Adventures in paddling

“Hey Dad, I found out about a guided canoe trip down Parker’s Creek on Saturday, June 20 — want to go?”

…

“It’s the day before Father’s Day, and it’s roughly a three-hour paddle…”

“Sure, yeah… Let’s go canoeing!”

And with that, it was settled. I was taking my dad on a three-hour tour (que song: “…a three-hour tour…”) via canoe for Father’s Day 2009. Adding to the great timing of this trip? The fact that we could use the American Chestnut Land Trust’s canoes, thus erasing our need to figure out how to transport our own 17-foot, aluminum canoe up the road. Dad is 6-foot, and I’m 5′4.5″… and we’ve already discovered that this combination doesn’t bode well for getting a canoe on top of his Toyota Tundra which comes complete with full cap over the 8-foot bed.

Sorry Dad — again — I really didn’t mean to let the canoe take the paint off of the roof of the cab that time…

But enough with the apologies. Things were going great, and even the fact that I overslept this morning couldn’t mask my excitement for the paddle to come. For Christmas in 2007, my dad gave me a canoe paddle that he had custom-made for me (it matches his own, carved out of ash). I hadn’t yet had the opportunity to get it wet (totally ignoring the fact that the tip of the paddle did get wet at the end of May, without me), and I was looking forward to spending some quality time with Dad out on the water.

I called my parents this morning at 10 a.m. to tell them I’d be there in an hour. I called them back at 10:15 to tell them that the guided tour had been cancelled due to forecasted weather.

“Well, c’mon over here and we’ll take it out on the river!”

“Okay!” I said, and hurried to gather bug spray and other essentials.

I arrived at my parents house to find my mother’s Subaru Outback in the backyard. Mom was in the passenger seat, reading the manual and trying to figure out the specifications on her roof rack. Dad was in the basement gathering ropes and tie-downs.

As soon as Dad and I had successfully loaded and secured the canoe on top of the Subaru, a clap of thunder shuddered through the sky. Moments later, rain came crowding down in sideways sheets as we ran for the back door, laughing. It figures.

Two hours later, the sky is blue. Mom and I finished watching the end of a movie on TV and caught Dad napping over a book.

“Well, you wanna go see about putting in down at the college?”

I grinned, “Hell yeah!”

This time we were foiled by Maryland — the state — herself. In honor of Maryland’s 375th birthday, a big party was planned down at Historic St. Mary’s City (same location as the aforementioned college), and parking — not to mention boat access — was severely restricted. We drove through, and continued down to St. Inigoes Landing (at the end of Beachville Road) for water access to Smith Creek.

Success!

We paddled out into the creek for a good 40 minutes, and then I heard Dad’s voice booming from over my shoulder, “That sky over there doesn’t look so good, and we don’t want to be out here in an aluminum canoe in a thunderstorm.”

He didn’t need to say anything else. We urged our muscles into a new, faster rhythm and headed back to the boat ramp, securing the canoe to the top of the Subaru just as the audible sound of thunder grumbled through the trees and a light wind began to turn the leaves on the trees upside down — a sure indicator of rain.

Our quick, between-thunderstorms paddle may not have been the three-hour, guided tour that I had planned for Father’s Day, but nonetheless it was an adventure that we escaped dry and un-singed (which is more than I can say for my house)! And as we drove back up Route 5, laughing at all of the wet, state-birthday celebrators running for cars and cover, I turned to face my dad and said, “You sure made me a great canoe paddle, Dad. Let’s go again!”