It's finally time to banish the snow shovels, winter coats, St. Johns Wort and all the other white stuff related equipment to places the sun doesn't shine.

    Now gather up all the clipped pictures from the travel section of the Sunday paper of green exotic sacred places that you wished you could be while you shivered by the heat ducts wrapped in multiple layers of puffy fibers and spread them out on a big table. Next add all your favorite maps and state park flyers to the growing pile and let's plan a Campanoe adventure!

    There are so many places I've been thinking about Campanoeing that it's hard to choose where to go first. I've been dreaming of a weeks trip to the Apostle Islands off the northern top of Wisconsin on Lake Superior all winter. Rowleys Bay, off the tip of Door County on the Lake Michigan side is another spot I'd like to explore. Big Bay State Park on Madeline Island looks like great fun.

    O.K. . .I'll take a deep breath and calm down a bit. We've got a whole new boat camping season in front of us and we don't have to go everywhere this weekend. It's probably a good idea to let the spring floodwaters receed enough to let the locals get back into their homes, and for the water to warm up enough so that you can survive more than 5 minutes in it before we get carried away with adventure.

    Speaking about floodwater, if you want to see an awesome sight you don't need to go any farther than the dam at Sauk Prarie on the Wisconsin River. The whitewater from the 3 open gates is over 30' high. When the water was cresting a few weeks ago all the gates were open and the whole river was boiling.

    Canoecopia 2001 was a good show for us this year. Many of our Campanoe owners stopped by to say hello and to swap boat stories. Thanks to all for stopping by to take a look and encourage us on.

    Bill and Diane North saw us on the internet and came to the show to see us. They are seasoned boaters and have owned and used many types of boats over the years. They immediately saw the benefits and versatility of our design but it took a high water sailing excursion to convince their two Scottish Terriers. They both quickly found a comfortable spot in the sun and the deal was done. Bill has developed a passion for fly fishing and is anxious to try it from his new Campanoe this summer. He did have one complaint the day he picked it up with a compact car. He said a fellow motorist was gawking at him so intently that he almost caused an accident at an intersection as Bill drove by. We hope they enjoy their boat as much as we do and hope they will share some future stories and pictures with us.

    We had our first taste of the warm sunny days to come this past weekend. My whole family managed to find the time to soak up some sun together on the Wisconsin River. After navigating a small feeder creek into some secluded wetlands, we had a nice picnic lunch and afterwards it almost seemed like we got drunk on the sunshine. Andy managed to get some studying done at the table for a physics course at UW- Madison, Kim disappeared for awhile into a good book, Steve and Sunny went prone on the decks to try to put on a little color while I did a little barefoot beachcombing. The water is still way too cold for wading.

    Here's a fun picture taken last summer while visiting an old high school friend and his family at their island cottage on the northeastern shore of Georgian Bay, Lake Huron. I wrote about our adventure in the Campanoe in Canada CampaNews but didn't have this shot that the Archbalds captured of one of our many afternoon outings. Danny is paddling between the front decks to manuever around a shallow reef while keeping a eye on their Bulldog Rosie, who couldn't resist standing guard at the very tip of the bow. Andy is ready to fire up the 5 hp. Honda to pilot them out to a good swimming reef. Steve and Sarah are hanging out in the shade of the tent and I think that's me passed out on the front cot. I had great fun taking dawn sailing runs every morning and it was nice to have the cots for catnaps. The gentle rolling is very relaxing.