I can’t dwell too long on thoughts about the day I must give up kayaking. Too sad, don’t want to go there. Will I be in my eighties, nineties? Hard to imagine kayaking in my nineties, but if you know me, you can’t rule it out. On the other hand, one never knows, this year could it the end. Whenever the paddle is pried from my hands, I’ll take the view, “I had one hellava ride.”
Yet I do lament that I started kayaking so late. I was 48 the first time I sat in a kayak. It was back in 1999. My friend, Wads and I drove up to Grayling to paddle the AuSable. Had we rented a canoe we’d have been barking at each other the entire day. We made the right choice. I’ve never looked back.
From 1999 until getting Swiftee for Christmas, 2004, I can only think of kayaking three other times. It was April, nearly four months after Christmas, that I christened my boat. I was a 54 year old man all alone that day. I had no idea what was before me, only my goal, to kayak from the Flint River headwaters to its mouth. I remember working very hard that day. I was in and out of the kayak because of debris clogging the way. It was only a 5 mile paddle but I was exhausted when I finished, yet reflecting nearly two decades later that day seemed heavenly.
I yearn to relive that day, but at 73 I’d likely kill myself trying. The only safe way I can relive it is by reading the photo-journal. I didn’t know it at the time, but writing about it, and every exploration day after, is one of the best things I thought to do in my life. Now when the day comes when I have to hang the paddle up, I plan to go back to April 5, 2005 and vicariously relive every day from beginning to end via the photojournals. The only unknown is when will it all end. Presently, 284 days (kayaking + runyaking) have been journaled. That’s many a day of reading.
There is a part of my runyaking explorations that has already, for the most part, come to an end. That being, runyaking alone. The last runyaking trip I made by myself was DAY 181, Sept of 2021.
I do miss the days of kayaking all by myself. Of the 284 days I’ve written about, about 190 days, or 2/3rds have been solo. In all those days I can only recall one time being alone, and wishing I wasn’t. That would be on the evening of DAY 51. In the photojournal I wrote about strolling the harbor in Port Dover, Ontario:
Unlike most people, I do most of my kayaking alone. I love the solitude — even if it means going two entire days being a stranger and not seeing a single person I know. Yet, during the minutes I spent walking alone on the quay at sunset, I wished I were holding my wife's hand as I strolled along. It would have rivaled any of the twilights we've enjoyed throughout our travels.
Then, there have been times when I was so content, so glad I was by myself. One of those days that stand out is DAY 156 on the Manistee River. It was the last day of the 2019 runyak season, October 9. Falls colors banked the river the entire way. Lunchtime came and I beached the kayak, climbed a high sandbank and picnicked at the top. When laying on my makeshift picnic blanket and staring through the trees at the sky, I felt I could have stayed there forever. Okay, looking at the photos from that DAY, I see a can of Two Hearted and an can of M43. That may have heightened the effect?
The reasons I don’t runyak solo anymore should seem obvious, but I feel I’m physically capable. At least when runyaking locally. But, when traveling out of state to runyak, it is wiser to have a partner. Or, so says the wiser half of my marriage. Without the wife’s yin, nature would have chopped off my yang years ago. So, I’ve listened and made a compromise with Hope when far from home.
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Sure hope to see you complete your journey to St Louis 😊👍🏻