The Beginning; (A Love Blooms)

My Love for the paddle sports began back when we were going to Strawberry Lake when I was but a child. My brother-in-law Richard had a fiberglass and wood canoe that he built by hand to become an Eagle Scout in the Boy Scouts of America. Which is the highest level you can attain in the Scouts. You could not only paddle that canoe but you could sail it as well. Richard set it up and built all the different components needed. 
Strawberry Lake was a no motors allowed lake, small, spring fed, super clean lake that had great fishing which my dad loved and swimming which we all loved. Richard would take my sister's and I out for short trips around the lake. Where we might see a deer maybe a Eagle or a hawk and of course all kinds of fish and other different critters on these trips. That is what hooked me.
One of my favorite place's to camp and paddle as a kid was at Ludington State Park, in Michigan. You have a huge inland lake (Hamlin Lake) that has a number of little islands to paddle around. A short section of river that connects Hamlin lake to Lake Michigan. Of course you have to portage around a dam that made the lake but no problem. Endless paddling possibilities
As I grew older we did different river's and lakes. We did a couple of runs on the Looking Glass and the Maple rivers the Grand river as well as the Flat river. In my teens I found girls and motorcycles and paddling fell to the wayside.
After my tour of duty in the Army I got back into paddling with a friend of mine named Randy. He had a two man rubber raft we would do different parts of the Grand River with. Randy was a fisherman so he would fish while I paddled. Then we got the cleaver idea to buy a cheap used canoe. Which we did for $25.00 and of course it leaked from every seam. Once we found and stopped all the leaks we made our plans to paddle the whole Grand River from east of the city of Jackson to Lake Michigan in one summer. We made it as far as Lansing in a week. Cold, wet, tired and hungry with half of our gear either missing or damaged and a canoe that leaked worse then it did when we bought it. We called Randy's wife to come get us and that's where that story ends. For now.