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Bradford Beach Jam

Well, we just returned from a fun filled, adventure filled, mechanically filled and water filled weekend in Milwaukee, WI.
The Strat's and The Woody's left on Thursday and stayed overnight at the Edgewater Best Western in Duluth, Mn. If you've never stayed here before, make a note and bring the kids there. LOADS of fun for kids/adults in the water park and you can buy food/beer right there and eat beside the pool(s). What a great idea!
We then drove to Milwaukee and stayed at the Yogi campground which is also really nice and very kid orientated. Uffe, Larry and Jenny met up with us at Yogi's park on Friday night and pitched a tent at The Surfer's site, as they had a sweet site on a corner lot with nice grass.
Saturday was really hot and we were very stoked about the event site at Bradford Beach on Lake Michigan. Wow, the water is so clear. The water temp was not too bad on Friday with the heat and light onshore breeze, but with the offshore winds on Saturday the water temps dropped to around 58 degrees! Talk about major shrinkage! My feet were aching after a minute or so in the water!! The air temp was in the high 90's, so we sailed in board shorts, but wore our winter booties! After each race I would hang my legs in the water waiting, but whwen it was time to get back on the board....woa, I could hardly stand up!!
We all sailed really great! I'm really stoked that Surfy finished all the races and was rewarded with a third place in Sport Class. Even more stoked that Margot won the Sport Class, was top female racer and this was the second regatta where we both finished 1st in our respective classes. I also finished first overall in the regatta, so I'm really pleased with our results this past weekend. Strat forgoed the racing to keep an eye out for the kids, so a big thanks to him for sure, or maybe none of us would have won anything. Thanks Strat!!
Saturday night we experienced a vibration in the Moose (not the kind your thinking!!) and it looked as if we may not get back to Dryden without some major repairs or towing involved. We did manage to drive to Fond du Lac and changed three u-joints at Kevin Gratton's Winpower Windsurfing shop on a Sunday!! Thanks to Kevin and his brother Andy for all the help, and of course to Strat again for helping out so much with the repairs. We were back on the road in a couple of hours.
A funny thing happened when we were leaving Kevin's place. I was checking the load before we left and noticed a 15' windsurfboard on the trailer rack. We were checking this gigantic board out when we arrived at Kevin's shop and thought how much fun that would be to sail. Then when I saw it on the trailer just before we left, I thought at first Strat put it up there, but discovered Kevin and his brother Andy snuck it up there while we were picking up the u-joints from a parts store. This board will get a post of it's own so look forward to that. No pictures at the moment due to the fact we lost our camera bag with the cable in it! We can't remove the pics from the camera, so I'll have to get an XD card reader tomorrow. The pic is from the regatta taken from the committe boat.

All in all, a really fun weekend in the good ol' USA!

Have fun in life

Posted by Brad at August 1, 2006 5:33 PM

Comments

Way to go Team World! I saw the results at Mowind - awesome!!! Glad the Moose got y'all home. Looking forward to seeing the 15fter.
-PM

Posted by: Pavel at August 1, 2006 7:06 PM

Thanks to Woody and Margot for your help along the way. Couldn't have done it without you!!!!

Posted by: Surfy/Shan at August 1, 2006 8:41 PM

Great summary Woody! Our poor old Moosey needed some repairs, but what a fun, relaxing surf machine it is for us! Sure was a hot weekend to be on the road and with no air conditioning while driving, (98.5 Fahrenheit yikes!!) Lake Michigan was a peace of heaven to jump in! Racing without wind is always a lot of work, but being with the gang is so much fun!
We missed you Paul - get the house done fast!!!
Looking forward to the next road trip!

Posted by: Woodette :) at August 1, 2006 9:13 PM

Uffe also made a great post, with great pictures from that awesome beach! Hope I can locate my camera bag somehwere!

Posted by: Woodette :) at August 1, 2006 9:15 PM

Oh ya, the kids had an absolute blast in the Moose along the way playing Xbox and watching movies on the 20"LCD. We all took turns having naps along the way too, so the Moose is working out really awesome so far! One of these trips the ol' girl will make it there and back in one piece!!

Posted by: Woody at August 1, 2006 9:32 PM

Milwaukee was a sick trip.... props to Mom and Dad for the great adventure!

Posted by: Josh at August 2, 2006 11:24 AM

Hey everyone, great post Woody, can't wait to see the 15 footer board you mentioned, is it the tandem board that way laying around back on the ground by Kevin's big windsurfing barn? If it is that thing will be fun to try sail, is it in two pieces? I can see you and Margot on full plane on that thing with all three kids standing on it as well.. Yeihaa... Are you guys heading to Menominee next weekend? Only two more days for me before Maui, I can't believe it is actually happening....
I will make some posts from there to you guys.. Some day we all have to go at the same time to Maui and make it a TEAM WORLD EVENT, I will look for some places where we could all stay... How about a big hosue on the water somewhere....

Posted by: Uffe at August 2, 2006 4:15 PM

By the way, check out this link for a bunch of cool tips and trick's on windsurfing. Josh you should be out there freestyling since you are such a great skateboarder...
http://www.guycribb.com/page0076v01.htm

Posted by: Uffe at August 2, 2006 4:16 PM

I wished so badly that i could have been there. I am not missing Mille Lacs!!

=)mikey

Posted by: Mikey at August 3, 2006 10:19 PM

your racing results are just awesome and you are all having so much fun! Keep up the great surfing! love Mom xoxox

Posted by: carol Orvis at August 20, 2006 6:10 PM