We tend to hit certain degree of lethargy in our household on the weekends. We are seldom out of bed early, and if there if there is an event planned we can’t seem to get out of the house before noon. The other members of the family are usually happy to sit about and reading, beading or computering, I on the other hand like to ‘do’ things on Sunday, just to get out of the house and break routine. This past spring we ‘won’ a gift certificate for a local canoe livery at a silent auction at the boy’s school early in the spring. Rather than let it go to waste, we marked our calendar and hoped for good weather.
The weather has been an issue this summer; it seems to have rained with almost daily with thunderstorms rolling through in the afternoon. The past week was particularly bad, with grey skies most of the day and periodic drenching rains. Sunday was the first day in a week that sunny and warm weather had been forecast, so we jumped at the chance to get out and get some sun and fresh air.
Even at that it was after 1:00 before we got out of the house. The canoe livery has 3 different sites and we chose the one in Newton that is on the Charles River, but several miles upriver from the city of Boston. (Think ‘Dirty Water’ by The Standells, and you know something about the Charles River.) Situated right off the highway but on a bucolic portion of the river that meanders 3 miles either direction where dams prevent further progress. True to the forecast, he day was sunny and warm with a few clouds on the horizon when we finally hit the water. It only took a few minutes for the wife and I to get our canoe arms back and we were paddling with the usual coordination that we used to in a past life. The boy was seated in the middle of the boat, he dipping his paddle in the water when he chose. We chose to head upriver first thinking that any current we might encounter we would want to face when we were fresh. That turned out not to be a concern as the river is dammed every few miles and what current exists is very mild.
From an aesthetic point of view the upstream path was not the best choice to start our travels. The river wound under several highway bridges, and the rural setting of the river was broken by the sometimes massive concrete structures and noise from the passing cars. But within a half-mile we were past the bridges and leisurely paddling along. Once past the bridges the river was mostly edged with parkland and at one point a golf course stretched its green rolling hills along the riverside. There was plenty of wildlife and water foul along the river too, turtles, many species of duck, a few swans and the ubiquitous Canada Geese, which the boy kept referring to as illegal aliens. Had we gotten an earlier start, we would have tried to make it all the way to the dam some 3 miles upriver, but instead turned around about half way there. As we reversed direction we noticed that clouds were forming into thunderheads along the horizon and filling part of the sky. What little current there was helped speed our way back down river a bit, and we passed a few other canoes and kayaks heading up river as we headed down.
When we passed the livery, the boy claimed to be bored and wanted to go in, we persevered however and kept paddling down river. Here river meandered even more and there were many inlets to explore. There were no bridges to pass under on this leg of the journey although we did pass a large hotel. Beyond that the shoreline was mostly parkland with a few houses scattered along some sections. Some of the houses were rather grand, but most were more like cottages, I could easily see us living in one of them although I am sure we could never afford to own one. Again the wildlife along the river abounded, with plenty of turtles sunning themselves on rocks and logs, and t one point we saw a Great Blue Heron glide in and land in one of the little side channels of the river.
The boy continued to complain about being bored and about his butt being sore from sitting on a cushion on the bottom of the canoe. The clouds continued to grow and were now turning gray, beginning to fill the larger portion of the sky. The boy began to protest the clouds saying that we needed to turn back because he didn’t want to get rained on. And while they were dark and gray, I was watching the direction that they were blowing and felt that we were not in any immediate danger of getting rained on. My sense of safety departed a short time later with the first bolt of lightening. More followed that over the next few minutes. I won’t say that we rushed to get back to the livery, but we didn’t dally any either. Reversing direction, we were heading upriver again and the light current and a developing head wind made the paddling a bit harder. The clouds began building more quickly and we felt our first drops of rain when we were still a mile from the livery. Of course the boy protested even louder, but I noticed that he paddled with more determination than before. The clouds were getting darker, and there were another one or tow cracks of lightening. Try as we might, we were unable to beat the rain. We were almost in sight of the livery when the clouds let loose. There is not much you can do when that happens in a canoe. The debate was, do we head for shore, look for cover and wait it out or just go for the gusto and make it back to the livery as fast one can. We chose the latter, given that by the time rain started. The sky was pretty much solid dark clouds and it didn’t look like this was going to be on that would blow over.
Our paddles flew in a relative sense, we were all pretty tired from 4 hours and several miles of paddling so that last half mile was pretty taxing as we pulled for home. Eventually we made it, soaked to the bone but in good spirits none-the-less. I think this is one outing the boy will remember, even as he does blame me for not turning around soon enough to avoid getting soaked, and we had a good laugh at our appearance when we got back on the dock.
We drove back home in a deluge, the rain falling even harder than before to the point that there was standing water over the roadway in places. So we made the right choice to run for the livery. I just wonder about all the people who were further out on the river than we were. But I guess that once you are soaked you can’t get much wetter, just more miserable.
All in all though it was so nice to get out on the river and in the fresh air for a day, even with the rain. I hope we can get out and do it again soon.
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