Endings (Mr. Frei)

 

Each day during the row there arrived a particular moment when we had to consider where we were going to pull up for the night. Sometimes that moment occurred over our morning coffee when we would peruse the map, assess our own stores of energy and provisions, and decide on a worthy destination. These decisions were easy when rowing the canals; the locks themselves suggested logical legs, and the protected waters enabled us to plan ahead without having to react to winds or waves.

More often, however, the decision of where and when to end the day was made on the fly as weather or fatigue weighed in, sometimes overriding our boyish enthusiasm to continue.  With but twenty miles under our keels on the early afternoon of June 28,for example, we were getting hammered by a building crosswind on a broad stretch of the Ottawa River. We’d put together a string of 32 mile days and at that moment, twenty miles seemed a short effort. But we looked across the choppy water at one another, surveyed the distant shores, and spotted a lone steeple on the horizon perhaps three miles distant. Over the strong gusts Brian declared, “Let’s head to the church.” Gentle Reader, believe me when I tell you that when a Rooney declares that he or she would like to head to a church, a moment of import has arrived. And it was the right call. The weather built quickly, two thunderstorms soon rolled through, and rejuvenating cheeseburgers were captured only one mile inland. Any mention of St. Placide, to me, will forever bring a sigh, a smile…and a confirmation of the occasional power of intuitive, spontaneous decision making.

But as I sit here on the back patio in Baltimore on a perfect mid-August morning, I wrestle with the prospect of ending this blog, an ending I’ve been subconsciously avoiding, I think, because the journey has been such a delight. Putting a wrap on the writing is, for me, as bittersweet as was pulling the boat up on the beach at Lobster Night on July 8th; the row had ended, Brian’s steady companionship in the shared journey had ended, and the exploration of new waters and personal limits was, for now, over. Kathy promises to translate it all into a book embellished with new photos, Brian will add a wonderful article he has contributed to a travel blog out in LA, and some of you might even wish to add a final comment or two that will be included in that publication (do it soon!). To be honest, I feel a certain profound sadness at ending this commentary, and yet I’m simultaneously overwhelmed with gratitude as I think of how lucky I am to enjoy the friendships and good health that have made the adventure possible.

So we’ll end it now, unless Brian adds yet one more erudite nugget before Kathy gets to the business of building the book. I hope that he will because he says in a paragraph what I say in a page, and a tight paragraph is always better than a padded page. I know this to be true. I teach 8^th grade English.

In closing, though, I’d like to share some final pictures with you…images that never reached the lens of any camera but will, for me, forever define the joy of this adventure.

First, here’s a picture of Brian- I have hundreds of mental pictures of Brian – this one of his cedar boat bathed in the golden light of late afternoon on Lake Champlain, the bow parting a feather of silver water with each stroke as he pulls strongly under the deep green backdrop of the Adirondacks. It’s a perfect picture.

Oh! Here’s another picture of Brian sitting at the picnic table we’d camped next to at Brewer Lock on our first morning together. He’s heating coffee water on the little Pocket Rocket burner. It was at this moment that I knew each morning would be sublime. This too is a perfect picture, but in a different way.

Ah…look at the way the joggers and roller-bladers on shore seem to be stationary figures as we row with them through downtown Ottawa. They don’t seem to want to maintain eye contact as we row at their pace and really, who can blame them? We’re water-born vagabonds and they, urban sophisticates, are at this moment wondering about the wisdom of their relatively open borders.

Here’s one of many similar images: we’re locking down on the Rideau and Brian, gently holding the guide rope on the far wall of the lock, has fully reclined in his boat, his Tilley hat rakishly drawn over his eyes, taking advantage of a few minutes of respite until we’ll be rowing again. Is he napping? It’s a picture of casual competence if ever there was one.

Woah! Now here’s a dramatic photo! A fierce squall has just hit us just north of Montreal, the waves so high that Brian’s boat literally disappears between whitecaps and blowing foam! And what’s this? If you look closely, Gentle Reader, there’s Brian again stretched out in his boat, legs casually crossed, an arm draped over the oar he’s using for steerage as he surfs at breakneck speeds down rollers propelled by his gaudy orange beach umbrella. Casual competence…or sheer lunacy? After 500 miles with him, I can tell you it’s the former.

Oh! Here are Peg and Kathy, Support Team Extraordinaire, who have appeared from out of nowhere on a dock along the bank of the loathed Richelieu River. They bear cold beverages, news from the outside world, and encouragement. Peg is wearing her cool khaki shorts, a natty newly-crafted “Row, Canada!” Team t- shirt, and a smile. After I tether my boat, I like hugging her.

This shot’s not especially clear; it’s dark at almost 10:00PM on July 7^th, the night before our finish, and we’ve just arrived at Ticonderoga after rowing 48 miles in 14 hours. That’s Brian down on all fours on a dock eating a gourmet hamburger. It’s a “Hasselhoff” moment, I’m told. He was tired, but he was not too tired to chew.

Be advised: this image could be PG-13. In the low light of evening I’m lying in my tent, examining its fabric ceiling. I’ve just finished tracking down and eliminating each and every mosquito that could plague my sleep. See all of those red streaks? The mosquitoes have been dispatched, but not before they’ve had their fill first.

This penultimate mental picture is my view of my own boat while rowing. At the bottom of the picture you see my weathered feet braced against the foot-block which itself is buffered by rags to reduce blistering. The oar handles are left and right. That smooth cherry wood has propelled me through almost two thousand miles of water over the last few years. The Igloo cooler you see on the wicker stern seat carries the remnants of the day’s provisions, and the short cedar deck beyond frames the small wake I leave behind as I row. I like this picture because while the foreground images are constant, the water, hues, and horizon change from minute to minute.

Brian, this final picture is of you. It’s a face shot one morning after you’d let that beard start to come in…a bit silver, a bit sun-touched, a very salty look indeed. The eyes carry that observant light which animates your every waking moment, and you suppress a hint of the smile that I treasure when it breaks through. But I like this picture most because of what it reminds me about unconditional friendship, the kind that requires no effort and calls for a lot of care. In this picture I see the roust-about, irreverent, energetic, lovable kid I grew up with echoed in the remarkable man I so admire and love today, and I am reminded of what a treasure it has been to spend eighteen uninterrupted days with you. I think that I like this picture most of all.

Thanks, Brian. I love ya, man. And Bob, I still love you, too.

So much for the final pictures… but I’m not finished with the thanks.

Thanks to those of you who contributed money to the fundraising effort; we raised more than $7,000 for Boys’ Latin and, in a belated effort, almost $4,000 for Loomis Chaffee. Our students and their parents thank you…and the kids’ teachers thank you, too.

Thanks to Peg and Kathy for their untiring efforts to get us through when chips were down.

Thanks to Cecile, Emma, and Katherine for sharing their dad for a few weeks.

Thanks to Matt “McGuyver” Freihofer for taking a huge day off -and for a very full day of problem solving - to get us safely on the water.

Thanks, Mom, for the boat and the genes. Even though I had no say in the matter, I’d pick you.

Finally, thanks again to Mo of Rockland. Mo, that was a big one.

Ending now, for now.

Love,

Mr. Frei

       

 

       

         

        

Rituals (Mr. Frei)

 

Morning ritual - Coffee, Peaches and Breakfast Bars

Sociologists and anthropologists tell us that rituals convey a lot about the beliefs and values of a culture, and a culture of sorts does emerge over the course of eighteen days of rowing. Throughout a journey of significant physical effort and strain, Brian quickly established and observed daily rituals that served as a kind of glue for our shared enterprise, rituals embedded in the consonant-rich acronym “CPBBCCC”. Sure, it doesn’t roll off the tongue unless you work for the government or are of eastern European descent. How about shortened to a graphically catchy CPBBCx3…or perhaps an algebraic CPBB{(3)C}? In longhand, it would read:

CoffeePeachesBreakfastBarCleanlinessCompartmentsCare.

Coffee. Nothing happened in the morning without coffee, Starbucks Via served in shallow, wide-brimmed, heat-conducting, lip-scalding aluminum cups. Brian brought along a cute ‘lil burner (“The Pocket Rocket” was voted MVP of all of our gear by the end of Week One) which had us caffeinated in no time each morning. I came to wonder how I had embarked on my earlier rowing journeys without one. As we finished each morning’s coffee we’d save a bit in our tins, look at each other over furrowed brows, rakishly backhand the remaining coffee into an imaginary fire, and say, “We’re burnin’ daylight” as we headed to the boats. Yes, John Wayne made his mark on us as youngsters.

Peaches. Brian loves peaches. I’ve known him for fifty years or so, and I never knew of this affection until I caught a glimpse of his food stores and discovered a material proportion of Georgia’s peach harvest tucked away in many, many itty-bitty cans. The peaches went with the coffee. A day without peaches was a day without sunshine…but not as bad as a day without coffee might have been. We ran out of peaches now and then and felt the absence when we did; we never ran out of coffee.

Breakfast Bars. This was the last of the culinary rituals. Breakfast bars became a kind of currency on the trip, and Brian dominated the exchange rate: he had many….I brought but a few. He knew of this imbalance yet each morning (after Day Six; it took that long to prompt and train him) he would ask, “You want a breakfast bar?”

Cleanliness. My dad was a POW in Germany during WW2 and related that a reliable sign of self-control, mental health, and discipline in the prison camp was one’s consistent attendance to cleanliness and personal hygiene. By this account, Brian would have made a better POW than I. He scoured his tent each morning with a Sham Wow while I was content to just blithely roll mine up, encapsulating whatever crumbs, garments, or carcasses of the insect population that bunked in with me the night before. I kept clean, folks, but I was not ready to pass inspection in the way Brian could have at any moment of every day. Why, he’d even stake his tent down every night. I, on the other hand, counted on my prodigious bulk to be sufficient ballast. And it was.

Compartments (aka “Fastidiousness”). After the coffee, the peaches, the breakfast bars, and the sanitizing of the tent came the packing…packing stuff for the day’s row and loading the boats for proper weight and balance. Brian’s capacity for neatness and organization expressed itself in his luggage and the methodical ritual of his packing. He brought sea bags for everything. His tent, inflatable mattress, and sleeping bag shared sanctuary in a single impressive sea bag, and each article found a specific and consistent home in a zippered compartment or waterproof cubby. As a result, when we’d push off each morning, his boat would carry a few neat bags impeccably and consistently arranged for balance and convenience, ready for a photo-op as the preferred attraction for lock visitors. My boat, on the other hand, looked more like that of a refugee or fugitive, loose items wrapped in plastic bags and smaller sacks distributed from bow to stern. If Brian had been swamped, he’d use his luggage as buoyancy bags and not lose a thing. If I’d capsized, well, just revisit the last ten minutes of “Titanic” for a visual.

Compare the shelves!

Care. No matter how late in the day (or evening) we’d pull up…no matter how tranquil the waters or apparently safe the setting…no matter how tired he might be and how welcoming the prospect of rest, Brian always tended to his boat first. My Kevlar warhorse has long been accustomed to being ridden hard and put away wet, and it looks that way; if the line is secure and the gunwales and oarlocks are protected from wear, I’m ready for bed. Yet Brian’s end-of-day ritual with his beautiful cedar boat explains why it looks as new as it appeared ten years ago. The boat gets emptied of gear, gently pulled ashore, gingerly rotated to its inverted nesting position, and tied down ‘just in case’. To those of you who were a part of gifting this boat to Brian ten years ago, I can tell you that he’s taking care of it. Manic good care. Manic, I tell you.

You will note, Gentle Reader, that none of these rituals actually took place out on the water. The ritual of the campsite and of daily preparation was replaced each day by the individual effort of rowing. But the ritual of striking camp each day sated with coffee, peaches, breakfast bars, and well-packed gear set the tone for each day…and each day was good.

One guess as to who owns each boat!

A few photos from the end of the trip

The bow of Mr. Frei's boat

 

Day 16 - Hero, VT to Colchester Pt., VT to ??

The weather is quite bad today!  By 9:30 they had gone from Hero to Colchester Pt, VT, which took 2 hours and is 3 miles. (Normal pace in calm weather could average 4 MPH)

The winds are at 40 MPH and good chance of thunderstorms, so they are staying ashore.  There is a good chance they will be unable to go further today.  A good day to take a break.

Will let you know later!

Kathy

In Montreal - wet and exhilarated! (Mr. Frei)

A feast in Montreal for Brian and Mr. Frei

Greetings, gentle reader,

We have arrived in Montreal wet and exhilarated after a 31 mile downwind run from last night's Quasi-emergency bail-out point at St. Placide. This afternoon we ran into quite a squall and were intercepted by the Canadian coast guard (three young guys in a high powered orange boat) who simply wanted to confirm that we were not in distress. They hinted that in 30 knot winds and high waves, it would be prudent to wear life jackets. Then they bid us a good day and drove off into the rain. Good guys. Our sense is that they have seen more inexplicable sights than us.

So....we are at the top of the Lachine canal and will row through Montreal tomorrow morning. The row through Ottawa was as if we were strolling through the park with the joggers, bikers, and roller-bladers, and transiting Montreal may well be the same. I hope so; one could not hope for a more relaxing way to see a city than by Adirondack guide boat.

We're holding up well. Yesterday (Tuesday) was especially tough with the wind on the nose all day, so today's change of wind was welcomed and appreciated. Last night Brian rolled out of his boat onto a pitching dock as if he was taking the ball in off tackle from the two.  I signaled "touchdown" to an amused couple on the dock. We were tired.

Tomorrow we should be in the St Lawrence, enjoying a strong current and dodging the ocean-going ships that ply those waters. We'll hug the shore and use our wits and wiles to make good time safely.

I am in Brian's debt for being able to use his Internet machine...as well as for his wonderful contributions to the blog. And, truth be told, he brings a kind of refinement to the journey that I might not have been inclined to seek were I alone. As I write this, we dine at la strada, a white table cloth italian restaurant across from the park. We can see out tent homes across the street. 

I'll be in mine soon, wet and satisfied with a good day, with garlic on my breath.

Mo Latah.

Thanks for moving the pledge paddles. They are moving, right???

Big ups,

Mr Frei

Day 6 - Black Rapids, ON to Rockland, ON

Rockand, Ontario

'

Mr. Frei and Brian did an amazing 33 miles today! There was no waiting at the series of locks in Ottawa, so they made it through all of them in 1 hour. Only two other boats were waiting.

Mr. Frei said that Ottawa was beautiful, but they did not stop at all. They entered the Ottawa River and continued 23 miles to a nice private marina in Rockland. Rockland is a bilingual community located about 40 kilometers (25 miles) east of downtown Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, part of the city of Clarence–Rockland. Rockland has a population of 9,210, The surroundings are very picturesque, but there are no restaurants near the marina, so they will be relying on their own provisions for dinner.

The plan for tomorrow is to row 38 miles to Hawkesbury.  

It sounded like a nice but uneventful day!

Kathy

Mr. Frei and Brian completed the entire Rideau Canal!

Oscar and Felix on Water (Brian)

 
June 24, Burritt’s Rapids, Ont. --- We went to sleep last night under a violent thunder and lightning storm. The wind was lifting our tents and we thought we might get microwaved. But we woke up alive to pack up wet tents.

This Oscar and Felix thing is coming into clearer definition. In the day Al leads the row. At night I lead the hunt for food.

My friend Albert keeps a special Gatorade bottle his boat that does not contain Gatorade, although in a moment of fatigue you could mistake it for that. Not only does he have that in the boat, but he stores it there until it's full.

I prefer to pull to shore and do my communing with nature's foliage. Call me fussy, but I'm just not going to risk having a chemical spill in my boat and having to row with it.

Al stores his boat right side up at night, with stuff still in it. He bails it out in the morning. I turn my boat over and take all the gear in my tent.

Al for the most part does not get blisters on his hands. Maybe one or two. I have twenty.

Albert is driven to row, and I am not. I stop for pain and to take pictures. He rows on and he would row into the dark if I was not with him. One night we reached a town that might have a restaurant. It was 7pm, raining, and we had rowed for five hours in the rain. Al said, "should we keep going?” I have blisters from trying keep up.

I nibble on nuts in the boat, but Al doesn't care for them. He eats some kind of energy food he calls "globules" and he feeds me boat to boat. Today an orange globule stuck to my arm.

Yesterday morning it started to pour at 6am, just when we should have been getting up. We each knew the other was awake but said nothing until Al called over to my tent, "what do you think?"

I was thinking I wanted a down comforter.

We thought we would row all day in rain, but we pressed on into an overcast day without rain. Loons called out all day, and popped up next to our boats, trilling. We rowed 20 miles on open lakes. We saw pairs of loons every mile or so, mergansers, redwing blackbirds ... Lots of birds we are not good at identifying.

Later Al told me if I had decided not to row in the rain he would have supported me. He didn't want to get out of bed either.



Day 2 - Washburn, Ontario to Newboro, Ontario

Brian and Mr. Frei had a 24 mile day today, and are now at the summit of the Rideau Canal in Newboro, Ontario.  They have walked into the town looking for a good meal and some fresh provisions.

Mr. Frei described the scenery as looking very much like the narrows at Lake George, without the mountains. There are a lot of islands and charming cottages along the way, as well as many loons.  Apparently, one loon startled Mr. Frei by "barking" alongside his boat.  They only passed two other boats today, so it has been very peaceful.  They went through 10 - 12 locks (one set of 4) and some doubles.

They dined at lunch at the Kenney Hotel. Hopefully, they washed up in the mens' lounge beforehand!  A light rain was with them most of the day, but as they were going to dinner, the rain had stopped.

Tomorrow there will be a long stretch of the canal with no locks, so the total mileage tomorrow may exceed today's.

Brian has written a blog entry, which he will send in as soon as he reaches a place where he can do that.

Total mileage is 36!

Keep watching!

Kathy




Hotel Kenney Ontario



Day 1 - Kingston, Ontario to Washburn, Ontario

Hello everyone,  Mr. Frei and Brian are safely ensconced at a campground by Lock #45 on the Rideau Canal.  The drive from Lake George took longer than expected, so they were not able to start rowing until 1PM, but managed to do 12.5 miles, which is certainly a  respectable first day warmup! 

Matt Freihofer was an enormous help fitting the boats onto the trailer, and driving the long distance from Lake George to Kingston, Ontario and back in one day.

The locks are all hand-operated, the lock keepers are quite friendly and the scenery is beautiful.  They actually made it through 5 locks today, and will try to position themselves tomorrow to be able to make it as far as possible before they close for the day. The locks are open 8:30 AM until 7:30 PM.

The photo below is one of Brian having a delightful dinner of beef stew!  This is the first row with an actual stove (thanks to Brian).

                                                               

Doug Livingston took some great photos of the boats being loaded onto the trailer, which I will post later.

Sweet dreams to Mr. Frei and Brian. and more news tomorrow.

Kathy

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



Technology and Water Sometimes Mix (Brian)



Brian's Guide Boat

  We spent Saturday night working out at the Freihofer training table in Cleverdale on Lake George. Al’s mother made pork chops, creamed potatoes, green beans and coleslaw, finished with apple pie and ice cream. If we weren’t in shape before, we are now.

Doug and Susie Livingston came over from a few doors away. Doug must have heard laughter and the sound of ice clinking in glasses. Doug always answers the call of the wild cocktail hour.

I spent Sunday marshaling gear, cleaning my boat, and sweeping spiders out of my bedroom at Lake George.

Al’s mother offered to give him an Amazon Kindle e-reader for the trip, which I would have counseled her against doing if she had checked with me first. A Kindle is one of the devices that Al derisively refers to as “one of the screens”, merely an electronic diversion. Al has packed two of the devices quaintly referred to as “books” which should last him the duration of the trip without recharging.

This trip promises to be a bit like “Zen and the At of Motorcycle Maintenance”, in which two men crossed America on motorcycles debating about whether to follow the directions of life as written in the manual, or make it up as you go along. Al and I each have a little of both.

He yearns, as sometimes we all do, for simplicity. The simplicity of the Adirondack guideboat is something he can appreciate, and actually use. It was designed to be rowed by the hunting guide with a New York City swell sitting in the rear in a position in which the two could actually talk facing each other. They were plugged in, in a 19th century way.

The original boats had a technological genius of their own. Made to be stable and faster as they were loaded, their ribs were cut from spruce crooks, the part of the tree where the trunk splays out underground into the roots. Now the wood boats are made with shaped laminated ribs and a skin of fiberglass over the clear cedar planking. Or, like Al’s, they are made of Kevlar, which if you put enough of it together you’ve got a bulletproof vest.

That’s Al’s kind of technology. He has a love hate relationship with electronics. He uses a computer and an iPhone, but he’s not glued to them. He checks his Email maybe once or twice a week. A lot of times you have a better chance of reaching him through the US Postal Service that you do with the latest in communication technology. He’s holding out for a world in which people talk to each other face to face rather than texting or some other form of “exting” as has recently been practiced in Congress. I’ve sent him several texts telling him this is hopeless.

He does, however, have a point. A common emergency room injury these days is the bump on the head suffered while texting and walking into a phone pole. People have walked into shopping mall fountains while focusing on their Blackberry. We have all seen the groups of people in restaurants, or teenagers at the mall, together but separate as their attention is focused on their electronic tethers. No matter who they are with, they aren’t there.

Al insisted that I read David Carr’s book “The Shallows”, about how electronics and the distractions of Email, Facebook and Twitter are shattering human concentration. It turns out we were not made to multitask and we are fooling ourselves if we think we can. What Al calls “the screens” may even be causing the brain to rewire and work in a different way, just as the brain can rewire after a traumatic injury. At Al’s suggestion I sat down and bought a copy of “The Shallows” immediately and read it on my iPad.

Brian's gear