EJ’s Experience at NPFF- Fun Day- and Canoe Kentucky Visit

What would the attraction of going to Kentucky in February, with snow on the ground be for a kayaker, one might ask who has never been to the National Paddling Film Festival.    The Bluegrass Whitewater Association puts on an incredible event at the Buffalo Chase Distillery and Elk Horn Creek.    I’ll set the stage.  In a downstairs large conference room in an old wooden/log building there are booths set up.  Such as my good friends from Canoe Kentucky,  Team River Runner, American Whitewater, etc..   There is a big silent auction, food, and a ton of people milling around talking.      Upstairs in the theater there are non-stop kayaking movies going on, with the producers of them often providing the intro and sharing stories about them.    People come and go, watching what they want and hitting the bar with free beer that the tip money goes to American Whitewater.  On Friday night clay and I brought in the Villain S prototype and shared with Allison and Nathan of Canoe Kentucky briefly while we had a stream of paddlers sitting in it and checking it out.    Everyone seemed fired up on it after looking at it and learning more.   We watched a few movies and talked alot to friends from all over the east coast.   At 11pm the Festival closed down, but I was here on Clay’s program, just him and I the after party was next on Clay’s agenda, as well as plenty of the paddlers. We went to the Brick Alley Pub and they had a good DJ rocking the place, and the crowd was diverse, to say the least.   Kayakers, mini-skirts, pool players, more kayakers, and Freddie who ran up a bar tab that I can’t imagine and wouldn’t stop trying to deliver us one thing after another.    Somebody must have said something to him about Bud American Ale, because at one point i looked around and a bunch of the kayakers were holding a bottle of it and smiling.    The next time I looked around, everyone had a Buffalo Trace Burbon which is distilled there in Frankfurt.      Freddie was still at the bar getting more, turning around, delivering, and repeating until they started saying “Drink up, time to go” closing down the bar.    The conversations are quite fun at a kayaking event like that, talking about paddling, boats, people watching, and I even had a short dancing stint with Woody, an unlikely date for me, but much safer than the couple of mini-skirts that looked like trouble.    We made the 1/2 mile trek back and crashed at the hotel and were awake at 7am for breakfast and our clinic at Canoe Kentucky.    Clay drove us to the Canoe Kentucky shop, a very cool kayak shop, instructional facility, and rental place.   Is is early on a Saturday morning but there were 10 people there to participate in our clinic on all things Jackson Kayak.    We were supplied with plenty of coffee, and they already had the 2010 Fun, Stars in Stock, as well as the Hero, Riviera, some kids boats, etc..   We brought the Villain to show them.     The staff, and some of their instructors and customers were there and Clay did a great job on the boats.   Nathan and Allison also gave me a new disc for disc golf at my house.   Dane will be jealous. Our next stop was the Elk Horn Creek Race and Fun Day event.   On a below freezing day, where we woke up with 1/2 inch of snow, there was a full take out full of cars, boats, and paddlers.   We milled around a little, got our gear on, boats loaded on the shuttle provided by the organizers, and had our racers meeting for the 4 mile downriver race.    Clay and I added a little twist to the race.   At the bar the night before a couple of local paddlers racing made it clear that they weren’t super fired up to have to compete in a mass start race head to head with Clay and I.     The idea came up of us being blockers instead of racers and I was all about it

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EJ’s Experience at NPFF- Fun Day- and Canoe Kentucky Visit