Day 1- No Barriers USA

We arrived a day later than expected thanks to the storm that swept across the country yesterday (reminding me as always that Mother Nature is the boss!) and got into Miami this afternoon via American Airlines (wonderful treatment I might add, chair on board and all) welcomed by sunny skies and sweltering temps to this Colorado crew whose blood has thickened to mud to keep us warm in the winter months. Despite having spent annual family vacations and 4 years of college in the Sunshine State, it never fails to surprise me that my body can no longer function well in this heat. Welcome to June in Florida. Thankfully we'll be spending little time on land during our four days with No Barriers, and we're ecstatic to be reporting live from this event.

As mentioned in our previous post, the sporting opportunities here are endless both on land and on the water. We're excited to see windsurfing, outrigger canoeing, blind sailing, and standup paddleboarding just to name a few. Even Molly the Pony is here- a friend sent us an email months ago about this 19 year old gray horse, rescued during Hurricane Katrina and an amputee herself. A three-legged horse? Nope, Molly has her own prosthetic, but apparently if she gets ornery she kicks it off. LOL!

Gee, if you're in Florida and you aren't here, make the trek; this event is shaping up to be the best in the US!

We saw faces we haven't seen in years as well as some we see all the time; Kevin Carr and his wonderful adaptive canoe-backrest that we saw four years ago at Outdoor Retailer show in Salt Lake, no arm John and Kili Kubacz whom we met at NB in 2007 in Tahoe, our close friend Joel Berman from Adaptive Adventures, and even took our flight next to Freedom Rider Ackerman, of all the seats he could have taken. For you locals, we even met John Beauregard, an old Steamboater! It just reminds me that this world is small, and our adaptive world is even smaller.
Tonight's keynote speaker, Aimee Mullins, double BK amputee since a very young age, kicked off the event with a wonderfully inspiring talk full of stories that got us laughing (such as emulating the Rockettes in the streets of NYC so great that one of her prosthetic legs went flying down the sidewalk!), nodding, and thinking... thinking about challenging ourselves and raising the bar for success. Only eluding to the adventures this weekend has in store for us.

Don't forget to catch our live Podcast tomorrow at 5:30pm EST (call in to 646 378 1419), and to check in with this blog nightly for updates on this fabulous event!





Opening Ceremony Wheelchair Dancing with Steamboat's own John Beauregard!