This photo is pretty hard to “process”, at least visually. This is the GG rehearsing our North Country Trail booth setup at the Quiet Adventure (Water) Symposium this coming weekend at the Moo-U (Michigan State University) Farm Bureau Pavilion.

This event used to feature water sports, like kayaking, etc. Eventually a bunch of hiking type folks (i.e., us, although we also kayak) horned their way into all the fun so they changed the name so as to cover a wider range of activities. The first time the GG helped run a Hiawatha Shore-to-Shore North Country Trail chapter booth, he went over there and back in one day. My BFF Sam (archaeologist, not dog) was in the Moo-U area visiting her parents and I drove over separately in the Ninja and picked her up and we attended the symposium, at least minimally.

Time went on and the GG’s involvement and eventually mine grew to where he does all of the display setups and I hang out and talk to people, introvert that I am. And now we schedule a whole weekend for this, complete with a hotel and lunch/dinner arrangements with friends But I’ll talk about that some other day. Like maybe Friday when the GG is setting up and I reassure our buddy Greg that it’s best to just let the GG roll without any help. Greg doesn’t need much reassurance.

“Silent sport” is a term my brother used when he switched from snowmobiles and speed botes to x-c skiing and kayaking. He was still healthy enough when he made those switches but I think he knew the writing was on the wall. He was making what changes he could to his family’s life, if changes to his own were not possible, at least in the long term. I’ll probably talk more about that some other day too. I’ve been processing this for 20 years.

I have always been a silent sport person myself. We (me and the GG) do own a couple of *small* motor botes. At Hoton Lake, we own (with other people) a big loverly Flote Bote (pontoon bote).

I never got along with snowmobiles very well. That is not to dis snowmobilers. They are mostly good people and they bring a lot of money to the yooperland and the northern lower.

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