A Triumvirate to Celebrate…Mother’s Day!

A lovely, sunny peaceful Mother’s Day…kids are grown, and off making their marks on the world. That leaves my husband and me, and the two dogs, to enjoy a quiet day. An early morning bicycle ride gets the day off to a nice start—then, we consider going for a shakedown cruise in the canoe. The air temperature is nearing 70, but there is a breeze kicking up, and the water is still quite cold. We decide to go for a short paddle, and head off to one of our local canoeing spots.

Little did we know what this “great” canoe dolly had in store for us!

The dogs are excited to put on their PFDs, and we remember nearly all our gear ( the item we forgot is not critical for comfort or safety!). There is a 1/3 mile carry to the launch site, so we are able to put our new canoe dolly ( a Christmas gift) to the test. The dolly works great, and we easily reach our destination. We manage to get all of us into the canoe without any issues, and head out into the choppy water. We stay close to shore, and keep it a short paddle; as whitecaps begin to be seen,we decide to head in to shore. This was a great start to the paddling season, and has really fueled our enthusiasm!

The return home is uneventful, except….an hour after we return home, we hear an explosive BOOM! from the back of the house. I discover that one of the tires on the new dolly has violently exploded, sending the plastic hub rim 15 feet, and the webbing which had been left on top of the dolly, 20 feet in the opposite direction. The inner tube was sliced open, and the tire remnants damaged. This was rather disconcerning, to say the least. A quick live-chat with Siera Trading Post, and an email of some photos, resulted in an immediate refund to us. We did realize that a “real” dolly is the way to go…our home-made milk crate/kids bike wheel dolly had served us well, but this dolly had worked slick and efficiently (until the tire exploded!).

The 3rd of the day’s activities was a hike at a local trail network; best observation? The trails which have been either brown or white for the past 7 months are now showing GREEN! After our hike, we went to the local creemee stand for a cool reward. The dogs even remembered how to take turns as they are fed the ice cream. A delicious way to end a delighful Mother’s Day!