Easy Canoe Trip

Last Sunday we were lucky enough to have the perfect weather for a lazy canoe trip down the Saint Croix. There are a couple outfitters that you can go through. This was our second trip with Wild Mountain Its $45 for the canoe with paddles and life vests. It's a bit steep but still worth it. We highly recommend parking your car at the end of the trip just on the Minnesota side of the HWY 243 bridge into Osceola, WI. This way when you are done - you are DONE - and and literally leave the canoe on the beach and just jump into your car and leave. We took our time - stopping a couple of times along the way - and still made it down in under 3 hours.

From St. Croix River

The water was really low in some spots. A little girl canoeing by when mol snapped this even said "look mom it looks like he is walking on water" :)



Even though there were a lot people on the river - it was very peaceful with plenty of "nature" all around. I was able to sneak up pretty close to this hawk before he flew away.

Mol was rockin the super cute baby bump. Passers by would all smile at us and then to each other about how cute they thought it was.

My Favorite Top Gear Segment.

Each time I watch this I still get goose bumps. It is rare to find someone so "expert" at something that can also explain their expertise in such a simple and easy to understand way. "Like Yoda"

Mother of all Belly Flops

Classic Big Picture Blog. I can't believe the big news sites still get away with low resolution fuzzy images.

Video: Leonards Leap

As promised here is some of the video shot with my Canon T1i and Sigma 10x20mm.

Leonards Leap from Nathan Grahek on Vimeo.

Man I love Vimeo.

Another Perfect Day in Osceola

The weather was perfect on Saturday and Erik was excited to show me Leonards new favorite game.

From Fishin and Dog Jumping

For some reason Leonard really likes jumping off the boat way more than jumping off the dock. This made it tuff to get back far enough - hence so many of the shots his head is out of frame. It does however give you a good sense of how fast he is going. I will post a couple videos of it later this week. I was literally hanging off the front of the boat dangling the camera out as far as I could. Next time I am going to try and be in a second boat - and have my back to the sun. Black Labs are always just big black shadows when shooting into the sun.

He likes jumping off so much - he gave us all a mini heart attack when we started driving again - Erik had the stick in his hand - Lenard just exploded over the rail off the FRONT of the pontoon. Luckily we were going slow and my Dad was quick to kill the throttle.

So far this is still one of my favorite shots of the summer, from Memorial weekend.

From Memorial Day Weekend 09

Sunday Morning Bloody Mary's

Over the years a number of people have asked for the bloody recipe I use, and I have been meaning to put something like this together for a while.

In a nut shell - while I almost always stick to the same foundation - experimenting with different ingredients is what I enjoy most. Take a look at what I have so far, please leave your comments - and let me know some of your favorite ingredients.