West Virginia

WEST VIRGINIA

After a week back in the office following the East Coast Canoe and Kayak Festival, it was time for me to head back up to the northeast for the next several weeks. I left Asheville early Saturday morning and stopped of in Fayetteville West Virginia to visit my family , say hello to some of my friends whom I have not seen in a while, and of course do a little paddling.

Saturday evening I paddled the Lower New River Gorge with BJ Johnson and Pete Isscaro in our whitewater boats. Then on Sunday morning, after a delicious breakfast at the Cathedral Café, Todd Richendollar and I decided to take a couple Impex boats down the same class IV whitewater run. I decided to paddle a fiberglass Currituck and Todd opted to take a carbon kevlar Mystic.

The Putin





Todd getting ready





The old Fayette station bridge




Todd Running Fayette Station Rapid




The takeout is just below the New River Gorge Bridge




The run went really well and it was quite impressive to see how fast you can actually get down the gorge in a 17ft sea kayak. Good Times!!

Joseph Mosquera
Team Impex

East Coast Canoe and Kayak Festival 2008

East Coast Canoe and Kayak Festival 2008

After spending a couple of weeks in the North East we were pretty excited to be heading down to Charleston, SC to the East Coast Canoe and Kayak Festival. Don’t get me wrong, I love the North East but after spending nearly the last month traveling in cooler temperatures, we were really looking forward to some much needed sunshine.

Since our job requires us to drive around in really big trucks all year long we are always looking at ways to help minimize our environmental footprint any way we can. Since Danny Mongno of Werner Paddles was driving down we decided to carpool with Danny and only take one huge diesel guzzling rig instead of two.





After the four hour drive from Asheville to Charleston we decided that a round of golf at the Charleston Municipal Golf Course was in order.

Getting ready to play.




How were the scores you may be asking, well let’s just say there is no chance of any of us getting an invite to play in the PGA anytime soon.

After golf we drove over to Folley Beach to check into the beach house that we had rented for the weekend. We decided split the rental with Werner Paddles and our friends from Sea Kayak Georgia.

Beach Rental



The View from the front porch.





The next three days we were all busy event days. The Festival was held at James Island County Park. Thanks to all of the people that make this event happen each year. Keep up the good work! Also a big thanks goes out to all of the people who stopped by the Impex booth to check out the boats.

Here are a few shots from the weekend.









Saturday evening the coast guard brought a helicopter into the event site to do some rescue demonstrations.





Sunday morning Mette and I decided to put Werner’s new stand up surf paddle, the Spanker ,to the test and do a little stand up paddle boarding at the event site. If you have never tried stand up surf paddle boarding you should check it out, it is a ton of fun and puts a whole new perspective to things on the water.

Mette using the Spanker








Sunday evening Sea Kayaker Magazine in conjuction with Werner paddles held a raffle for a free Werner paddle.

Danny Mongno from Werner Paddles drawing the winner!



Mette Bergvall, the Werner Paddles South East Sales Rep, and the lucky winner with his brand new Werner Paddle! Congratulations Walt!





Loaded up and ready to start the drive home.








Joseph Mosquera
Team Impex

Canoecopia THE TRIP HOME

Well folks, sorry for the lack of updates recently but things have been pretty busy for us here at Impex the last several weeks. Here is a brief report of what we have been up to for the last few weeks.

After a great show at Canoecopia in Madison Wisconsin we woke up early the Monday following the last day of the event and we were pretty excited to be heading south back to Asheville and warmer temperatures. The only problem was the Ford F350 truck that we were driving decided that it had not had enough of the frigid temperatures of Wisconsin and decided that it would quit running around Beloit Wisconsin. Trying to remain optimistic we called a tow truck hoping that it would be something simple and we would be back on the road in a few hours. Well no dice! After two tow truck rides and 2 different mechanics who were unfortunately unable to find the problem, our truck finally made it to a Ford dealer around 5:30pm Monday evening. We spent the next 2 days sitting in a hotel waiting for the call that our truck was ready to go. After a tense couple of days dealing with customer service representatives on the phone we finally received the unfortunate news that the dealer needed to take the rack system and entire cab off of the truck in order to fix the problem and this was going to take at least another week!

Not wanting to spend another week out of the office, we were forced to rent a uhaul and drive that the 12 hours back to Asheville. Oh well, at least the Walrus in the giant picture on the side of the uhaul was smiling about the situation.

The real unfortunate part of the whole situation was the fact that once the truck was finally ready we had to fly into Chicago, get a rental car, drive to Beloit to pick up the truck and then drive straight back to Asheville to pick up a 46ft trailer and leave the next day to head to New England for the next two weeks for dealer visits and for the Jersey Paddler and Kittery paddle sports shows.




Check back tomorrow for another update on the East Coast Canoe and Kayak Festival.

Joe Mosquera
Team Impex