Paddle Like It's 1999

This past Sunday I headed out for a quiet Sunday coffee paddle and look who I ran into at the marina! This was a nice blast from the past - Dave and Cyndi were my paddling companions throughout many years of kayaking. Cyndi largely moved on to cycling, and so it was good to see that they still get out on the water from time to time. We paddled together to Hains Point and back. It turns out we had all brought coffee and snacks, so we had coffee together back at the marina.

Combo Weekend: Tuckahoe and Rehoboth

In the era of COVID, we're not getting away from home much (no one is) and so it felt pretty amazing to take a trip that lasted FOUR whole nights and took us two states away from Virginia (three, if you count DC).

Valerie and I had a goal of visiting our friends Gail and Chris, who moved a few years ago to their dream retirement home in Rehoboth Beach. We figured that as long as we stayed away from the busy parts of the beachfront, the COVID risk was OK. Meanwhile, some of my kayak friends were planning a socially distant camping trip to Tuckahoe State Park on the Eastern Shore - a location which is pretty much right along the route to Rehoboth. Through some miracle we were able to influence these two trips to align in a way that allowed us to make one big combined trip out of it.

After I spent some significant time Friday morning cramming two bicycles, a kayak, cycling gear, camping gear, kayaking gear, and vacation gear into my car, we set off and made it to Rehoboth (really Lewes, but who's counting?) in record time. Let me tell you, light traffic is the silver lining in this whole coronavirus thing. I unloaded the bikes and Valerie's things, hung out for lunch, then headed an hour back west to Tuckahoe. The state park is quite lovely. The campsites are quite big, so it was easy to feel safe in terms of social distancing. Rob arrived just as I did, followed not long after by Tom and Suzanne. We all had adjacent sites; Bela and Leigh brought their camper and so stayed in a different part of the park (we were in the tent loop).

As always, it's interesting to see what every brings to set up their camp. I went on the minimal end, since I had to be conservative with space in the car. Small tent (the one I take kayak camping), and minimalist kitchen gear (I had planned meals that didn't require much cooking). I did bring my folding table, a full size chair and my 9 ft Kelty tarp. These came in handy when it sprinkled during dinner one night. Rob had a slightly more sophisticated setup with a full pop-up shelter. Suzanne managed rain protection with some impressive campcraft origami, erecting a tarp over the picnic table at the campsite. This gave her shelter for cooking and eating. I wish I had taken a picture of what she set up - it was a masterpiece of tent poles and guy lines. She also went with a more complete kitchen than I did. I didn't see much of Tom's campsite - he was at the far end and I never made it over there, and I never made it over to Bela's. 

My campsite

One new-to-coronavirus-times thing most of us brought was our own alternative bathroom facilities so that we didn't have to enter the campground restrooms if we didn't want to. These included variants on the old "groover" concept. For my part, I bought a toilet seat that snaps onto a five gallon bucket, which I paired with a Home Depot bucket that had a big "Let's Do This!" slogan on the side - an amusing combo. My toilet seat came as a cheapo combo with a really minimal privacy tent - but it did the trick. Or I imagine it would have - due to the vagaries of my digestive system (sorry, TMI) I never wound up testing it.

Let's do this! 

Unfortunately, we couldn't share meals but we did do socially distant hanging out after dinner then turned in early. The weather had been hot and sticky, so the cool temperatures overnight on Friday a were a very pleasant surprise. 

Saturday morning we rolled early to get on the water ahead of the heat. We launched onto Tuckahoe Creek from Covey's Landing (not COVID's Landing) and headed upriver through water lined with spatterdock and wild rice. Our original goal was to paddle to the town of Hillsborough and back, but when we got there we all felt we had some energy left in us and so we decided to continue on to see a cool old railroad bridge a bit further upriver. I expected that we would turn around at that point, but Tom and Suzanne took off continuing upriver. I got hung up on some submerged trees and had to back out and go through a different span of the bridge. Rob was hanging back to get some pictures, and Bela was near the back too. 

Approaching the 19th century railroad bridge

The Paddler from the Black Lagoon

At this point, the whole nature of the trip changed for me. What had been a group traveling and making decisions together now split, with Tom and Suzanne pushing ahead up front - how far, no one knew - while the rest of us, with no control over the matter, were reduced to chasing after them for as long as they continued to paddle upriver. Those who know me know I like to have a plan and stick with it, so this unexpected open-ended leg of the trip put me into a bad frame of mind for a little while. Fortunately, after not too long the river became too narrow and full of deadfalls to navigate and we all turned around and headed back together - once more as a unified group. I felt better again. We made a lunch stop at a nice quiet landing, which included taking a dip in the river to cool off, as it had gotten quite hot.

By the time we got back to camp we were all a little worn out from 15 miles / five hours of paddling in the hot sun. Rob, a little dazed, I guess, backed his car into a tree - twice! - while trying to back into his campsite. I joined in the post-paddling hanging out but after a little while was abruptly overwhelmed with tiredness and slinked off to my tent for a nap. Only Suzanne came back full of energy - while the rest of us collapsed in one way or another she went on a hike.

It could have been worse - he could have dented his kayak

We each prepared and ate our separate dinners then met up at Rob's site to chat. We had the idea of making a fire (Bela even brought wood) but it was too darn hot to do so.

Sunday we rose early again after a hotter, stickier overnight. We wanted to beat the heat again and also wanted to be back in time to break camp before "checkout time" of 1 PM. Tom managed to get up, break camp and pack all his gear before we rolled to go kayaking; the rest of us packed some things but left others for afterwards. We went to the same launch and did a six mile, 2 1/2 hour paddle in the opposite direction from the day before. It was once again quite hot, so we took a nice break for splashing and rolling practice. When we got back Tom headed straight home, while the rest of us headed back to the campground to clean up and take down the rest of our stuff. I took the time to repack some things to be ready for the next phase of my trip. Rob, Suzanne and Bela headed for home, and I headed back east to Rehoboth.

Splash break

Suzanne and Bela

Gail and Chris were, as always, the perfect hosts. They always seem really happy to host guests and to prepare little niceties (like home-baked scones) and I feel totally at home in their house. We didn't really go out Sunday afternoon. For dinner we grilled salmon and corn and then went over to the Hopkins Farm Creamery for dessert. The Creamery is within walking distance of the house, but again, in the COVID era they've done away with ordering at the window and milling about waiting for your order. Instead, everything is done via drive-through. You drive over and join a long line of cars. As you get towards the front someone comes over and takes your order, and by the time you reach the front your order is ready. Not as much fun (and you can't go look at the cows - though you can still smell them), but it is what it is.

While I was off camping, Valerie and Gail watched the sun rise at the beach

Monday Gail, Chris and I went for a 28 mile bike ride through pretty and surprisingly varied terrain - paved bike trails, sandy beach trails at Cape Henlopen, down into Rehoboth beach, and through some stunning neighborhoods (Henlopen Acres) back to the house. Chris and I had been talking Friday night about the latest cycling buzz about how we've all been running our tires at too high a pressure and that the new orthodoxy was becoming to ride at lower pressure. When we got back from our ride Chris told me that before our ride, while I was inside getting ready, as an experiment he had let some air out of my tires, reducing the pressure by about 10 psi. Not his tires, my tires. To tell you the truth I didn't notice and so no harm done, and Chris is an adorable puppy-dog of a person so it's hard to be mad at him, but part of me was angry - it really wasn't his place to mess with my bike without asking me. Perhaps on our next ride I should loosen the cables on his brakes - y'know, just as an experiment. Grrr. I felt violated.

Biking through Cape Henlopen

Monday afternoon we all went over to a quiet, bay side beach. It's hard to believe this place exists - no crowds, easy on street parking. It's just a little neighborhood beach that's apparently not popular with the tourists because it has no waves and no honkytonk boardwalk. Well, let me tell you, going in the water was wonderful! And then, as if we hadn't done enough activities, Valerie and Gail did a short bike ride while Chris and I hung out back at the house.

Monday evening was an exercise in flightiness. We were going to order dinner in; however, despite deciding the previous day that we would have to order food early because of the crowds we did no such thing and sure enough, the restaurant we had targeted had a super-long wait for orders. We would up having to call around to find a place we could get food without a crazy wait - but we did, and all was well.

Tuesday morning I once again played the game of loading the car with all our stuff, and Valerie and I headed home, happy to have had a great trip and sad to see it come to an end.