I’ve been a canoeist for over 50 years. The first time I ran into a kayak was on the AuSable River outside of Grayling back in the mid-70s. They looked cool, but we passed them easily in our canoe — your stroke is less efficient when you make sweeping arcs compared to a straight backward pull. Honestly, those kayaks were far superior to most rentals I see today, which mostly seem to be used in much the same way that we would use inner tubes to float on the river. The big pity is that you can no longer rent honest rowboats … not an aluminum hull meant for an outboard but those big, heavy wooden hulls optimized to slice through the water rather than on top of it. I’ve only used them a few times, but they were a dream to use on a lake.
Yeah, about the trees. We have a photo of Mom and Dad on their first date, circa maybe 1956. They are sitting under a large tree in a meadow on a hillside. About 15 years ago, Dad asked me to find the spot for him … it was impossible because that hillside is now heavily forested with large trees. I went to Google Earth and couldn’t find an opening within a square mile of the spot.
I never saw a basset hound that didn’t eat everything…