“Want to go Paddling”?  This was the first thing Adam Beach said when he called me yesterday afternoon.  I was surprised and confused by this, then he explained he has a canoe and a lake near his house.  It had been a few years since I was out in a canoe so I agreed and headed over.  Adam’s own words to describe his canoe were “the 1970’s AMC gremlin of canoes” it was an older fiberglass canoe, but it kept the water out and floated without rolling over.  We set out with no real goal in mind, other than just follow the shore and try to make it to Lake Monona.  We had a pretty strong North wind so it took us about an hour and a half to go ~4.5 miles up into Lake Monona.  By this time I already had a blister pop on my right hand and was getting pretty tired, so we decided to turn around.  The return trip was heading with the wind and the current so we made better time, a little under an hour to make it back.  What made the return more interesting was the storm clouds that were coming up behind us.  We got a few sprinkles on us as we were coming up to the park.  After we got into Adam’s car it started raining somewhat hard, but we did get to see a nice rainbow as we were driving away from the lake.   Though I am feeling it today, I am glad he thought of me and I went out.  Sorry no pictures, didn’t want to accidentally dump the canoe and ruin my camera =P.  But here is a map of where we went.