Tyler Yegerlehner
English 101 .027
A Love for Kayaking
1,308

A Love for Kayaking

I have recently discovered that I’m and outdoors junkie. Right about the time I came to this stunning realization I lost my job. I had just enough money to scrape together one adventure. My friend, Brian Babcock, and I absolutely love to go kayaking. I have a nine foot perception kayak. It’s a pretty crappy one. Actually, out of the entire kayak selection, it’s possible that it is ‘the’ crappy kayak. It floats and carries a bit of extra weight, and surprisingly it’s quite durable so I still love it. In retrospect, college worries had been elevated to a whole new degree. It seems that lately everything that can happen has happened. And it's all my fault. Kayaking was definitely a great release from it all earlier in the semester.

I live in Mt. Vernon so there is not much whitewater action around, but at the Old
Dam in New Harmony there are rapids that Brian and I practically lived at over the summer. Before we discovered this golden nugget, we mainly just took our kayaks out to Hovey Lake. We explored, drank beer, drank more beer, then, we explored some more. I think the only part that kept us going to Hovey was the beer.

After we acquired our new floating vessels, we planned a nice vacation in
Tennessee. It was one hell of a time. We planned to go down to Chester Frost Park at Chattanooga and spend two days there kayaking, fishing, drinking, and just being on our own. On Sunday we would drive another hour to Ocoee Tennessee. There we would go on a whitewater rafting trip of top quality. After that we would drive the six hours back to Mt. Vernon and get drunk to cap it off.

Well, the trip down there was a fun. The two days camping was a blast. While we were there we had a hellacious trip… to subway because on Friday night it had rained and we slept in a pile of water. It was extremely uncomfortable, but I enjoyed it thoroughly. So instead of trying to cook brunch around eleven, we went to subway to get some quick and easy lunch. On Saturday after we came back from town, Babs and I went kayaking out to an island in the lake there we pulled up on shore and played from Frisbee. Robby was another friend that came along and he ended up causing a scene by catching his own chair and axe on fire when we left him alone at the campsite. The other campers around us weren’t too pleased having us around after he almost burnt down the surrounding area. After that we got drunk. Sunday we left early in the morning to get to our rafting place. There we waited because the first group had taken forever.

Eventually we got on the road and it turned out to be absolutely beautiful. First we
passed the Ocoee Lake and eventually the Ocoee River was winding along beside the road. The river was still beautiful since my last trip there. Last time I was there for a church trip with the Trinity Church. Next, we got off the bus and divided into groups for the trip. Brian, Robby, and I were grouped with four non English speaking people. Three guys and a girl, and I would wager they were Swedish.

Possibly the worst part of the whitewater trip was our guide, mainly because he was constantly a douche. He tried to be way too hard core for what we were doing. I guess it didn’t help that four of his charges couldn’t communicate with him. But still I got the vibe from him that was just a douche. I hate sounding like a jerk myself, but when you get those types of vibes you just can’t have as good a time as you normally would.

It was still an ultimate blast of fun. I hadn’t done anything that fun in a while and it was just great to get out on my own and not worry about anything and just do whatever I wanted. Eventually after we got back from our trip we heard about the old dam at New Harmony. From there on we said screw Hovey because the Old Dam had some rapids that were perfect for us. We were there as often as we got money for gas. Some days we would pack for two meals out there. We would be so wiped that when we got back at sunset we would just eat then go to sleep at eight o’clock.

I’ve been trying to get a job so I can pay for a few things I’ve wanted recently. One of those things was a new kayak. The debate between me and Babs is what type of kayak we should get next. I would not only rather get a whitewater kayak next; I am going to get a whitewater kayak. He keeps trying to get me to buy a cruising kayak instead of what we originally agreed upon. See if we both buy the type of kayak we wish to have then we won’t be able to always go out together. The fact that we always go out together keeps us interested in going and if we were to start kayaking on our own I think this newly acquired passion I have for kayaking will lose some of its intensity.

Recently, we’ve been going out on the Ohio River just for conditioning. On our second trip we noticed a clearing in a spot so we paddled over there and then we saw a small creek further back. So we went there, but there hadn’t been enough rain to go too far back. So we planned to go again as soon as it rained. That time, we had gotten past the fallen tree in our way and explored the creek as far as a mile or a mile and a half back before we noticed that we barely had enough light to make it back to the ramp before it got dark. So we grudgingly turned around, but we vowed to come back in the spring when there would be enough rain to get as far back as we could go. To others this may sound lame, but to us it was all new.

Ever since we began our kayaking ventures, I really want to get into more outdoor sports. Rock climbing is a sport I’m good at, and I’ve really wanted to get some of my own gear and make a few trips to a good beginning place. As ridiculous as it sounds I think base jumping would be possibly the coolest thing I could do though. So my dilemma is what I buy next with the no money I have now. I think that I’m going to go with a great new whitewater kayak. Not because it’s cheaper, but because rivers are more available than high enough structures to jump from. Also there is the bit about me not having any experience in base jumping.

I love every aspect of kayaking: the solitude, the endurance, and the joy of exploring on our own. Just being real, I truly love kayaking and I believe it’ll be a major part of my life. Brian and I want to move somewhere around northern California. Sadly I know that it is just a stupid dream that with my tendencies I will get nowhere with. However, one day if I have the resources and nothing is stopping me I’d like to think that I’ll just pick up everything and go. I’ve had other dreams before, but none of them have had this impact on me before. All in all, California wouldn’t be too bad.