paddle board yoga on the chattahoochee river

sometimes there are things you've always dreamed of doing or had on your "life list", and other times things come along that you have never even thought of … and they still feels like a dream come true.

stand up paddle board yoga was like that for me. i never even knew it was a thing until my friend madison posted pictures of it. last night i tried it for the first time, and it was so much fun! it felt like a vacation. we took our class at sunset on the river - absolutely beautiful. at first i was terrified to stand up and paddle around, but paddling around ended up being easier than standing up and standing still on the board without a paddle. (we anchored our boards and tied our paddles to the anchor for the class.)

the first fifteen minutes or so i was terrified. madison said, "well at least if you fall it's just into water." very true. very logical. and a very positive and grounded way to think. but i was busy fielding rapid-fire thoughts in my brain like: "was that a snapping turtle sticking its head out of the water? what if i hit my head on a rock? i wonder if there really are crocodiles in the chattahoochee? which way will i go if a crocodile shows up? what if i get sucked out of this calm inlet to the rapids? i'm not a strong swimmer. why am i doing this? how is everyone else making this look so easy? why am i the only one whose legs are shaking? what was i thinking trying this so soon after having a baby, my core is still weak. i wish there weren't so many onlookers …"

the first few poses and attempts at standing up i was seriously so scared i was doing my mental chant of "thank you Jesus" and variations of "I can do everything through Christ who strengthens me" because that is just what works for me, as crazy as it may sound. i am a big believer in taking risks and doing things that scare you.

the good news is after the initial fears passed, i relaxed and had a great time. we all fell in a few times. the water felt great. we laughed a lot. it wasn't hard to get back up onto the board like i was afraid it might be. and afterward my other friends were talking about how their legs were shaking too. guess that's like most of life - we think it's just us, but it's never just us.

if it was free, i would seriously do this every day. great workout + fun + relaxing + nothing refreshes me more than time outside, especially being on (or near) water. at the end we just laid on our boards for a few minutes. we were supposed to close our eyes for the closing sequence, but no way jose ... i was enjoying the gorgeous sky, eyes wide open. ;) if you ever get the chance to try it, go for it!

 

{rachel in the water, madison in the middle, and me. i must have been tensing up my shoulders and neck, because my neck is sore/tight today, whoops.}

 {sweet friends i am going to miss! madison is from utah and rachel is from texas, and their husbands are in ranger regiment too. thank you lance for being an AMAZING dad and husband and giving me a fun night out!!!}

{source: pinterest}

karl

i find it easier to write about people who aren't on the internet. that way i am not intimidated by the thought of them reading it or misinterpreting it when they do. it probably shouldn't be that way, but writing usually works better when i don't filter.

so, for instance,  it's easier to write about my dad, because he "doesn't do computers." and i've been thinking about his friend karl, because he doesn't do computers (as far as i know) and he is a character like my dad - which is probably also what makes writing about them so easy.

karl makes me smile. he is the only karl with a k (not a c) that i know. he loves hunting and fishing and smoking cigarettes. he has a medium build with tan skin, brown hair, and a mustache. he wore a cartoon tie and brought a disposable camera to my wedding to snap picture of me and my dad. i wasn't even sure they still made disposable cameras in 2013.

his voice has its own drawl to it - the kind you could easily pick out if you had to. when i was dating lance and i saw karl one time, he said, "chelsea, i heard ya got a steady!" um yeah, yeah i guess i do? i'm not sure how to respond to that, but thank you for allowing me to feel like i'm living in the 1950s that i paint so dreamily in my mind for a moment.

one of my earliest memories of karl is waiting for  him to clean out the backseat of his car so my brother and i could ride in the back on the way to go hiking. something had a ketchup stain on it and he said, "damn it, that's not gonna come out. oh i mean darn it. you didn't hear me say that, did you?"

karl is one of the kindest people i've ever known. he picks up hitchhikers, lets people stay at his house if they're down on their luck, and is quick to give money to people in need.

my dad says that karl is probably the hardest working person he knows. if you ever need a tree to be cut down, call karl. "boy, he has a gift. karl can make a tree fall exactly where he wants it to." i am laughing as i write that. my dad is fantastic at acknowledging other people's gifts. he says that one of his roommates is "a genius with a telephone." here i am laughing again, because what does that even mean? more than he can operate a telephone and make calls my dad doesn't feel like making. but to hear my dad talk about it you would think that guy has set olympic records.

but karl is your guy if you ever need a tree cut down. he has had several jobs and maybe he got fired sometimes, but he would always get right back out there and find another. he never gives up.

when karl worked at cactus willie's, a buffet with made-to-order steaks, we tried to visit him at work with my dad. i say try, because i don't actually remember that we ever ate there at a time when karl was working. i think my dad had just found a convenient excuse to eat at a steak buffet as much as he wanted to and took advantage of that.

i pretend gag when i think of cactus willie's now, because i have adopted my mom's disdain for buffets and smorgasbords. why stuff your face with rows of mediocre (at best) food, when you could order one sensible portion of deliciousness at a nicer restaurant? if that's not enough to convince a person not to like buffets, i think what happened to my dad the last time we ate at cactus willie's would.

my dad was wearing new shoes. he has enormous feet and is very particular about the shoes he buys, so finding a pair he likes is a big deal. i forget what they looked like, but they probably cost a pretty penny because joseph benjamin shank does not skimp when it comes to footwear. we waited in the winding line to get into cactus willie's, because it was wildly popular when it first opened and that was when karl worked there. we got our table and went our separate ways to fill our plates. all i remember eating there was soft-serve ice cream cones.

midway through the meal, my dad got up to go to the bathroom.

when he came back, he had this look on his face that you knew something was either terribly wrong, or you were about to hear a really good story. this time it turned out to be both.

when he opened the door to the bathroom, someone had thrown up all over the floor. so my dad slipped around and wound up with someone's steak buffet puke all over his new shoes. if there are words to describe the look on my dad's face after this debacle, or how much it burned him up, i don't have them.

we never ate at cactus willie's ever again. it could've been the shoe incident, but it's more likely that we stopped going because karl stopped working there and moved on to trucking. cactus willie's has since gone out of business (i guess we left a big hole in their income) and i will forever count it a privilege of adulthood to choose restaurants myself.