Rope Swing Quadruple Backflips

This is one awesome video.

This summer Mike went back to the drawing board and searched the land for the perfect location for his next Big Swing. Promising to take things to the next level Wilson was seeking the perfect spot to throw a Quadruple backflip off of a 100 foot rope swing into the royal blue depths of Lake Tahoe and oh did he deliver.

The events that followed took place on Lake Tahoe between Sunrise, and Sunset, were out of control. Hula Networks and the Shreddy Times Crew worked hard to get the shots while Mike delivered the goods. Mike Wilson catapulted himself into the record books with this one throwing huge quadruple backflips from a 99 foot swing that sent him flying over 115 feet into the air.

You know you're in Spokane summer weather when...

1. You wake up to 85 degrees, go to work and by the time you go home, it's 65 and raining.

2. Tornado warnings? No we don't have those here, but freak dust devils going down Division st. is a common sight.

3. There's nothing quite like the dog days of August when night time temperatures reach a balmy 95 degrees and you're forced to sleep in the bathtub with the shower turned on full cold.

4. You hear "Let's go to the Lake" roughly 4,743 times during the day.

5. You get rained on and sunburnt at the same time. Also don't forget the possibility that you could get struck by lightning.

6. By the time I finish this blog, the weather will have already changed.

Hot summer nights and why they suck

So in all the years of my life, I've spent them in:

1. A log cabin with one air-conditioning unit that we turned on sometimes. SOMETIMES. Most of the times my parents would tell me to just go jump into the lake.

2. A cabin out in the humid Maryland Eastern Shore. No AC. Plenty of snakes, bugs I wasn't use to, Jason Vorhees, no television, no radio, dial up Internet and plenty of camp counselor mischief to get into.

3. A basement apartment with no AC. But since it was a basement apartment, and since I couldn't afford electricity, it stayed pretty cool.

4. A basement apartment with no AC. Sometimes it would get so hot, I would go to the nearby coffee shop to drink something warm to cool me off.

5. A large house with no AC. And since I had the upper corner room, with plenty of windows, the heat would rise and I would roast. Luckily I had the world's biggest box fan that probably sucks more juice from the electrical grid than Eastern Washington University itself.

And you know what sucks during the summer with no AC. Trying to sleep. I personally am a winter guy because you never have this problem in the winter because you're too busy freezing your butt off.

That problem is... sweating.

I hate feeling sweaty when I'm trying to sleep. It's quite possibly the worst feeling in the world. And since I live in the rain shadow of Eastern Washington, and since apparently AC has not come to this region of the country - this problem is always constant.

(And please keep your mind out of the gutter with the sweating and sleeping connection. I'll probably write some perverted blog about it later, so hold your horses)

I would like to raise awareness for sweaty sleeping in summer and would even suggest some sort of 5-step program where we pay Spokies to pour five-gallon jugs of cold (clean and Spokie-free) water on us at night. I definitely would be up for that.

Who's with me?

Across the Atlantic

We here at Just South of North enjoy not only the traditional sports, but the non traditional ones too. In fact, since I would like to break into the outdoor writing world, we try to keep a constant update of outdoor stories. Well folks, today you are in for a treat. (well hopefully you think so)

For today, I have a great topic to talk about and that is swimming. Yes, while it may be snowing out my window right now (thanks Groundhog. Thank you very much!) Summer is just around the corner. And for many of us summer means swimming in lakes and the ocean.

But how about Jennifer Figge? She took swimming to the next level. Think Michael Phelps is Aquaman? Than Figge is Aquawoman.

On February 5th she stepped onto the beach of Trinidad. She last had touched land on January 12. Why? Because Figge, a 56-year-old from Aspen, Colorado, became the first woman to swim across the Atlantic.

The total distance of her trip has yet to be calculated because she is now off from Trinidad to the Virgin Islands. Once she gets there, in late February, her whole trip will be added up.

Read her story here.

Yeah, this lady can swim across the entire Atlantic, and I get winded swimming across the pool. And that's just a plastic kiddie one in my parent's front yard!