Finally hitting the water

I finally got my kayak out for the first time since leaving Iowa. I haven't had much chance to get this one out yet since I picked it up in Arizona earlier this spring with preparing for the trip and all; so it felt good to slip it into the water this evening. It was simply too nice of a day not to get on the water. The sun was shining, the wind was calm, and I had a new blister on my foot so I definitely wasn't going for a hike. I threw the kayak on top of my car and headed out to Hayden Lake to check it out. Hayden Lake is listed as being 4000 acres and is considered a smaller lake around here. For reference for those of you back home, our Spirit Lake is 5600 acres and West Okoboji is 3850 acres. The big difference though is that Spirit Lake has 15 miles of shoreline and West Okoboji has a little under 20, but Hayden Lake has 40 miles of shoreline and is 178 feet deep. There are many arms and bays and it ranges from shallow lily pads to steep rock walls. It's set among some small, rolling, wooded mountains/hills and is a beautiful lake (I need to start using a thesaurus). It was a perfect night to be out for a paddle and hardly anyone else was out on the water.

Part way through my paddle though I did find a reminder to always where your life jacket and respect the water or you could end up looking like a you know what.

Also to note is this was the first day of work after Don left for Mexico so I was running the office in the shop by myself for the first time. It was really slow earlier in the day but started to pick up later in the afternoon and we got some good work booked in for the rest of the week. And I managed not to burn the place down!