By Friday we were ready and rarin' to go again. I picked out an easy-access, family-friendly mountain lake with beachfront that was a mere 2 hour mostly-highway drive from home. The highway component was key--we didn't want another carsick puking kid on this outing! The forecast was 23 degrees cooler at the lake than in Sunnyside. We craved that break from the heat ravenously.
With difficulty, Jeff loaded two paddle boards and a kayak onto the roof of our minivan on Friday morning. I packed a large array of snacks and picnic foods. We tossed life vests, buckets, shovels, towels, a frisbee, and other miscellaneous lake-gear into the trunk and were ready to leave by 8:00 am. It was already nearing 90 degrees, and we were sweating profusely and squinting in the bright blaze. The mountains were calling.
Just as we were about to pull out, Rose said "oops, I still have undies on underneath my swimsuit!" and she dashed inside to change out of that cottony base layer. She also bemoaned her ill-fitting baggy-butted swimsuit, and spent what felt like an hour inside deciding what to do about it. (Rose is tall like a teenager but at age 9.5 is still slim-hipped/non-curvy like a child--a shape I remember well). While Rose deliberated and fretted inside our air conditioned house, the rest of us were in the car, slowly melting into sweaty oblivion under the raging furnace of "excessive heat." We finally left at 8:17am.
On the drive to the highway, Jeff sped up and slowed down a few times to test the durability of the tie job he had performed on our rooftop watercraft. They seemed to hold up great, so we merged onto the highway in good spirits, looking forward to a day at the lake. A few minutes down the highway, however, our van started swaying side to side in the slipstream of the various large plastic items we had on the roof. It became immediately obvious that this was not a highway-worthy rig. We slowed down and took the next exit, which didn't happen to occur until Zillah (20 minutes down the road). We took country roads homeward and troubleshooted our options on the way.
First we thought we'd just leave one of the paddle boards home and strap the remaining one tighter to the roof, but then we weren't certain if that would be much better. We really wanted to paddle board, so we didn't like the idea of leaving both paddle boards behind. So we started brainstorming different locations, finally landing on the trusty Columbia River, specifically Leslie Groves Park in Richland. For the rest of the drive, I tried my best to overcome the disappointment at having my idyllic family day at a mountain lake ripped from my bosom. It was hard. It felt so wrong to be driving farther into the heat, rather than away from it! (Richland is east of us, the mountains are west).
We took "the back way" on minor (curvier) highways all the way there. Normally it's a 50 minute drive to this park from our house, but with our detour to Zillah, route recalculation, and necessary non-highway backroads, we rolled into the parking lot at Leslie Groves Park one hour and 50 minutes after we left home. If everything had gone as planned, we would have spent nearly the same amount of time in the car and arrived at a much cooler, more desirable destination! Once again I swallowed my disappointment. Thank goodness nobody vomited en route this time. I may have given up.
I had been looking forward to a cool fresh run on the lakeside trail, but I did not get to run at all, since it was approaching 100 degrees when we finally lugged all of our gear down to a lightly shaded bench near the river. Swallowing more disappointment, I organized our messy heap of stuff around the bench.
Jay was excited to kayak, so we twisted the two ends of the paddle together and went to unfold the kayak seat. To our horror, the fold-down seat back was securely fastened to the bottom with two of the thickest plastic zip ties we had ever seen. Last time we loaned the kayaks to family, they zip tied the floppy folding seat back down for easier transport. A great idea, if you happen to carry a pocket knife or wire cutters in your swimsuit! We did not have any such supplies, not in our swimwear or in our vehicle. We sawed at the zip ties with a key for a bit and barely dented it. I tried twisting it to snap it with tension, with no success. Jeff found a wrench in the car and tried twisting the zip tie with that, but it would not budge or even stretch a little. After at least fifteen sweaty minutes, we were forced to admit defeat.
We left the kayak in the shade by our bench and schlepped the paddle boards down to the water instead. We all took turns paddle boarding (Amber rode with Jeff) and the kids played in the rocky sand on the small shoreline beach. It was slightly alarming watching Jay and Rose drift downstream in the swift current on the paddle boards, and we had to explain to them that they should start out paddling upstream so they could float back to us safely. This was the first time that Jay and Rose have stood up on the paddle boards! It was exciting, although I was too we to take pictures.
Eventually Jeff and I simply stood in the cold river water, waist high, watching the kids. I have never entered the Columbia River past my ankles because the water is so ice cold, but on a 107 degree day, standing waist deep in that freezing fresh water counterbalanced the heat nicely. My bottom half was cold, my top half was hot, and somehow my overall body temperature was regulated. But that sun was a merciless blaze, lasering through my polarized sunglasses and exhausting me to the marrow.
The water was so clear, I started to notice shell-like shapes down by my toes. I pulled one up and it was an actual shell! The kids had a grand time shell-hunting, and amassed several handfuls of the tiny brown and white river shells. We couldn't help calling them seashells. After the shell hunt, it was lunchtime. We burned our feet dashing back to our bench, and ate a small fraction of the all-day foodstuffs I had packed. Then we reversed course and lugged everything back to the car. The river water was mostly dry on our suits by the time we had everything strapped and loaded back into/onto the van. We found a straighter more direct minor highway home, which only took 51 minutes.
"Look, Mr. Frodo! A bit of luck at last!"
We got home a little after 2pm, right in the prime sunshine excessive heat 'o the day and by the time we had unloaded all of our gear in that oven, we collapsed inside feeling decidedly limp and un-refreshed from our "day at the water." Almost 3 hours in the car, almost 2.5 hours at the water, almost an hour of load/unload time. Jeff did 98% of the heavy lifting. I was sweaty, hot, and tired in sympathy just watching him.
Here are a few paltry pictures from our blazing Friday:
First voyage of the day.
Amber was happy to play in the sand at the shore for as long as we'd let her.
Jay, going solo.
That's an island across the water. It shielded us nicely from the motor boats roaring through the river on the other side.
The beach wasn't exactly crowded, but there was an energetic large family/group of friends right next to us so it felt crowded to me. They were mostly out on their paddle boards when I took my few pictures.
Jeff on the far left, paddling like a pro. Jay is the nearest to Jeff, close to the center of the picture, and Rose and Amber are on the shore in the foreground. Even my photo-framing abilities seemed to wilt in the heat.
Happily hunting shells.
Amber held all of the shells Jay collected.
More shell-hunting.
They looked so cute and funny, peering down into the wavering water for shells.
A handful of shells. I don't know why Rose wore her life vest the whole time, but it provided extra sun protection so I didn't mind.
Lunch on our bench.
The view from our bench wasn't too shabby, at least. We made the most of the situation, and even though it wasn't the lake-day-o-my-dreams, there was water for floating and sand for digging.
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