Adventures with the Nelsons

2010

HAYDEN’SSummer Track Meets

HOEBUCKSurf Fest

MID- SUMMER

MADNESSM A U I

Artist Pointat

ANNIVERSARY

@

VICTORY ATBellingham

CHARGELIFE

CHARGELIFE Table of Contents

Ski To Sea Maui Adventure

Hayden’s Track Meets Paddle Grand Prix

Hayden’s Solo Kayak Wildside Relay

Anniversary Hike Halloween

Hoebuck Hoedown World Class

S SDouble Victory at the Bellingham Olympics

Every racer has a “main event” on their calendar. And for Heather and Brandon it’s the Ski to Sea, aka the Belling-ham Olympics. Every May for nearly 40 years the en-

tire region is overrun with racers and fans, as hundreds of 8-per-son teams relay nearly 100 miles, from Mt. Baker to Bellingham Bay.

The legs of the race include XC skiing, down-hill skiing, running, road cycling, 2-person ca-noeing down the Nooksack River, mountain biking, and kayaking across Bellingham Bay.

The 2010 race was the biggest ever – 462 teams – and was equally huge an experience for the Nelson fam-ily in that both our teams won our divisions, What-com County Women and Whatcom County Men’s.

The honors went one step further, though, as both Heather and Brandon were recognized as Top Gun male and fe-male kayakers – fastest of the entire field of 462 paddlers. For Heath-er this was her 4th year in a row for this honor. For Brandon, his first.

As usual, Hayden took the stage with Mama and Papa to collect the heavy hardware, and share his proud, million-watt smile with the world!

Brandon’s Team: Beaver’s Tree Service

Heather’s Team: Kulshan Cycles

Coming off a busy spring work season and the race-centric lead-up to Ski to Sea, we chose to wind down with some bona fide R & R in Maui.

No races, no real estate deals, no expeditions or cir-cumnavigations. Just the beach, a stand-up paddle-board, a mini-van and 7 days to enjoy watching Hayden — and each other – experience this watery wonderland.

SUMMERv a c a t i o n

IN MAUI

Hayden’s First Tropical Adventure

We chose for our base-camp the mellow beach-town of Ki-

hei, on Maui’s southwest shore.The early-morning water was glassy calm and perfect for tak-ing Hayden out on a sea-turtle scouting paddle and snorkel.By 8 a.m. (almost lunch-time by Washington stan-dards) we’re heading back to the condo for our 2nd meal of the day, and by then the wind is starting to wind up.

Much to our satis-faction, Hayden

was made GIDDY by the water, waves, sand, sea birds, sand castles and everything else that defines the Maui way of life. Even the condo swimming pool thrills him into an hour-long stream of laughter and games.

During our stay, we ven-tured in the afternoon to

the Maui Ocean Center aquarium. What a trip and a treat that place

is!!! Hayden ran from colorful, life-filled tank

to tank, face pressed to glass as critters of the deep swam up to meet him. His cool-ness as giant manta

rays and hammerhead sharks charged by him was kind of unnerving.

Jacque Cousteau the sequel?

We traveled the leg-endary Road to Hana, explored the 7 Sacred

Pools of Oheo, and stared into the crater

of 10,023-foot-tall dormant volcano, Ha-

leakala – one of the greatest sensory over-

loads of our adventur-ous lives!!!

Aloha!

WildsideThe

RELAYDown-wind Racing on the Columbia River Gorge

“Without a doubt, the Columbia River Gorge is one of the most insanely energy-packed corridors on the planet. “

On any summer day you’ve got a giant, corduroy-surfaced river gunning for the Pacific, 30+++ knots of wind blowing against it, hundreds of windsurfers

and kiteboarders ripping, farm-sized barges barging up and downstream, paddle-wheelers and fishing boats and locomotives and busy highways chugging along both banks…

Then you throw an army of surfski and outrigger paddlers into the mix, send them right up the gauntlet, charging as hard and fast as they can spin their

arms and link together the endless cycle of waves, grinning like a bunch of mon-keys and hooting as loud as the trains ripping right alongside… This is Wildside!!!

Imagine linking 6 or 8 or 10 waves together as warm, freshwater spray peels off your bow and paddle blades like confetti. This is the standard in the “mellow” sections of Wildside.

Then in Swell City, you stare into a steepening, opening, ever-growing trough that sucks at your boat like a syren song. And right before you take the drop, you’d bet the farm that you’re going to stuff so hard into the bottom of that trough that the bow of your Chinese-built boat is going to return to its home country.

Somehow, though, as you accelerate and drop in, the trough opens up and you’re just scream-ing forward. Yeah, you look like a monkey with that smile right about now!!! It’s beautiful.

Eventually you start paddling again and like magic another trough starts to form up right in front of you, and it’s on again. Rinse and repeat. Rinse and repeat.

It’s not just world-class downwinding… it’s WARM, world-class downwinding, and it’s all just down the road, amongst friends, in a destination people flock to from all over the world to see and experience. Ahh… the Gorge.

H A Y D E N STORMS THEAll-ComersTrack Meets!!

One of Belling-ham’s greatest qualities is the sheer quantity

of kid-friendly events. And none of these ranks higher for Hayden than the All-Comers Track Meet at Civic Field.

From the 6” hurdles to the 100 meter dash to the long jump and jav-elin throw, Hayden is ALLL smiles, laughs, and definitely all heart.

His collection of “Fin-isher’s Ribbons” hangs proudly on his bedroom wall, and will undoubt-edly double and double again over the years to come.

“Local youth already attracting college recruiters”

HAYDEN’S SOLO KAYAK ADVENTURE!

Call us extra-proud parents, but our money is on the 2024 Summer Olympics! Go, Hayden Storm!!!

What 2-year-old boy doesn’t dream

of having his own kay-ak? OK, that may be a stretch for some, but not in the Nelson fam-ily. Hayden had his first boat the day he was born, and at 2 ½ years old this summer he proved to the world he’s got the Nelson pad-dling gene through and through.

His 4’10” boat is out-fitted with crab-float “outriggers” for that extra bit of stability, but they don’t slow him down a bit. Launching from the sand on A.M. Beach in Sudden Val-ley, Hayden nailed the “left paddle, right pad-dle, left paddle, right!” technique all by him-self, with Mama shoot-ing photos alongside.By next summer Hayden

will have outgrown his first boat – just in time for his baby sister to inherit next spring – and he’ll be on to boat #2.

2010 will go down in our scrapbook as the year of SUP – stand-up paddling. Heather in particular got HOOKED in a big way, falling in love with the full body workout from paddling these over-sized surf boards with

7’ long carbon paddles. Not one to go meagerly into any new pursuit, Heather organized and launched a weekly race and demo paddle at Lake Padden, on the edge of town. It grew wildly popular within the first few weeks, and resulted in literally hundreds of first-timers trying this growing new sport. In August, Heather organized a race-specific event on Bellingham Bay, a point series of 3 races out of Cornwall Beach. Roughly 20 racers stepped up to the challenge for all 3 races – spaced 2 weeks apart each – and the final event was followed by an awards ceremony and pizza feast. It was all in preparation, though, for the main event on Labor Day weekend. Staged out of Boulevard Park in the heart of Bellingham’s waterfront, the Paddle Grand Prix consisted of 4 laps around a spectator-friendly oval track. The race drew talent from Canada, Seattle, Bend, Oregon, and our own Bellingham. Brandon MC’d on the beach while Heather raced ahead of all but one competitor – local star Beau Whitehead. We handed out stacks of raffle prizes, beer mugs and custom made award medallions, and feasted on grilled salmon, taters and salad.It was an epic first year of SUP racing, and fun to play a key role in bringing it to our beloved town and local waters.

First Annual Paddle Grand Prix

Heather Brings SUP Racing to Bellingham

8 ears of Marital Adventure BlissY“In the choice between pursuing a life of comfort, or a life of adventure, we choose ADVENTURE!”

-From our Wedding Vows on September 14th, 2002

We spent our 8th anniversary celebrating the day at Artist Point, about an hour from our house, in the Mt. Baker Wilderness Area. This backyard get-away is the perfect escape for end-

less rock-hopping, hiking, stone-throwing and photography.

“10,778 feet Mt. Baker, near Bellingham, WA”

Hayden’s as at home in this kind of natural playground as he in his kayak or on Mama’s paddleboard. We always come off the moun-tain vowing to spend more time up there, and

feeling blessed that it’s yet another close-to-home fea-ture in our World Class back yard.

PHOTO OF THE

MONTH!

“Great things are done when men and mountains meet.”

– William Blake

Hooray for

It’s true what they

say about having

kids: Half the

fun is getting

to re-live

your own

childhood.

(Or at least re-

connect once

in awhile with

your complete-

ly un-reserved

youthfulness). We

did just that this

past Halloween,

with a celebration in downtown

Fairhaven. Brandon dressed in

his finest drag as

“NW Girl”, Heath-

er turned heads

up and down

the streets as

“ C h e e t a h

Woman” and Hayden

– with three different

costumes to choose

from on the big day –

went with the charming,

always-popular Fuzzy

Frog suit!

alloween!!!

AT THE CENTER OF IT ALL...

W o r l d C l a s s FAMILIES & FRIENDS

AT THE CENTER OF IT ALL...

W o r l d C l a s s FAMILIES & FRIENDS

Into the Surf Zone:Brandon & Heather Charge

The Hoebuck Hoedown

Living on the protected waters of Puget Sound, our racing is usually limited to calm-ish con-

ditions – at least by open ocean stan-dards. Sure, we’ve caught Bellingham Bay in 80-knot winds with heavy duty seas. But there’s no consistent “surf zone” like we found on the Olympic Peninsula at the Hoebuck Hodown in October.

This weekend was ALL surf: through it, in it, under it, riding it, being ridden by it, and everything in between.

Hayden was our personal coach and cheering section, and found time to investigate every single piece of bull kelp on the entire Olympic Peninsula. We’re sure he’ll agree: We’ll be back next year for more surf!!!

We spent 3 days – all of it ‘experimental’ for us – learning the ropes on

stand-up paddleboards (SUP) and in re-connecting with our past in sea kayaks, surrounded by dozens of others in the same craft and also in zippy, short little surf kayaks.

Heather raced on Saturday and took top SUP honors in the 2-mile rough water dash. And on Sunday, Brandon threw down in the sea

kayak surf contest, and brought home blue ribbon #2 for the week-end.

ChargeLifeNext Issue Coming Christmas 2011!