Prologue
I wouldn’t say that I’m a Groupon professional, or even a semi-pro. We have used it more than once to enjoy a night out at dinner, or to go to the local Barcade for a birthday celebration, or to pretend to be pirates on a cruise through Cape Cod Bay. I also wouldn’t say that I’m a river kayaking pro, semi-pro, or even a well practiced amateur. However, both of these things came together when I noticed a Groupon for a local river kayak trip and, without thinking, pulled the trigger.
Journal
I have wanted a kayak for at least 15 years now. Anytime we go into a sporting goods store, I wander to look at fishing equipment, camping equipment, sometimes hunting, and the kayak aisle. The last few years, I’ve noticed that our Wal*Mart has been carrying kayaks and I drop not so subtle hints to Christine whenever we are in the store and pass by them. I bought her a paddle board a couple of years ago in the hopes that it might inspire her to get me a kayak so that we could spend time alone as a couple on the water while the boys hung out together on the beach. Heck, they are almost getting old enough to paddle themselves in the canoe. Yes, we have a canoe. More on that in a bit.
I have been on a kayak a few times. My brother in law got one a few years ago for his birthday (I know!) and our friends have a couple that they’ve taken us out with them once or twice. Once, I even got to kayak the disappearing island in Crowninshield, which was awesome! But, I still do not have a kayak of my own.
I did sort of compromise about 5 years ago and bought a canoe because the boys were all little. So, we could take them all out on the canoe together with little to no risk of capsizing. Notice that I did leave open the possibility. We were all in the canoe as a family on Emerald Lake. Liam asked if he could jump out of the canoe to swim. Sure, we responded. Well, he decided that the best course of action was literally standing up to jump out. As you can imagine, that ended up with all of us in the lake, swimming to the shore. Unable to flip myself back into it, I dragged the canoe behind me as I swam. That was one of the first phones that I ruined with water. But, at least my wallet only got wet instead of ending up at the bottom of the lake as it did last summer.
What does all of this have to do with Groupon and the eclipse in August? I already mentioned that, without hesitation, I signed us up for a 2 for 1 deal on a local river kayak trip. That was in April or May. I’m not sure. It was definitely at the end of spring/beginning of summer that I bought the deal. It got added to the calendar in June, then July, and forgotten both times. We lucked out and ended up kidless for three days in July, but didn’t go. Admittedly, we both had to work, but that was only in the morning. I can’t say for certain, but I’m pretty sure that we could have still made it to the trip in the afternoon.
Whatever the case, we didn’t go on those three days. Instead, we did what we usually do and put it off until almost the last possible second. Christine insists that it wasn’t intentional, and I believe her for the most part, but she ended up making the reservation for August 21, 2017. That’s right. The day of the (sing it!) “total eclipse of the sun!” As a result, her parents had to watch the kids. While dropping them off, her father made a joke about it going dark while we were out on the water. I replied, as I always do, “Yep, you can have all our debt.” That got a chuckle and off we went.
During the drive, she admitted to being somewhat nervous because she’s never paddled in any kind of moving water. Neither have I, but I’m the sort to just take things as they come. If we end up swept over a waterfall, well at least it happened during the eclipse! Naturally, everyone was talking about it. One family, who obviously better planned for the occasion, brought their glasses to view. Christine and I sneaked peaks at the sun through clouds, doing exactly what we were told not to do.
Luckily, we didn’t damage our eyesight and we can blame our ignorance on the precedent set by our illustrious leader. After the safety speech and check, as we walked to the bus that was going to take us up river, I noticed that you could view the eclipse in the tinted rear windows of some of the vehicles. I didn’t think to take a picture, partly because I had to leave the phone behind in the car just in case of a tip. Initially, I was going to just say “Eff that”. Then, I realized that I was really saying, “Eff me and my expensive phone.” So, my pictures are only from before even getting in the boat.
As we went down the river and I found myself missing the phone because the views were simply awesome, I thought about getting some sort of waterproof camera for just those adventures. We also talked about maybe doing the trip again during the fall for the foliage, but that might get filed away as something that we discuss and then don’t follow through. For my part, though, I’ve brought it up more than once. So, who knows, maybe we will.
Epilogue
We took the time alone to both remark on the beauty around us and to talk. We didn’t talk about work or money. We didn’t talk about kids, but we did both think that they’d get a kick out of the trip. She did mention how we hadn’t been fighting as much, which is a positive step forward from where we were the past two summers.
Even though this write up comes almost a month later, looking back I see that this trip happened the day after we went to the Heath Fair. It was the last week of summer for us and we were trying to squeeze in as much as possible, it would seem. Also, even though this was more of an adventure than our other trips this year, we still stayed close to home, used the time to communicate and show our love for one another. I would say sometimes, that’s all you need. But, it should be all you need always.