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kayak hauling
Thursday, September 27 2012
Gretchen and I had had such a great time with kayaks during our August visit to the Southern Adirondacks that when Deborah (who is moving yet again) said that she was selling hers, we decided to buy them for $600. Deborah would be moving out of her place this weekend, so we had to get those kayaks this week. Today was the day that Gretchen picked for me to go, partly because I could also take the opportunity to let Deborah's dog out to run around, something Gretchen would have had to do otherwise.
The only vehicle we have suitable for transporting kayaks is the Subaru. As Eleanor and I set out, I noticed that fuel gauge was low, but it looked like there was enough in the tank for me to at least make it to Deborah's house (17 miles away). But when I made the turn from Route 213 onto the Krumville Road, I noticed that the fuel gauge went from showing an eighth of a tank to showing an empty tank. I am not the kind of person who loads kayaks onto the roof of a car whose gas tank is measured to be empty, so when I got to the County Route 2, instead of turning right and driving the mile or so to Deborah's place, I took a left and drove towards civilization. In this region of the country, US 209 is civilization, admittedly reduced to a thin tendril. And I don't just mean "thin" in the geometrical sense; I also use it to mean "rarified." After turning north on 209 and driving a couple miles, the first gas station I found was in Stone Ridge. It was the Mobil Station with the "beer cave." The refueling part of this excursion ended up taking me 16 miles out of my way, and the only additional perk was the opportunity to purchase a bag of salted peanuts and a dreadful cup of gas station coffee. Oh, I also witnessed a beat up old car festooned with large American flags and a "Don't Tread on Me" banner driven by some scruffy-looking dudes likely to vote against their self interest.
At Deborah's house, I let out her dog Allou, who was very excited to see me and Eleanor, though (as always) the love was not entirely requited, particularly that directed at Eleanor. As for the kayaks, they were decidedly longer than the ones we'd used in the Adirondacks, though they also seemed sleeker and narrower. They were not difficult to lift up to the Subaru's all-purpose roof rack, where I lashed them down with a redundancy of ropes. Happily, there were numerous loops and other attachment points on the kayaks for me to attach the ropes to. On the drive home, I realized that Gretchen and I could replicate a good fraction of the fun we'd had in the Adirondacks if only we had a good tent, a source of AC electricity, and a pristine lake we could drive up to. Hell, if we could go to some place without cellphone service, we could even eliminate the one downside of our Adirondacks trip: all stress coming from my employer.
This evening I cut a trapezoidal sheet of drywall, which would form the bulk of the greenhouse upstairs' east wall. The fit of this piece was good, but I made the mistake of trying to cut the hole for an electrical outlet while standing the drywall near where it would ultimately go. The hole ended up being inaccurate and in need of subsequent repair. In the past I've had good luck just measuring out where such holes will fall on the drywall and then pre-cutting them, though I didn't do that in this case because, since this sheet reached a corner, it was hard to know where it would end up with sufficient precision.
For linking purposes this article's URL is:
http://asecular.com/blog.php?120927 feedback
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