Friday I took a half day off. It’s just about hitting peak fall foliage season here in upstate NY and everything is glowing gold and orange. But that’s not why I took the half day. It was also my sister’s baby shower this weekend so I came home to the lakes to help set up for the party. I got a late start out of Binghamton and had low gray skies the whole way. I had all but given up hope by the time I reached our mostly torn down cottage on Waneta lake and walked out to the front yard. But I looked out toward the channel and saw a blue sky full of cotton candy clouds and a lake flat as a mirror, rippling just slightly in the breeze.
So I dragged my kayak off the front porch, through the double doors, down the hill, bumped it over the rocks on the shore, and shoved off. It was freezing. The water was cold and dark and I remembered in high school, I was absolutely terrified of kayaking. I am not a water person, some people can’t live without it, I could do without altogether. There’s just something about murky, airless depths filled with scaly monsters that gives me the heebie-jeebies. My cure for water terror? Paddle faster, and don’t look down. So that’s just what I did. I looked up to rising golden hills, and paddled fast. About 20 minutes out, the low gray clouds I had been trying to outrun from Binghamton caught up to me. The wind picked up, the cotton candy turned to fleece blanket, and I paddled hard against water that felt like an escalator going in the wrong direction.
I hit the two foot wide gap of gravel between the rocks with a grindy thud and dragged my kayak up the hill just as it started spitting rain. My arms ached and I remembered the last time I was this deliriously happy I was standing next to a sign that read “el. 4867ft. 1483.5m. WHITEFACE MT.” My legs hurt significantly less this time.
My mom was disappointed she hadn’t been in on the adventure. So on Sunday we repeated it, although without the luck of blue October skies.