-Main character turns, the lights behind him dim as his face is spotlighted. The camera pans so he’s centred and slowly zooms in as he starts to speak. An aside to the audience ‘I know this supposed to be about kayaking but God, building a web page, doing the SEO, living every day and…writing a blog. More freaking hours than a full-time job and it doesn’t pay. It costs, but I’m doing all this for love and better tomorrows. Do what you love. I love camping and art, but this blogs about camping, beaches and the Great Lakes. Like I've often told myself, living my every day, that’s what I’m going to write about’
-Fade to Black-
A normal year I’d be long gone by know. Camped out for months having swam miles and watched more sunsets than you can shake a stick at, but like I noted before; it’s way too peopley out there with the COVID shut down going on. Like a junkie, I needed some kind of fix and decided to go kayaking.
I headed off to visit one of my buddies, Trevor. Like me he’s from Toronto, but spent his last twenty years up in the bush growing weed and cultivating the Canadian hillbilly look. He owns a couple of boats, and we’d made plans before to head out kayaking but wound up doing ‘shrooms instead and just whooping it up. I swam a bit at the local beach, but that was it for that visit, a waste of time AND brain cells.
Fresh water, I’m in.
I was up and out the door early to meet up with him, and he grabbed me from the bus depot. A run to the dump to empty his truck bed and we loaded in his kayaks. A couple of tie down straps and some one’s orange work shirt as a flag hanging off the end of the longest one. Half of it was sticking out the back of the truck. A short hop and we find ourselves at a municipal boat launch. I’m out of the city, but it’s still southern Ontario and it’s all built up along the shores. Still better than not being at a lake and the waters are beautiful. The shallows go on forever so the water is all nicely warmed and clear. Just looking at it reminded me how beautiful our country is and how lucky we are. Fuck Canada Rocks. We headed out into the wind figuring having the wind at our back when we were a little worked in might be a better plan. Of course, on the way back the wind had died, but I blame the jinx I was out paddling with.
Fresh air, I’m alive.
Honestly, I have no idea how long we were out kayaking for. What I will say is the paddle back was a hell of a lot longer than I thought it was going to be. I could feel the muscles in my traps filling with blood and in spite of feeling unpleasant, it made my soul sing. I needed the exercise.
While we were puttering along we were taking a few pictures and saw a really beautiful hawk. So fucking pretty I'm writing about it now, but I guess you'd have to have seen it to understand. It was kind of ridiculous to try to take the picture since he’d chosen to head away from us. Wildlife seldom cooperates, but Trevor tried anyway but that's not the story here.
His camera took seven layers to superimpose into one sharp image, but when you look at the layers a blue UFO shoots across the frame. Its moving and dips as it crosses his camera and does the whole thing in under a third of a second so it was moving. We can’t figure out how to save the image in its layers. Every sent version is converted to and saved as a jpeg. For now all I have is a picture of a blue dot to show you.
I know there is probably a simple explanation, but I can’t wrap my head round it and I like to think I’m pretty smart. It can’t be dust, doesn’t look or move like a sun flare on the lens. If we ever do sort it out, I might do a blog about UFOs as they are a common story amongst travellers on the lakes. Until this year, I’d never seen one and felt left out. Now I’ve seen two. The next day I made my way home, and slept the whole next day away, I’d beaten myself up that badly swinging that paddle. I left with some great pot too, and he did ask me to review his strains. If he was kidding, he should have made that clear.
So far, I’ve tried Miracle Alien Cookies, Girl guide, Tuna, Lemon Kush, his Hash plant and Northern Lights. They’re all great, but Best Taste goes to Girl Guide. Kick you in the teeth goes to his Hash Plant, and I’m writing this and being all creative on the Alien. Those three are the authors top three picks from the ones I’ve tried…with three more strains left.
All in all a great way to spend the day and dampen that longing in my soul to escape for a little while longer. Soon I'll be on the road again. My first road trip should be Dyers Bay with a buddy and the dogs before I really take off. My baby still starts on the first turn of the key.
