Leaving My Cave

I was so overly confident yesterday.

I'd impulse purchased an on sale short sit on top kayak that weighs only 40 pounds.   I was so self satisfied.  My raft is falling apart.  Seams leak, valves leak and I can't keep up on repairs. I replaced one leaking valve last summer but it now needs two others replaced.  They're hard to find.

 It's unwieldy and hard to get to the lake alone from my car where I spend 20 minutes blowing it up with a car pump that is now dead or a hand pump that broke off at the handle.  I taped it back together but I can't exert any force on it.

I've loved that raft and used it to death in the many years I've had it.

But I saw the easy light weight on sale kayaks.  My neighbors had bought two, when they saw the sale, and told me about it.  Then my friend in Sweet Home bought two also.  Another friend bought one.  Oh gosh, I felt this was my esay out solution, to the raft and my love of water.

However, even though the kayak is very very short it still would not fit in my super small car.  Too long by two feet.

So I got a foam pad with straps kit too and watched a video on how to carry the kayak with that.  But I couldn't find any metal up front under my car, to do the front tie downs.  The back is easy though because there is metal under the back bumper that works.

I set out anyway just after noon.  I'd made a mistake ordering and thought the store I'd bought it from was less than a 40 mile drive.  I realized my mistake very quickly.  The store was actually east of Portland.  Gosh darn.

I also figured there would be almost no traffic, that I would be nearly alone on the road.  I figured that because aren't people still staying inside mostly, due to the virus?

Well I've mostly lived in my cave for two months now, going out only occasionally to get groceries or to the park.   The traffic was intense for someone who didn't expect it.  And in Portland, very very intense.  Congestion as usual.  Same old.  Wtf?  What happened to stay home, stay safe?  I'd seen that blurted out on ODOT overhead signs all the way up.  Oops, I wasn't staying home that day, after all.  But shouldn't everyone else be?  Or mostly everyone?  Or some?

I got to the store and they brought out the kayak and deposited on my roof, mostly without a  word and were gone.  Now I had to fasten it on somehow.  I positioned the foam blocks and tied them on with two flimsy cam straps that came with the foam pad kit.   They were not actually to be used for that.  Actually the kit didn't say to strap down the foam pads, but all the youtube videos said otherwise, that they'd be gone along the road if I didn't.

I was left with two short straps and two really short under a foot straps with a cam on one end and hook on the other.   You were supposed to use one of the short straps on the front, hooking it to metal.  Then use a medium strap to thread through the cam, up through some hole if you could find it near the kayak's bow, then back down to the front on the other side and attach the hook on the end of the medium strap under the car there.  Two problems with that.  The medium length strap was far too short to do that and besides, there was no metal for attachment under the front of my car.

The rear was much easier but sitll the strap provided far too short to use as directed in the kit instructions.  The kit was worthless.   I had some cam straps along though.   I had tried to find some 20 foot long ones, so I could wrap it around the body of the kayak, as in a helpful youtube video, before securing on both sides.   I never found any.   I did my best but I couldn't go over 45 mph withouth severe noise and vibration, since the front wasn't attached well and the boat would slightly lift up, due to its hull not conforming well to the foam pads.  Air could get through and under the boat.  Air provides lift to anything above it at speed.

I had driven around several parking lots, realized the problem and parked to try to figure a solution.  HOwever at that point, in the otherwise nearly empty parking lot, a homeless camper pulled up behind me.  He did not get out.  His rig was stuffed.  I craned my neck to see, uneasy.  Then suddenly a guy in a car pulls up right beside me.  What in the world?  There are no businesses very close.  He's staring at me, off and on.  When he starts to get out of his car, I take off.  I don't know that area, not my turf, nor what goes on around there.

Now its pouring down rain.  The straps going through the car, are dripping water.  I have to get off the highway quickly.  It's madly congested and car drivers are angry since I cannot go fast.  I had counted on very little traffic.  Obviously a mistake.  The exit I take, unknown to me, leads onto to two highway choices.  I take one hoping to find somewhere safe to pull off and finally find a MacDonalds and park there.  There I stay too, as rain pours down.

I call a friend who lives nearby.  She's at work but promises to come after work.  That's only a little over an hour away.  I wait and when she finally comes, I take off the kayak, now full of rain water, empty it and we stuff it in her car.  Her car is longer and it fits right in through her back window.

I didn't get home til near dark.  The kayak is up in Portland in my friends yard.  It's still raining here.

Today I stay in my cave.