Weekend Review – Finally

Don’t remember Saturday. I think it rained. It was cold, and our basement got wet again.

Sunday was breezy and warm. The hope/plan was to get out with Abigail on the bike or in the boat (i.e. canoe). Considering we only had one of the PFDs we wanted to try and it was just too windy, we opted for a bike ride. More on that later.

First priority was getting a better boat (i.e. canoe) rack system together. Currently I’m in possession of two canoes. One is mine and the other a friends. I’d been storing them covered in the pool area, which was nice as far as storage goes, but bad as far as the pool goes. They took up too much room, were unsightly, and started to rot out the fence next to which they were stacked.

A while back I had plans to build racks much like the ones at the lake, but that kind of fell apart for all kinds of reasons – read more here.

A month or so ago I came across these very simple yet effective wall racks that were also fairly cheap ($55 a pair). All I had to do was cut up the vinyl siding on my garage.

Ooooh fun! Never worked with vinyl siding before.

Actually let’s step back. After we bought the racks and before I cut the vinyl, we created photoshoped images of the garage with pseudo boats hung on the side to figure out which configuration worked best.

The options were stacked overtop:

And the offset stack:

The offset stack won.

So I cut and mounted the racks in an offset manner.

Not having worked with vinyl siding, I was really surprised at how easy it was. I’d go as far as to say it was a no brainer kind of job. The hard part was finding the studs in the wall to which the rack pieces would be mounted. Between using my stud finder and actually driving nails into the wall to discover the studs, I still got it wrong a couple of times. One was so bad (don’t ask me how), I actually have a 4″gap in the vinyl that I now need to somehow patch (the vinyl just got difficult or expensive depending on how I choose to fix the gap).

In the end the rack worked out nicely.

Can’t say I’m a fan of the offset stack visual, but it does make getting the boats on and off easier.

The boats are secure and easily accessible. Don’t know what my neighbor’s going to think looking out his back window, but don’t care considering all the crap he has on the backside of his shed facing my house. The only other concern is the boats are now more exposed to the weather – especially the sun. This side of the garage faces east, so it’s only morning sun. I guess my argument is now they’re easier to use. If the weather kills them in 20 years, but I’ve used them significantly more in those 20 years than I would if they were all the way over by the pool, so be it.

You’ll also notice there’s room for at least one more boat up there. We’ll see. That’s a few years away, but yes I’d like a tandem touring kayak to fit out there too. Hell. If we did without the flowers below, I could probably squeeze two more boats up there.

Like I have that kind of say around here.

With the rack nearly completed (I still need to fix that gap and trim the rack pieces), we packed things up and headed out for a bike ride with Abigail.

This would be our first ride with Abigail. I had ordered an iBert front mounted bike seat (product website). She’s not really the type to just fall asleep behind Dad as he rides off, so why not share the experience with her up front? Unfortunately for me, “the experience” isn’t exactly what I’m used to when riding bikes.

Of the handful of bikes that I own and ride, the seat only fit my beater commuter.

So there’s one knock against ride quality. What-evs. I’ve ridden this thing everywhere, so I jump on and take off down the driveway.

Uh-uh. Not gonna do it. My knees immediately start banging against the seat.

It only took a few whacks before I finally realized this “experience” was not about me or what I’m accustomed to when it comes to a bike ride. This was Abigail’s experience and regardless of what I wasn’t comfortable with, she was going to have a blast sitting up front and center.

We were going to just spin around the park behind our house. But again because of the wind, we opted for the more protected Struble trail. It’s more scenic anyway and with the recent rain, Jen would get a better idea of what fun paddling it’s rapids would be.

As with all things fun, there was a little setup.

Luckily she’s easily distracted.

Probably a bird or plane flying by. She loves flying things.

Then we were off.

Turns out riding with her was even more difficult. She’s a little kid, but she completely filled up the space between me and the handlebars. Oh well. She didn’t care.

At first it was hard to tell if she was enjoying it. She just kind of sat there motionless. I can imagine that kind of open air momentum being quite a shock for a kid her age. Then she started pointing. She was pointing to the creek, the trees, the leaves, the shrubs other people. Whatever came our way she was soaking in.

The expressions and comments from people coming our way were nice. We got lots of smiles and lots of “why didn’t they have that when my children were little?”

Coincidentally when we pulled over at the dam, there was another couple with their kids and the father had his 2 year old daughter in an iBert on his bike. He used it for their older son and now their daughter. Both liking it very much.

Speaking of the dam.

Looking at it now, that’s a 3′ drop at least. I realized paddling over it in my canoe with Mark last Wednesday was pretty dumb. Not dangerous. Just dumb. It’s too much of an abrupt drop for a boat that long and a person at either end. Oh well. What’s done is done, but won’t be done again.

After a chat with the other couple and our kids throwing rocks in the water (Abigail doesn’t quite throw yet, but she did manage some splashes via dropping rocks), we headed back.

The return trip was more excited pointing and overall successful. We’ll have to make this part of the standard rotation for things to do. I’ll also have to find better storage and accessibility for the bikes we used. My beater commuter and Jen’s mountain bike had been essentially mothballed.

Everyone says with kids comes the requirement for more space. I think I just need to use the space we have better.

– b