Two men, a canoe and a dream. Lots of dreams.

Why are we paddling the Hudson?

Well...Why not? Because the Hudson Valley is beautiful. Because we want to see if we can actually do it. Because we often hike and this time we want to seek a different physical challenge. Because we want to experience the thrill and trepidation of approaching NYC via water and being engulfed by its overwhelming size and skyline, and by the immensity of the ocean. Because we have two weeks off work and we want to do something unordinary.

 Who are we? 

Good question. Maybe we'll go to our graves without ever fully knowing the answer. But we know this: sometimes we like to go completely crazy. Bukowski said that people that never go crazy must lead a horrible life! When we get together and decide to take on a challenge, we definitely go a little insane; we push ourselves to the very edge of our physical limits (at times mental too!); we challenge our body and ourselves to hike an extra mile or two or twenty, to paddle a little farther, to bike a little harder, to gaze at the stars a little longer. 

Paddling the length of the Hudson in two weeks, unsupported, is another piece of a puzzle that will probably never reveal itself, or be completed, because we can never fully quench our thirst for nature, our penchant for equivocal exploration, satisfy our imagination to realize a project, and feel and absorb and smell the actual stink of an unchained, unpredictable yet transient nomadic existence.

We seem pretty good at coming up with ideas that seem next to impossible to realize to the point of being laughable. We are not professional athletes and, oftentimes, our physical shape is nothing to boast about - but through sheer madness and childish vitality, we turn an idea into a project and the project into reality. It is such a fulfilling process to experience the transition from the "hey, you know what would be amazing to do next?" text message to the actual journey. It's almost as good as the actual journey itself.

So to answer our original question: we guess we are just ordinary people who like to go crazy sometimes, whatever that means; and we strive to make every moment of a given adventure...extraordinary.