Canoe? Canoe!

File this under "As If I Don't Have Enough Crap In My Life." My husband took the dog for a walk tonight. He came home while I was writing tech documentation for work and said "You've gotta come help me get the canoe in the truck. Kiss my what?

No seriously.

Yeah -- he had me hop into the truck and drive around the corner where a 17' Fiberglass Old Town LLBean Style canoe has been for sale for the past several weeks. He's been pondering the purchase, and on his walk this evening with old Jack there, he stopped to look. The seller restores sailboats and canoes, and has had several different models for sale out in the yard for the past several years. So they got to talking. He was asking $250, but Jack charmed him and he let her go for $200 WITH two wood paddles.

A brand new Old Town goes for over 1,000. I didn't want a huge Fiberglass canoe. I wanted something that Doug and Geoff could handle by themselves if they wanted to go out... but this one was there, and it is ship shape, and yeah.

We own a canoe.

Seeing as it is 17' long, and the interior of our truckbed is only like 6' long, the drive home was slightly precarious. I grabbed a safety orange vest and tied it to the end (it being pitch dark out, I figured it was my best option). Doug rode in back and had tied the ropes inside the canoe to the frame of the truckbed and cap. Luckily we live less than a quarter of a mile away... the ride home could have been devilishly difficult otherwise, what with the way jerkasses drive around here. Seriously -- even with my hazards and safety orange flying off the back, I had a tailgater.

Meh!

So it's in our yard. It's ready to go. It's got a little rust, nothing too too bad, and I've already spent about 800 bucks in my mind's eye on canoe accessories like this and this.

First we started with the fishing. Now we're up to canoes... the outdoor addiction spreads. At least I know I'll get some tan lines this summer. Nothing like the tanlines one gets from a personal floatation device.

I'm outta here, to quote Nance.