It’s The Day Before We Leave (Mr. Frei)



Last training meal






Greetings, Gentle Reader,


It’s The Day Before We Leave; at 0500 hrs we will depart Cleverdale and head to Kingston, Ontario, courtesy of son Matthew and his Toyota Tundra and Trailer. We should be on the water by noon and with any luck and the cooperation of the lock-keepers, we hope to put twenty miles under the keels before nightfall. Tomorrow will be a BIG learning day. How will our bodies respond to our first serious effort beyond lifting groaning forks to our faces? How will the boats perform with the luggage we carry? How will the lock-keepers respond to our appeals for expeditious passage? How will our mutual blather affect our relationship as fellow travelers? Frankly, I expect to be grinning from ear to ear tomorrow night; this has already been a lot of fun.

You see, Brian and I conducted our final provisioning (a.k.a shopping) today at Wal-Mart, a sad testament to our sense of urgency and conservative budgeting. Then…a quick lunch of cheeseburgers and onion rings, a light fresh coat of varnish on the woodwork of the boats, the construction of six cushions from Hefty bags and duct tape, Brian’s masterful fitting of new seats, a trial loading of it all for weight and balance…and, voila! Good to go! The weather is perfect as I write this on my mom’s porch at Lake George, but atmospheric confusion to the west promises more than a few days of rain for our start. Brian optimistically observes that cold, rain, and enormous personal discomfort will give us more to write about. If this be so, he’s picked the right expedition.

And oh, yes. My next book is “Loyalty…the Vexing Virtue” by Eric Felten, chosen not only because “virtue” seems to me, even in advance of reading the book, to be a quality that has been greatly misconstrued, abused, and too narrowly interpreted in the contemporary culture, but my own notion of “Loyalty” may be tested over the next few weeks. After all, is this trip about rowing 503 miles? Is it about savoring time and shared experience with my non-bio brother? Is it about achieving a personal best of sorts? Is it about the communion of writing a blog and co-mingling friends from different zip codes? It’s about all of these things and more, of course, and yet the loyalties I hold for these aspirations and the people involved may become conflicted or casualties of experience. Perhaps Felten’s book can help me navigate through some of it. Perhaps?

So we’re on the water tomorrow, Gentle Reader, and since Brian is bringing his iPad, we may be able to sustain some commentary as we row. We’ll be calling in to Peg and Kathy as in the past, so you will receive frequent updates of our progress.

Row Canada!!

Mo’ Latah’

And….many, many thanks for the Pledge Activity!! More thanks to come, honest!

Mr. Frei