Paddling out for lunch

Just a short food review of some paddler-chow[1] on Lake Conroe. After stumbling (or perhaps "drifting" would be a better word for an aqua-pedestrian such as myself) on "Zach's Bar-B-Q Barge" last weekend, I figured I had to try it. It was good. Okay, maybe a bit more detail is in order...

Zach's Bar-B-Q Barge is docked at what is now "The Palms" marina, formerly Anchorage marina. Judging by the sparse appearance on Google Maps' old aerial imagery and what some people have told me, Anchorage marina was pretty small and perhaps quite run-down. "The Palms" is all-new, very nice, and appears to have a lot more stuff...including the "Bar-B-Q Barge", who appear to have an agreement with The Palms to dock there and do business. The Barge is open on Saturdays and Sundays, serving various BBQ Ribs, beef, and chicken along with a couple of more generic items like hot dogs. I wanted to try the baby back ribs, but decided if I was going to get down to take pictures of the "Southern Empress" and then across the lake to check out Walden marina before heading back home, I'd be better off with something a little lighter. I went with the BBQ Chicken sandwich (pictured here - yes, that's the actual sandwich I ate) which, as I said at the beginning, was good. Personally, I'd have preferred about half as much sauce, but with a teapoon or so of mayonnaise and some swiss cheese melted on top, but that's because I'm an admitted culinary wierdo rather than there being anything wrong with the sandwich...

In any case, I expect to gladly use "Zach's Bar-B-Q Barge" as an excuse to get my lazy butt back into the kayak again in the future.

[1] Yes, the "(Blahblahblah) Chow" thing is almost certainly a trademark of Ralston-Purina corporation, and, no, nothing here has anything to do with them. Also, I'm pretty confident that nothing they serve at the Barge comes as hard chunks of kibble, and I don't think my sandwich would have "made its own gravy[2]" if I dumped water on it. The "Paddler Chow" thing is just parody, obviously.

[2] Okay, okay, "Gravy Train" doesn't have anything to do with Ralston Purina either.

A Journey to the Civilized side of the Lake

I went for a nice long paddle down along the Eastern side of the populated end of Lake Conroe this weekend (I consider FM 1097 to be more or less the dividing line between the Southern civilized/populated end of the lake and the Northern wilderness/unpopulated end). Eventually I'd like to assemble a complete listing of the public and paddle-accessible destinations on the lake, but today I just have a few, and a collection of pictures.

I've posted a description and an interactive map which displays the track and pictures from the trip I took over on The Big Room blog. Comments and suggestions are welcome either here or there. More to follow, we promise....

Oh I'm so woefully behind on this blog. Mea culpa!

So while you're waiting for me to get some new stuff up, here's some stuff from the back end of the kayak (better known as "the spousal unit") from his blog on our paddling adventures:

http://www.bigroom.org/wordpress/?p=175#more-175 (Lake Paula from the back end of the kayak)
http://www.bigroom.org/wordpress/?p=184#more-184 (going for pizza on Lake Conroe)
http://www.bigroom.org/wordpress/?p=206#more-206 (post-Ike)

I have three kayaking trips plus a new place to put in, all which I need to get up onto the blog. I've been so remiss about getting this stuff written up. There's the trip on the trip up the Caney Creek branch islet of Lake Conroe (Oct. 2008), Colorado River south of Smithfield, TX (Nov. 2008); this year's first Hostetter Creek attempt (April, 2009) and yesterday's trip up the Chambers Creek islet of Lake Conroe (May, 2009).

I was going to do a post on the 2008 trip up McDonald Creek from Stubblefield, but the version done by the back half of the kayak is preety good - complete with map, photos and audio (the bit where I realise the spousal unit was recording is worth a laugh). You can find the 2008 Stubble field trip at:

http://www.bigroom.org/wordpress/?p=220