Merry Christmas

Happy holidays to all! I am writing this from my new kindle fire. I am so impressed with its features thus far. I had a plain Nook before but it froze up one day & that was that. Terribly disappointing. I have to run for now, but now that I have this little tablet, I may just be able to blog the way I've always wanted.

Kayaking and Camping Part 2

So after scouting and rejecting one location due to stinging nettle (have you ever been hit with that stuff?  Awful!)  We continued downriver to a spot with a sandy knoll.  We were also just upriver from a bridge busy with cars, so we knew we were close to civilization.  We pulled over and first thing we located the firewood and started a fire.  The boyfriend handled a clothesline and started working on the wet gear while I put up the tent and started cooking.  The advantages of sand include lump-free sleeping, level tent placement, and soft sitting and walking.  The disadvantages include the fact I will have this river sand in my home, kayak, and gear for the rest of my days!  We pulled over early enough to leave us two solid hours of daylight, and that magical hour of twilight.  During that time we were able to dry out some things, but not all of our sleeping gear, so improvising became a priority before sleep could be established.  Our meal of choice this night was bean with bacon soup and hot dogs.  Easy to pack, easy to eat, one pot meal.  It tasted amazing after being on the river 5 hours.  After eating, we gathered more firewood and tried to figure out what we were going to sleep on. 

I decided we had no choice but to put the sleeping bag down as cushion, wet or not.  We had brought a blanket with waterproofing on one side and wool on the other, so I figured we could put that over the wet sleeping bag, waterproofing down.  I was then informed that blanket was damp also.  Well, we just didn’t have a choice.  I guess you could say “luckily” the boyfriend had wrapped the lantern in this packing material similar to bubble wrap, and he had used a lot more than he had needed to because he’s that kind of guy (thank god), and we discovered we could lay that down and be dry.  But sticky.  I’ll take dry and sticky over wet and icky any day, though.  So now we had that settled.  As night fell we stocked up for our last pile of wood, and started discussing the half-built walls of buildings just inland from us, and their proposed purpose.  So of course zombies had to come up.  Now it is hilarious to me, always, that as an adult I can handle most any situation.  Be calm, with it, helpful, etc.  But you put me on a strange riverbank in the dark and I suddenly have every horror movie I have ever seen a commercial for playing out in my mind.  Never fails.  But even more funny, I start getting to the boyfriend, who decides we need to go on a perimeter check.  I said Hell no, I was not going on a perimeter check.  I didn’t even want to be anywhere near those walls in the dark.  So like all good boyfriends in the world, he fashions me weapons out of a rain fly pole, tent stakes, and super duper tape.  And let me tell you, I could mess someone’s face up with this thing, no question.  I must admit, I love it when the boyfriend amuses and protects me all at the same time.  So he takes off with his own weapon and light and leaves me fireside.  He didn’t get far.  Turns out all around those walls was the infamous stinging nettle, and that was enough to convince him no one was going to be around there.  So we hung out around the fire, talked, and watched a couple fishermen get settled in across river from us for the night.  The only other oddity to the night was the skull I came across while finding the bathroom.  It scared the crap out of me at first, but I soon realized it was Styrofoam, and it entertained us for about two whole minutes.  After a few more drinks and sacred alone time to relax and revisit each other we decided we’d better get some sleep so as to be up with the dawn and be on the water.  I had a goal, anyway, of sitting in my kayak at dawn watching the sun arise above us to light our way.  This is a beautiful and peaceful place in my mind.  So we climb in the tent, get settled on our bubble wrap with our only dry blanket atop us, and talk ourselves into sleep.  With the windows of the tent slightly unzipped for vent, it was not a stuffy night and sleep crept along and took us under.  Sometime in the dark of the night I awoke on my left side, my right knee bent and wet.  As I climb out of the fog, gripping for the reasons of sound, I realize it is raining, and raining good.  Another moment, and I realize it is raining into the tent through the vented windows.  I zip them up, but unzip the door to see what I can see.  Out in front of me I see the kayaks covered top to bottom in sand splattered up from the hard rain, and the few things left on the line soaking once again due to the wet.  My first thought was that this rain was supposed to arrive late the next afternoon per the report I checked before we left, and my second thought was everything is going home soaked and heavy.  There was nothing else to do but lay back down and hope for more sleep, and the ending o the rain during that time.  I awoke again at dawn, and our tent was becoming more soggy, and the rain was not abating.  It was light now, and I was the only one up, and I started to wonder how we would get along if this rain continued.  Before long my cell phone rang (the magic of cell phones), and it was my grandmother extremely concerned for our safety.  She wanted to come up and find us and bring us home and out of this situation.  I assured her we were fine, the river looked fine, and I had intentions of waiting it out and would call her back in an hour or two with an update.  The boyfriend and I had an obligation later that afternoon and I was wondering if we were going to make it.  Finally, about 11 a.m., which was enough time I started to consider my grandmother’s offer, the rain subsided then stopped.  The sky lightening, and only the trees left to shake off the wet.  The river had not risen a noticeable amount so I figured we could try to make it as far as possible before the rain started again, because I had no idea if it was going to start again or not.  Now the boyfriend had not bothered to get up because of the rain, so I woke him now and we got to work packing up all the wet and sandy gear of our meager living arrangements.  Wet sand is a lot less fun than dry sand.  So we packed up and headed out.  We lucked out and the weather held for us, and even graced us with sunshine after a couple hours.  We discovered that wet gear is significantly heavier than dry, and pulling our kayaks through the dead stretches became an absolute chore rather than pleasure.  Incidentally, the stretches between where we camped and Loveland, OH are mostly long, straight, near dead waters.  It is hard to describe the ache and pull of the muscles in my shoulders, my biceps, my chest, my upper back.  I could feel each one as I rowed, standing out singularly, telling me they were there and they were tired.  A few times I daydreamed of pulling my paddle in, kicking my legs out atop my kayak and laying back for a rest of an hour or so.  Maybe with a good book.  Of course we couldn’t do that, since we were on a schedule to meet a time impossible to meet at this point, but I did absolutely die a few times and just float and wander, and think on why I didn’t expect rain in the middle of the night lasting to 11 a.m., which is so far past dawn…  We decide on a new goal destination.  Originally we were going back to Milford, our home port.  But we are tired, wet, and behind schedule so we decide to pull out at Lake Isabella, north of Milford just the southside of Loveland.  So to speak.  We called friends, who have a truck, and they are great friends and willing to come and save us from ourselves.  We finally float into more familiar territory and I realize we are heading into downtown Loveland, we approach a canoe livery with people on the bank and we ask how much longer to Isabella.  Three more miles, they say.  I’m thinking that is not bad, we can do that in a hour.  But the boyfriend is on the phone as we pass this livery, and it’s not long before he tells me to paddle back to the liver.  Yes, upstream against current, because our friends are closer to here than Isabella and we should just stop here.  Which isn’t here anymore, it’s there, because I am past it!  So I started hauling myself against the current, back-pedaling to the bank of the livery, and the burn in my arms is so intense I figure my muscles will just start snapping out of my skin at any moment.  Seriously.  As I pass him, I look at the boyfriend and say, “I don’t think I like you much, right now”.  He laughed.  I did not.  At any rate, we beached our heavy boats and weary bodies at the livery, got out, and laid on the gravel for a solid five minutes.  My arms were twizzler ropes, I swear.  Our friends arrived momentarily and delivered us safely home, and we went about the process off unloading a bit, retrieving the car, etc.  Then made our way to the obligation we were late for and had to commence ripping up an apartment full of carpet, and disposing of an entire kitchen full of countertops and cabinets.  Don’t ask me how our muscles didn’t fail us, how I carried all that carpeting and cabinets doe 4 flights of steps and chucked them into a dumpster, but I did.  We did.  We also each ate half of our own large pizzas, and then slept like babies.  Imagine that. 

While it was a long, and at times exasperating, experience, I would not trade it.  I am glad we did it.  We had a fun first day and night, the amazing greens of the foliage, the sparkle of the sun off the water, the solitary flight of a heron that escorted us part of the way, the regal turtles on their logs, the peace of birdsong and breeze….all worth everything I went through with burning muscle and dripping rain.  We plan to do it again, hopefully with better circumstances.  The evening we spent alone together on the riverbank, childless and obligation-free, has no weight in gold.  I recommend a trip like this to anyone with a love of nature and each other, for it was that love and respect that allowed us to see past the unsavory weather and fatigue and just enjoy where we were in that moment, and hold it close to us and embrace it.  Moments we will remember forever, good and bad.

Our First Kayak/Camp Trip (Part One)

So sometimes this is how you get it done.  Six a.m. and the house is quiet aside from my keyboard clicking.  I can actually think!  And no one knows I’m up yet.  I have been getting up this early automatically for a little bit now, and I am starting to get used to it.  The pre-dawn hours are so much nicer than I thought they could be.  The birds are very much alive and the air is still cool.  Yeah, I think I dig it.

So last weekend the boyfriend and I decided to do a two day kayak run down our Little Miami river.  The plan was leaving Saturday at 11, being on the water by 12, camping Saturday night, waking up at dawn on Sunday, having some breakfast, and paddling on to our Milford destination.  Dropping in up at Morrow, it should have been a good 4 or 5 hours each day.  Well…..  The best intentions, right?  The boyfriend got out of work a little later, our 12pm drop in time became 2pm, and the extra weight on the kayaks made still water our enemy.  The girl at the Morrow drop in said she believed it was 50 miles to Milford.  I believe it was more like 30, so we dropped in regardless and got on our way. 

The boyfriend was riding the Coleman Hooligan kayak, which has high walls and can pack in a lot of gear, so his kayak was the main gear kayak.  The Hooligan is heavy empty, so with the added 50 pounds or more of tent, food, fire grate for cooking, etc. I was glad I was not paddling that one.  I also had gear in my Potomac 100, and pulling in still water had my shoulders burning more quickly than I expected.  We have good little kayaks, though, and I know they did their best for us.  Especially the Hooligan, we pushed that boat to it’s limits I think, and it did not disappoint. 

Upon dropping in we realized quickly the river is a different atmosphere up north from our usual local run on a Sunday afternoon.  The first thing I noticed was how much wider the river was.  The green was greener, and the banks were clean and clear of garbage and debris.  I wonder why the river can be so clean up there, and yet not so much down here.  It can be so disappointing  to hop in the kayak, or stop to stretch your legs and you’re tripping over everyone else’s trash.  If there are any fishermen out there reading this, please pack out your garbage.  Your expended or snagged up line, your beer cans, your cigarette butts.  That’s all we ask.  I ask the same of the party canoers.  Anyway, the river was beautiful.  A little muddy because we’ve had rains lately, but the trees along the bank were picture perfect with their gnarled roots curling out to grab the water, and their branches leaning out and over as though to pat you on the back or take a sip.  The rapids were wide and bubbly, but nothing too heavy, which was a relief considering our weight.  I was worried we would bottom out at times because the Little Miami is a fairly shallow river, but I only scraped twice, and it may have been about the same for the boyfriend.  There were two memorable moments for me along our first leg.  The first was at our first stop, or rather once we put back in after our first stop.  We stopped at the entrance to some rapids where a tree branch was hanging straight into the water in the dead center of the drop into the rapid.  When we got back in I warned to watch the tree and stay left of it if possible.  It was the safe route, yes, but it was the safe route!  Lol  Anyhow, the boyfriend is the type to act first and think later, you know who you are, and his famous last words were: “No tree has sh** on me!”, and that should have been all I needed to know.  He decided to go to the right of the tree and do a little “duck and shimmy” around it.  I’m sure it was fun for about 3 seconds until the weight displaced from his little side-duck and over he went!  He did great getting the kayak upright (full of water and all our gear, mind you), and he hung on and rode it down.  I got sideways in front of him so he would hit me before anything else and I could guide him over to shore.  Now, this waterproof duffle we had did an amazing job, but it’s storm proof, not submerge proof, and once we hit land and investigated we realized everything was a bit damp.  Not soaked, thank god, but damp can be just as bad when you’re camping.  Needless to say, the decision to find camp was pushed up so fire could be built and clothesline made nearby.  Everyone was okay, and that was the main concern.  It took a good thirty minutes to drain the kayak, repack, and get back on the way. 

The second memorable moment came when we came upon an S-curve of rapids that were very cool.  We dropped in to the left, had to avoid a whirlpool action to the right and stay in line to continue through the rapids to the right.  At the end there was a strong whirlpool action that turned me around, but it was one of the neatest set of rapids I’ve been through along this river.  It’s amazing to me, the pull and rush of the river.  I have an intense respect and admiration, and if I could spend every weekend on the water, you would find me there.  It is the most peaceful place. 

Shortly after those rapids we staked out a place to camp, and decided on a spot just north of Kings Island.  Upside, we got to watch their closing fireworks from camp.  Downside, we heard a lot of traffic through the night.   Well, this is a long story, so I’ll post this as part one, and post part two in a bit.  Any comments, questions and advice on our experience is always welcome.  Next up: camping in the rain that was supposed to come later and the long leg home.

Here I am, I guess!

Hello, I am new to this but hoping to catch on fast.  It occured to me I am writing everyday in a notebook about my crazy life and honestly, some people are always asking for updates and what am I  up to, etc., and I realized I could write this all in a blog and kill a million birds with one stone.  Those who want to follow, can follow, and those with the same interests as me can just check in for the info on that.  I am a busy mom, but commitment I can handle. 

I am currently painting my kitchen, and writing about that with pics included could give some of you an idea if your kitchen is tasting rather bland.  I also just concluded a two day kayaking trip where plenty of drama happened, and there are probably kayakers out there who would get a kick out of my stories.  So I think I'll just start throwing it all out there and see where it goes.  I am also a mom, and all those moms out there know there is never a dull moment there.  So here is to hoping this works out for everyone and we all make some great friends, memories, and learn some stuff along the way! 

Happy reading!