Canoe 2

Late last summer – it was actually very close to fall – Holly persuaded me to go canoeing with her. As I mentioned at the time, it was a fun and amazing experience.

I had never canoed before but I picked up the basics fairly quickly. Holly had done canoe trips, in particular, when she was a middle schooler at the Episcopal School of Knoxville.  She is a good teacher and she taught me well.

As she was preparing to head to France last September, we put a number of items on our to-do list and we checked most of them off before she headed to Cherbourg in 2013. The canoe outing was a highlight.

Fast forward to late summer 2014 as she prepares to leave town again. She’ll be heading to grad school in a couple weeks. Fortunately for ‘the parents,’ she’ll be in the Lower 48.

But, as that departure date creeps ever closer, we have developed another ‘to do list’ and we have been checking off those items as well. On Saturday night, for example, we attended Shakespeare on the Square. We enjoyed the performance of “Much Ado About Nothing” produced by the Tennessee Stage Company.

Then, yesterday, we made plans to go for our second canoe trip. Or, as we might call it here in Coach Jeff’s Blog: “Canoe 2: Back to The Cove. 

As I sit here typing this evening, I can tell you that I am physically tired. Canoe 2 really took it out of both of us. I think there are a number of reasons this year’s event was more physically taxing than last year’s event.

• September vs. July – Last year, our inaugural canoe event was a low humidity day. Yesterday, it felt like we hit ‘the wall of humidity’ when we were out on the lake.
• Early morning vs. Mid afternoon – Last fall, we were able to time our trip for early morning vs. mid-afternoon. We were planning to go early again – on Saturday – but got rained out. Not only did this allow us to go out on the water at a cooler time, it was also much less crowded which made it challenging to get into the water (and then out).
• Choppy – There were a number of larger vessels on the water yesterday. I’m sure area boaters were happy to see the sun pop out Sunday after such a rainy Saturday.  The high number of motorboats on the lake created quite a bit of wake. This made navigation a bit more challenging for a couple rusty paddlers!

Still, despite those challenges, we had a blast. It was a great father-daughter outing.

Holly tells me that parents shouldn’t be sentimental, so I’ll write around that part and just say that it is always fun to spend special time together. And yesterday, we had the challenge of navigating out and making our way back. As I mentioned before, there was quite a crowd at The Cove yesterday.

By twisting and turning around a number of objects and other boaters while fighting our way against a strong current, we overcame a number of obstacles. Not only did we have a fun time but we also convinced ourselves we can beat the odds through perseverance.

Talk about a confidence boost; talk about a great metaphor for a young person who is again ready to head out into the world.

JG

Originally posted 7/21/2014