So, Maybe it's a Midlife Crisis 7/1/12

... but I'm loving it.

We have three new additions to our family. They are lovingly named Banana, Great White, and Moby Grape. Here's the Grape:

Mine, obviously. No one else would be allowed to own purple, right?

You didn't know we kayaked? Yeah, me either. A lady asked me Sunday how long we'd been kayaking. My answer was "Well, you said it was 6:00, right? That means I've had this one about 26 hours."

It was crazy. I think Dave's on some kind of drug lately. I mentioned to him that I thought kayaking would be a ton of fun. I'd done just a little reading up on it and told him I thought a sit on top kayak would be easy for us to learn to do and would be something we'd enjoy. I'd seen one online that was billed as nearly impossible to tip, and the price was great--$199. The only problem was the weight limit was 250, and we're both just over that (for now). But we agreed that the manufacturers probably erred on the safe side, and since we're losing weight blah blah blah, it would probably be ok.

Conveniently enough, we had plans to go to town the next night. As we drove by Play It Again Sports, I gasped! There was the little kayak I'd looked up, right there leaning against the store! We whipped around and went in to look at it. It was indeed the correct kayak, right price, brand new, and looking adorable. Even J was excited about this new adventure. We all agreed it would be a lot more fun than tubing, since with a dang PADDLE we might be able to get across the river without nearly killing ourselves.

I was shocked...I mean SHOCKED...when Dave said "I'll buy it for you, but we'll have to come back tomorrow with the truck." Honey, are you feeling ok? Hells yeah, I said, sounds great! We finished up our business in town and even looked at WalMart to see if they had it or another similar one, hopefully with a slightly higher weight limit, but settled on the first one.

We then drove home into the freakiest storm I've ever seen. Apparently it's called a "derecho", and it knocked out power to parts of our area for nine days. (Thankfully, we only lost it from Friday night until early Sunday morning.) So when we woke up Saturday morning, hot and with the prospect of a very long, 100 degree day with no coffee, running water, or A/C, I did not expect Dave to honor his statement of going back for the kayak--that was no longer a priority, ya know? But I didn't take into account the power of caffeine withdrawal.

It was only about 9:00 a.m. when he said "if we could take the truck to town and get some coffee, we could pick up your kayak." DEAL! We cleaned up best we could, got dressed, went and had some breakfast and coffee, and went to get our first kayak, which would quickly be dubbed the Banana Boat, now shortened to Banana.

Aptly named, no? It is amazingly bouyant, only 8 feet long, and any idiot can do it. Really. We drove home from town, ripped the plastic off, put on our swimsuits and headed for the Rivanna boat ramp. There's a nice little swimming hole there with calm water, deep enough to kayak around without getting stuck but shallow enough to easily get in and out anywhere. We took turns and all loved it immediately.

It was very cool that there was a young woman there who happened to be a professional kayak instructor/tour guide. She took our paddle, set it correctly, and gave us a basic lesson! Once she fixed the paddle it was very easy and enjoyable to paddle around even through the small currents at the other side of the swimming hole. What fun!

The nice thing about the Banana is that it's light and short enough to toss around pretty easily. We even picked it up and put it in the pool the next day for some practice!

It didn't take long for Dave to start talking about wanting a bigger and higher weight limit kayak for himself! We happened to pass by Bass Pro Shop in Williamsburg on our way home from the beach five days later and decided to run in just to see what they had. We saw mostly sit-in kayaks rated for our weight, and one sit on top that was perfect except it only came in 12 ft--too long and heavy for me to handle. We went home mulling options.

It was that night that we found "our" camper online, so the next morning, Saturday, we headed out to Ashland to look at it. After signing the papers on the camper, we were starting for home when we decided to see if there was a BPS in Richmond. Hey, lookit--a huge bass sculpture right across the street! We found ourselves hiking through the biggest, baddest BPS we'd ever seen. It even has an upstairs! This place is amazing and I can't wait to take J to see it in three weeks.

We looked at the sit-in Ascends again and finally decided to go for it. I got the purple D10, and he got the slightly heavier rated angler model, the F10. His color is called "titanium" and it's a blue/grey blend that looks like a shark to me. Hence the name Great White for his.

It's really quite a lot bluer than grey IRL. It suits him to a T, except for the part where he doesn't really fish. Although he was talking about trying it out for that...

We had a wonderful lunch at Islamorada Fish Company inside BPS (who knew?!) and headed home with Moby and Great White in the truck bed. I called J on the way and told her we bought two new kayaks. She said "Oh, so you didn't get the camper?" No, babe, we're on a roll--we got the camper too.  We loaded her kayak on top of ours and headed back to the boat landing to play.

And here's the truth: fat, old people can indeed get in and out of a sit-in kayak. It's not always graceful, and sometimes a little wet, but it's do-able. It's great exercise, and it is so.incredibly.fun!