When people ask me what I think about the Summer Outdoor Retailer Open Air Demo at Jordenelle Reservoir, I can’t help but put a huge smile on my face. I had the opportunity to do so many awesome things for the very first time: stand-up paddle boarding (SUP), geocaching, dunk someone in a dunk tank, and so much more.
I started off the morning with SeasonFive athlete, Nikki Gregg, a SUP pioneer and expert. She took us down to the water’s edge where we got SUP boards from Starboard SUP. With a bit of hesitation I got onto the board on my knees, pushed out from the shore, took a breath and stood up. Was I a bit unsteady? Of course. Gregg gave us about an hour long lesson about how to paddle, turn, and if I so chose, do a push-up on the board in the middle of the water. I didn’t but my husband did.
As we stood out there over the water on these amazing boards, the wind started to pick up and the water got choppy. Wham! I was in the water. As I fell in I closed my eyes and prayed my contacts would not be washed out. Slowly, I opened both eyes, relieved the contacts were still there and pulled myself back on the board. In that moment I was instantly baptized into the world of SUP. Now I just need to figure out how to get me one of those boards.
Walking back to the SeasonFive booth, I could here a familiar voice of a former co-worker, FOX 13’s Brett Benson. He was sitting in the SeasonFive dunk tank. Heckling me as I walked up to him, saying I couldn’t knock him in, I waited for Kenji Haroutunian, OR Show director, to draw a line for me to stand behind. A yellow ball was placed in my hand, I threw the ball, and was gobsmacked when it hit the dunk tank button and Brett was sunk. Did I mention this was my first throw ever at a dunk tank?
With success in the air, my husband and I headed to the Magellan booth to try our first time at geocaching. At first the small GPS they handed us, baffled us, neither of us had ever tried this before. Once we finally got the hang out of it, we took off with purpose in a new direction. Speed walking from one place to another in search of these items, Jared and I were exhausted after finding all 9 caches. It’s amazing how something so obvious can be so hard to find. Soon we were digging in dirt, and crawling on our knees under shrubbery, but we made it back to the tent having completed all nine searches.
I could go on and on about OAD and how much fun I had and the new things I got to try out but I’ll stop here. Let me just say thank you to the exhibitors who bring their product to test in the field. Without this opportunity, I don’t know when I would have stood on my first SUP, been soaked and had a blast dripping wet.