory physics, time on the river has made me an expert at noticing the skewed perception of time’s relativity and some real-world applications that my man Dr. E narrowly missed discovering over one hundred years ago.

The Relativity of Alarm Clock Reception

I’m not a morning person; far from it.  However, the old school buzz – now rivaled on the radio under the over-glorified Dub Step genre - that I have programmed to play every morning at 6:30am is uncharacteristically welcomed on paddling trip mornings.  The alarm sounds, I shoot out of bed, get ready, and hit the road in the time that it usually takes me to start a good game of Hide and Seek with my snooze button on a normal weekday.

This Saturday was no different.  My plans to paddle Hidalgo Falls - a protected section of the Brazos River through the Texas Rivers Protection Association access point in Navasota – had been circled on my calendar for a couple weeks now to the point of bleeding through onto the next page like a school girl feeding an overwhelming highlighter addiction.  Excited was an understatement.  Read More >>>

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“Simply put, the 100 year old classic dull-green canoe by Old Town had a baby with the new 2014 bright camo Old Town Predator fishing kayak of the year and their offspring – the NEXT – popped out with all the good characteristics of both, a marketing budget that was through the roof, and – like any celebrity baby – the don’t care attitude toward pissing people off. From day one, this North Kardashian West of the paddlesport world was too bright, flashy, and modern for traditional canoeists.  Likewise, the NEXT was too unstable, difficult to track, and, quite frankly, lame looking for thrill seeking kayak anglers who proudly claim canoes are only for their grandparents.  Both parties are right. 

It’s not a canoe.  It’s not a kayak.  It’s not A.  It’s not B.  Instead, it’s this weird uninhabitable space in between that everyone has been too locked up by the exclusivity of their own interests to venture into. “ 

Read more of my Old Town Next review here: http://www.canoevibes.com/#!The-Space-Between-A-B-Old-Town-NEXT-13-Review/c22zv/552565c30cf21d84af89c147