So you're from Boston, aye?

My sincerest apologies for my lack of blogs!!! I've had tons of things to discuss, but I knew this particular blog needed to be written before I could begin. I will warn you, it's a long one but probably worth it.

The story begins in October, when my mother and I made our annual trek up to Canada for Thanksgiving. Sometime during the long drive up north, I got a message from my cousin Cathie which read:

"Tammy, you should come kayaking with us tomorrow afternoon down the stream. Deb has an extra kayak for you. I got lots of outdoor clothes for ya too. Give her or me a call when you get this if you're interested"

Was I interested? OF COURSE I was interested! How exciting! I immediately responded "Yeah! I LOVE kayaking!!" Now, let's take a moment to define the statement "I love kayaking". What I probably should have said was "I have only been kayaking one time, and it was in the middle of summer, on a big quiet lake, in a special 'no-tip' kayak. Now THAT I loved." However, I responded with all of the enthusiasm of one who kayaks weekly, if not daily. I probably should have also considered that Cathie and Debbie are two of the toughest chicks I know.

Skip forward a day. Debbie and I and were packing up for kayaking. She prepared dry packs filled with beer, snacks, and of course, more beer. This trip was going to be so exciting! I was a little concerned with the amount of stuff she was packing, because in my mind "kayaking" meant slowly floating down the river or tooling around on the lake for an hour or two. Debbie reassured me that I would be fine. We went over to Cathie's, where I was to be outfitted with the proper gear. An important question was asked, which in retrospect was the million dollar question: "Do you want water proof, or just water resistant?" I said I supposed resistant would be fine--how wet could I get? This was mistake number one. Mistake number two happened a second later, when Cathie offered me her ginormous mud boots, the ones that come almost up to your knees. Those, I figured, would be great when getting in and out of the water, since it was, after all, rather chilly out. We piled into the truck and headed off to our launch point. While driving, I got my second inkling of doubt when Cathie and Debbie were laughing about all the people who would never go kayaking this late in the season, because the water was so high. High? In my mind, water being "high" is equivalent to the water being a little deeper. I figured no big deal--it's not like I would have to stand in it or anything. So off we went, eventually turning onto a dirt road and driving for about 10-15 minutes through the woods. We crossed a bridge and pulled over to the side of the road. We had reached our destination!

We unloaded all the gear and prepared ourselves for launch. Mistake number three: taping the ginormous mud boots to my legs with hockey tape. Feeling cozy, warm and all bundled up, we took a moment to enjoy a nice cold one before getting in the water.

Debbie and I

View from the launch point

At that moment, I was filled with excitement. As you can see from the picture, the water didn't really look that rough. WRONG assessment. Debbie and Cathie began the rundown of instructions: don't let your kayak turn sideways, make sure your paddles are turned the right way, listen for rapids (rapids?), etc. I chugged the rest of my beer and decided it was time. I was ready. Cathie went first, I was to go second, and Debbie behind me so they could both keep an eye on me. Cathie got off without a problem. I sat in my kayak and Debbie gave me a big push off. Right away, I could tell that something wasn't right. I tried to get my feet (still taped into the big boots) tucked into the front of the kayak, but I couldn't fit them! I also noticed that I was going about 50 times faster than I had expected. Feeling a teeny bit panicked, I opted to veer over to the left where there were some branches and bushes sticking into the water. I figured that I could park there for a moment, get my feet situated, and fix my paddles. I forgot to factor in the speed of the river and the fact that when my kayak hit the bushes that were under the water, they would act as a giant ramp for my kayak to go flying over. Sideways. I felt it going over and knew that I had no chance of keeping it upright. I went over, and spent a moment completely upside down and immersed in the water. Water resistant, you say? I don't think so. My clothes offered absolutely ZERO resistance to the water. Nor did my taped-on boots, which quickly filled with water and became 10 pound weights on my feet. Fortunately, Debbie hadn't even had a chance to put her boat in the water, so she was standing at the shore, watching me struggle to hold on to the kayak. With the cold water rushing around me and the kayak filled with water and violently trying to pull me downriver, I started to panic a bit and this deep, barking, breathy sound started coming out of me, "HOO! HOO! HOO!" (This would be a great sound for us to imitate and laugh at later) I finally gave up on the kayak, and it took off down the river along with a couple of my fingernails. Using all of the strength I had, I managed to find some branches to grab and hauled my waterlogged self out of the water. Debbie came tearing through the bushes to make sure I was okay. Cathie was long gone, unable to stop or pull over. Debbie and I had a good long laugh and she reassured me that it was fine that I let the kayak go. We traipsed back through the woods to the truck, anxious to drive to the next point to meet Cathie and get me home and warm. Unfortunately, we realized once we got to the truck that the keys were in Cathie's dry bag on her kayak. Hmm. We hid Debbie's kayak in the woods and started walking out, knowing that it was going to take FOREVER. At one point, we noticed that one of the camps seemed to have smoke coming out of it, so we amended our plan. We grabbed the beer and started walking towards the camp, figuring that even if no one was in it we would settle in by the fire and wait for them to return. Debbie wanted to carry the beer, but I wouldn't have it--after all, I was the one who had gotten us into this mess. The least I could do was carry the beer. Luckily, rescue came to us in the form of a girl in a red jeep. We flagged her down and she agreed to give us a ride to my uncle's house. She was kind enough to let me ride in the jeep despite the fact that I was a walking puddle. We got to my uncle's house, thanked the girl profusely, and went in to ask him for help. He had somewhere to be, but agreed to drop me off at someone else's house where I could get a ride back to Debbie's, and to drive her down to where she thought Cathie would be floating past. Finally, a plan. The panic started to ease off, and while we waited for my uncle to get dressed, Debbie let out a big sigh and said, "Let's have a beer. Where is it?" Um, the beer? The beer I insisted on carrying? I had, of course, left it in the back of the girl's jeep. Sigh. Could I have f*cked up the day any more? My uncle came out and drove us over to my aunt's house. Poor Debbie had to sit in the bed of the truck, freezing to death, because there wasn't enough room in the cab for all of us and he felt bad for me, being soaking wet and all. Plus, if I couldn't sit in a kayak without issue, why would they trust me in an open truck bed? They dropped me off and went on to eventually find Cathie, who had miraculously managed to wrangle my kayak and get it to shore!  Here she is, enjoying a beer while waiting for us to some get her.

Not ones to let my major catastrophe ruin their kayak trip, Cathie and Debbie found me a ride back and headed back off to continue their kayak trip.

I had a nice long shower and made them beef stew for dinner.

Next year, I think I'll stick to visiting, as it seems I'm not nearly as badass as I thought I was. As Debbie said that day, "You can take the girl out of Boston, but you can't take the Boston out of the girl."