For those outdoors adventurers looking for a new wrinkle, I present swim with the manatees.  Not exactly your X-game caliber thrill show, but it is a spectacular event that will not disappoint.

Every winter, the Gulf of Mexico, home to the manatee, cools off as temperatures drop to what passes for ‘cold’ in this part of the world.  Along the West Coast of Florida, spring-fed rivers wind their way through mangroves to empty into the gulf.  Interestingly enough, spring water is always the same temperature, regardless of the weather.  In the summertime, the rivers are colder than the Gulf, but when the Gulf water drops below the magic number of 72 degrees Fahrenheit, the rivers become de facto hot spots.

The significance of that transition is that manatees prefer warmer waters.  When the Gulf cools, the manatees come in to nestle in the small rivers near the various springs.  That’s when it is time to swim with the manatee in the warm waters.

Warm being a relative term, of course.  A wet suit is recommended if you want to brave the 72 degree water for any length of time.  I’ve been in with and without a wetsuit, and I’d definitely suggest the suit to anyone who is neither a polar bear nor a masochist.

Once you get over the shock of the cold water (even with the suit, it is a bit of a shock to the system), you can snorkel your way over to one of the lumbering behemoths.  Up close, a manatee is bigger than you’d think.  But they are gentle, slow moving creatures.  Their attitude toward people varies from indifference to friendliness.  Seldom will they take any action either to encourage or discourage your approach.

These beasts are federally protected, so make sure that you understand the rules of engagement before you approach a manatee  Touching is OK; grabbing or hugging is not.  Feeding is right out of the question.  There are many operations in the area that will rent you the wet suit and snorkel, and even take you to the manatee hotspots.  Go early in the morning when the manatee are most active.  It’s an encounter that you will never forget.

As the post previous to this one stated, people reading this site are more likely to be people who like to do activities. Climbing, hiking, camping, or running can all be pretty intense physical activity, but there are some outdoor activities that you can perform without having to exert energy. For instance, you could cruise around in a boat, organize a picnic in the park, lounge around by the pool, or, one of my personal favorites–spend some time in a hammock.

I came home yesterday to Nashua, New Hampshire, from Boston, Massachusetts. It was a beautiful day outside and while my sisters were doing homework, I was wandering around the house trying to find something to do. Yes, there were some productive things that I could have been doing such as looking into the books I am going to have to buy for next semester’s classes, but after the third week, out of four, of training for my job as an Orientation Leader, I just wanted to do something relaxing. I remembered that I had brought along the book that we are supposed to read because it is this year’s First-Pages assignment for all incoming First Years at Northeastern University.  The staff is supposed to read it in order to become acquainted with it and to promote it to the First-Years. Just in case you are wondering, the book is titled Beautiful Boy and is written by David Sheff.

I sat down on my couch and began to read the book, but then I thought to myself why am I not reading this outside? Noticing that the hammock had yet to be set up, I walked to the porch and carried the parts of the hammock down the stairs and to the outside porch. Setting the hammock up took about five minutes, so in pretty much no time, I had created the perfect spot to read. I was shaded by the trees, experiencing the warmth of summer days, and best of all, outside. As I rocked back and forth smoothly and slowly, I read in my hammock for hours and finished an amazing book.

If you’re reading this site, you’re probably avid about one or more outdoor activities. But what to do when the weather won’t cooperate with your plans? This point has been hammered home to my family and me recently, as three solid weeks of rain, thunder, and lightning have transformed our portion of Florida into the “What Happened to the Sunshine?” State.

Our forced exile from the outdoors has brought to light a number of fun alternatives that will do just fine in a pinch. Indoor play lands abound for those who are willing to look. You know those inflatable bounce houses and slides that pop up for carnivals and festivals and such? We’ve got two indoor inflatable play lands in our city, which means you’ve probably got one within a reasonable drive of where you live (unless you live in Montana). Within the climate controlled walls of “Backyard Adventures”, we found no end of fun in zipping through mazes of air-filled obstacles and careening down slides at speeds unsafe for dad and son alike.

Another delightful discovery was something called “Funtasia”. It is an indoor series of mazes, climbing walls, ropes, pseudo-zip lines, and ball pits appropriate for children up to 12ish. There is one entrance in and out, so it is a safe place to let the kids run wild while I enjoy a little daddy down time.

It turns out that the moms all know and love these places because they can go there during the oppressive summer heat. But for an outdoor guy with two outdoor sons, this was an adequate substitute for those days when we just couldn’t get out to play. We even found some indoor (but not air conditioned) batting cages with a miniature practice field to keep up with our baseball skills.

It’s true that there is no substitute for fresh air and your favorite outdoor activity. But it turns out that there are a few temporary alternatives for those times when Mother Nature just won’t play along with your plans.

Located in the heart of the city of Nashua, New Hampshire, is Mine Falls Park. Unique to the city, it offers 325 acres of forest, wetland, and open fields. It is a park open for walking, running, biking, fishing, and, in the winter, cross-country skiing.

Most of the travels follow either the river or the canals; the scenery is always beautiful. You may see some interesting animals like the Belted Kingfisher or the Great Blue Heron that stops by once in a while. More details of some plants and animals you can find at Mine Falls Park are listed on a personal Website, www.hikingwithchuck.com.

For bikers or runners, the trails of Mine Falls are overall easy to intermediate. There are flat trails for a leisurely ride, but there are also some single-track runs that go along the river.  If you can find them all, the trail length totals to 10 to 15 miles. There are many entrances/exits to the park, so it can be used as a gateway for those traveling through Nashua. Mine Falls is bordered by the Nashua River on the north and by the canal system on the south. On one side you can reach Stellos Stadium by Nashua High School South, and on the other you will find yourself in downtown Nashua!

You might want to visit the dam where Mine Falls Park once got its name. It was originally a natural waterfall, but in the early 1800s, lead was allegedly mined from below the falls. A canal system and a dam were installed to drive the growing mill-yard during Industrialization. Today, it is the site of a small, privately-owned hydroelectric plant.

If you are looking for thrills and chills, Mine Falls Park is not the place, but it is definitely great for some quick moderately technical runs. In the summer it offers plentiful shade, and on the whole it can be very relaxing. It is a popular site for the residents of Nashua, yet it is never too crowded, and it is always well-maintained.

Last weekend we attended three children’s birthday parties. Aside from the sheer exhaustion of spending three straight days chasing after 3-9 year olds, it was enjoyable to spend the time outside and being active. All three party planners wisely choose to incorporate the gorgeous Florida spring weather into the festivities.

One terrific idea for a child’s party is a day at the park. Our Friday party was at a local park, and the festivities included obstacle courses, climbing, and water play. The kids spent two hours racing around the grassy fields, contentedly communing with nature by hurling water balloons at each other and racing for bragging rights.

The beach party was a big hit with a Hawaiian theme. We had crab walk races, a limbo contest, sack races, and fantastic water sports. The water was cold by local Floridian standards, but kids just don’t seem to care. They frolicked about in the water for hours, culminating with the kids shrieking in delight as they whipped around the lake on an inner tube pulled much too quickly by speedboat.

After two very nice parties on Friday and Saturday, I have to confess that I was not feeling very enthusiastic about Sunday’s party. Not because of the theme; I thought a day at the ranch was a great idea. But two days racing around with the kids was enough for me. I quietly hoped for a rain out to postpone Sunday’s party at the R&R Ranch.

How wrong I was. The ranch party was great. Chickens, goats, horses, ducks, and a pig greeted us at the gate. The kids all took turns horseback riding. The goats danced on the tables. The chickens were remarkably tame and willing to be handled by the kids.

Compared to a typical party in a confined place, all three outdoors parties were a refreshing break. Granted, if your birthday party is in January in Minnesota, there may not be much that you can do. But if possible, consider hosting your next party outdoors and away from the ordinary.

When planning a weekend hiking trip, what food items you bring does not matter all too much. Your main focus is to buy the food that you like, that you will be able to cook, and that can go without refrigeration for a few days. However, for trips longer than a weekend, planning the food for your trip becomes extremely important.

There are two kinds of backpacking food. One type is freeze-dried backpacking meals, while the other is buying nonperishable food from a grocery store. There are hundreds of options in terms of freeze-dried foods. These foods can be bought online or in stores or can be made by you.

You want to travel lightly when you are backpacking. When packing for a trip, food could take up a lot of space and weight in your bags, so it would be wise to travel with food that is fulfilling, but light as well. The best backpacking food is lightweight, tasty, calorie-packed and allows for quick cooking. When planning for a longer trip, it is wise to figure out every meal and ration out each meal in little bags. Some people will make “x” amount of breakfast bags, “x” amount of lunch bags, and “x” amount of dinner bags–this makes it easier to pick out a meal to eat as the days go by. You’ll also know that you will have enough food to last you throughout your trip.

Typical breakfast foods include rice, granola, fruit cocktail, raisins, pancakes, and more. Breakfast is a meal that will give you the initial kick to your day and the energy boost that you need. Lunch is also an most important meal. Lunch is usually heavier, bulkier, high energy, and requires no cooking. Some examples of lunch foods are tuna, trail mix, Logan Bread, pita bread, bagels, granola bars, dried fruit, Wheat Thins, etc. Dinner doesn’t have to be heavy; light, cooked, dehydrated meals are typically the type of food that backpackers eat at night.

When going on longer backpacking trips, it is really important that you think about the food that you are going to eat on a daily basis. Planning ahead is one of the most important steps you can take.

On May 4th, I sat near the Longfellow Bridge in Boston, Massachusetts, in the 4th seat of a Northeastern University Novice 8-person Resolute boat. On a normal race day, my boat would have to wait there, near the starting line, for only 10-20 minutes. However, a piece of equipment had broken in our boat, forcing us to delay the race for at least thirty minutes. Well, you may not know this, but those Boston Duck Tour boats all travel under the Longfellow Bridge, then they turn around, and go back to where they came from.

So, naturally our boat became a tourist attraction, and there were pictures of us being taken from the dozens of Duck Boats that passed us. We didn’t exactly appreciate this celebrity lifestyle–we felt like animals stuck behind a glass window being perpetually photographed.  However, at one point the annoying flashes disappeared and shifted in another direction. Wondering what the commotion was all about, our Ports “backed” and the Starboards “rowed” to turn our boat around.

What we saw was this extremely long boat with about 10 rows of pairs of people all paddling down the river. On the front of the boat was an intricate Chinese dragon head. There was a person standing on one end of the boat and another person sitting in the bow–facing the paddlers. Apparently, the person standing in the boat is known as the sweep. The sweep is also known as the helmsman or steersman, and this is the person who controls this boat with a sweep oar rigged at the rear of the boat. The other non-paddler is known as the drummer, and she or he  is considered the heartbeat of this boat because they lead the crew with the rhythmic beating of a drum.

And the people making this boat, called a dragonboat, move are called the paddlers!

I had never seen a dragon boat before, but apparently there are even big  dragon boat races in Boston! If you have never seen a dragon boat before, this is a sight that you have to see! The boats are very intriguing, and it is interesting to see how so many people paddle one boat.

Life comes at you pretty fast. And for the most part, Americans embrace fast as good. Even our recreation time is rushed. We run when we could walk. We’d rather ride our bikes fast than far. So it was when I first was introduced to the pontoon boat and the lazy Rainbow River, my first thought being, “How fast can I go?”

The answer, it turns out, is “not very”. The entirety of the Rainbow River, located in the quiet town of Dunellon, Florida, is a no wake zone. Not that pontoon boats go all that fast anyway. But the joy that I have found from boating slowly up and down the crystal clear waters of the river has far exceeded what I could have expected or even hoped.

Going fast is fun. It creates a cooling breeze. I can zip up and down the nearby Withalacoochie River as fast as the pontoon will go. But when I’m busy zipping along, I tend to miss the alligators, turtles, birds, and other assorted wildlife that are there for the viewing. When I’m going full speed ahead, the breathtaking scenery is nothing more than a blur in the periphery of my vision. It is hard to appreciate the undeveloped atmosphere, reminiscent of a day long past, when I don’t take the time to look.

On a slow, lazy boat ride I can close my eyes and imagine the time before the big city, before traffic jams and email, when there was just nature. I can drift behind a manatee as it lumbers through the water in search of some leafy meal. I can forget the expense reports and clogged gutters and the baseball games and the parent-teacher conferences. It is so easy to set it all aside for a few hours when my boat is just idling along and there is nothing but water and trees as far as the eye can see.

Next time you’re planning a get-away, try planning something that really will get you away from the fast pace of daily life – if only for a few hours. You’ll be glad that you did.

If you are looking for the best trails or locations for outdoor activities, like biking, boating, camping, hiking, fishing, or climbing, NH Outdoors is a very valuable Website.  The aesthetics of the site, I will admit, definitely could use some work. When I first saw the site, I hesitated to follow the links, fearing it might be one of those trap advertisement sites. Nevertheless, I followed the links and was surprised by the great selection of information.

NH Outdoors is organized by the type of activity or location in which you are interested. For example, golfing,  skateboarding, skiing,  and biking are among the many topics listed under the category “Activities.” Follow the link, and you will be brought to a page that shows all of the courses, rinks, mountains, and trails, respectively, divided conveniently by their locations in New Hampshire. You also can find information on locations, like beaches, fairs, or farms.

Directed especially toward tourists, there is a great page that details the location of all of the famous covered bridges in New Hampshire. In addition to that, there are pages for our state parks, lodging, and area attractions. The benefit of the simple site layout is that the information you are looking for is extremely easy to locate. It takes only a couple seconds to scan the home page and find the exact activity or type of destination you are interested in. Immediately, you are immersed in all the information for which you could possibly ask, which, in a sense, is very ergonomic.

If the sponsors of this Website could renovate it, the overall appeal of it would be much greater, but as they say, “Don’t judge a book by its cover.” NH Outdoors provides a very thorough supply of New Hampshire’s finest options. It is a terrific resource for anyone interested in experiencing the great outdoors that New Hampshire has to offer.

Right now, I am just rounding up my thoughts from my first year of skiing.  Quite frankly, I fell in love with skiing.  I love the feeling of cold wind whipping against my coat, hearing snow crunch beneath my poles, and seeing my skis glide over powder.  There is, well, nothing like it.  I have a few more thoughts that I’ll share below.

Here are some of what I thought were the best things.  First off, I thought doing my school’s ski club was awesome!  There is nothing like skiing with a ton of your friends!  Often we skied in groups as large as 20 or 30 people.  It is so fun ’cause we would race each other down and the back up the mountain.  Other times, we traveled in smaller herds of adolescents.  Also, we got to go a lot.  We went 5 Fridays from 1:00 to 8:00 at night.  We went to Pats Peak, in Henniker, New Hampshire, which has a great mountain, an excellent lodge (with great food), and good prices.  Also, the ability to rent my gear was nice, because I didn’t own any, being a first time skier.

Below, I have some of the rookie mistakes I made and some helpful tips.

• First off, probably the biggest mistake I made: trying to do a glade on my first day!  I went off one of the jumps, landed too hard causing my right ski to come off, which in turn made me hit myself in, well, an unmentionable area with my ski pole.
• Also, many times, I went wayyyy too fast and lost control.
• Finally, watch where you’re going!!!  Once, I wasn’t looking and fell on my friend Heather.

So, here are my top 3 tips:

1. Watch where you are going,
2. Don’t over estimate yourself,
3. And never, ever go above your level of capability.

If you don’t ski, you should try it today!!! (Or whenever the slopes are ready where you live.)