canoe day

so i mentioned we went canoeing this weekend. finally.

aside from actually getting the boat in the water we managed to make fools of ourselves.

we ended up going to standley lake, which charges too much for a day use permit but whatever.

standley lake also requires that you have your boat sprayed down before you enter the water (darn invasive species).

so we get to the lake, pay for our permit, and drive over to the "aquatic nusance species" treatment area. and wait for some rangers.

have i mentioned that are canoe is on the top of the jeep? and that it's heavy?

when we went to take it down, i flipped it so fast that i also flipped charlie. so both he and the canoe go flying. and the ranger goes "uh, did you just buy this?"

then, he starts asking us questions about our "safety measures".

" do you have lifejackets?" .. "no"

"do you have a whistle?" ... "no"

"what are you planning on doing if you fall in the water?" ... "uh, swim..."

turns out, you have to have lifejackets and a whistle. so we put our canoe back on the jeep, drive to a sporting goods store, buy some lifejackets and a whistle (that i continue to blow for the next 3 hours) and make it back to the lake.

we end up floating around and fishing for a bit.

when it's time to leave, we're about to put the canoe back on the car (which is the hardest part bc that thing does not want to stay upside down. also i'm short! charlie just thinks i need to start lifting weights, but whatever)

anyway, i'm sore and cold at this point, the two rangers (who already think we're idiots) have pulled over to watch us and i cannot get the canoe up for the life of me.

so the ranger gets out of his car and asks if we want help (for the third time). i finally gave up and let him lift the stupid canoe.

we definitely should have gone with a kayak.

cloudy day

happy charlie.

i fished, too

please note the extreme concentration.

oh, weekend

you were much needed after my craptastic week.

stupid blogger deleted my post.

so i leave you with a picture from today.

yeah, 1 year later we finally took it out.

Our first "toy"

So C and I did get our canoe on Thursday night. It was quite the ordeal. I'll explain. First, I got out of class early and took the dogs for a walk up to the gym where C was. I figured it'd be a good surprise since we hadn't seen each other in a week and he was leaving the next day. And do you know what he says when he sees me sitting there? "Hi, can we go get the canoe now?" Geeze ... I missed you, too. So, we drive to REI to pick up the canoe and when we get there we asked them if they could help us put it on our car. The next thing I see is two guys WHEELING the canoe out of the store and my thought was "crap, this thing is going to be ridiculously heavy".

We get the thing outside, the guys lift it on top of the car and it turns out our roof rack isn't wide enough. So the guy at the store helps us tie it down and then goes "Um, you can't drive anywhere like that. You need wider racks." Umm ... then why did we just spend 20 minutes tying it down. I go to move the car to a parking spot while C goes inside to grab us some new (but very expensive) racks. And the guy from REI is watching me move the car 20 feet, the whole time going, "careful! not too fast!".

Once we got the new racks we realized that we had to take the canoe off the car, put it somewhere, and install these new racks. All of this happened in the parking lot. We got the strangest looks. Our canoe 'parked' in one spot and our car in the next.

We haven't taken it out yet but so far I've learned:

1. It is one thing to pick up a canoe. It is an entirely different thing to pick up the canoe, hoist it over your head, and gently set it on top of your car. This sucks even more if you're short.

2. If you drive with anything on the roof of your car make sure EVERYTHING is tied down. I mean EVERYTHING. This was learned the hard way, obviously.

3. Canoes look much smaller online than they do in person.

I'm hoping it will all be worth it once we get it out on the water. Then I remember my last canoeing experience with C. Hmmm ... I think there was a lot of yelling because I wanted a relaxing day out and he wanted to race people in a kayak.

Canoeing in DC. I'm being distracted by something. Probably a floating shoe or piece of trash.