When our parents used to tuck us into bed at night, Mother usually sang something—they had a broad repertoire of folk songs—and Daddy was our stories guy. He had an ongoing saga about a pair of mischievous alligators, “the Lucys,” who followed us on all our travels, getting into trouble as they tried to keep up with us without being seen. (They were nearly done in with excitement when we stayed on a golf course and they came on the treasure trove of “marshmallows” at the lake bottom. They munched down until they were too full of golf balls to move, and nearly got left behind.)
He told stories that parents probably shouldn’t tell their children, of naughty things he did (and sometimes got away with) when he was a boy—like bouncing a penny-bottle of ink against the white garage door of the neighborhood’s Mean Old Man, and throwing firecrackers at the tires of passing cars from under a bridge. (I’ll cut him a little slack on the naughties. He lived with a mother who sewed his pockets shut so he wouldn’t bring home Yucky Things. Kid needed to live a little.)
And then he told adventure stories, from the two-week canoe trips he and my mother used to lead, into the Canadian wilderness with groups of teenagers.
I wanted to do that.
In fact, I made him promise that we would do that, take a canoe trip, just Daddy and me, when I got old enough.
I hoarded that promise like dragon’s gold, for years. (He promptly forgot he had made it.)
I was twelve or thirteen when I judged myself old enough to cash in on my long and carefully-cherished promise. I’d worked up my packing list. I’d planned a campfire-cooked menu.
Try, if you can, to imagine my utter devastation (13-year-olds being dramatic creatures to begin with) when Dad had no earthly idea what I was talking about!
“The Trip!” I cried—and I am certain he could hear the capitals. “The Trip you promised we would take!”
Fortunately for me, Dad was a good sport, and didn’t object to taking a trip together—although he was a little taken aback when I insisted on the “just us” clause of the original promise.
I insisted. He had promised. He agreed.
So that summer we packed our camping gear into duffels we could swing into the canoe bottom, and we drove three hours to a lake that had an uninhabited island in the middle. That was one of the requirements of The Trip—that we’d camp in “wilderness,” not an established campground. (To this day, I scoff at RVers who refer to their trips as “camping.” It’s not camping unless you’re peeing in the bushes!)
My parents had taught us canoeing at an early age—the steering strokes, the tandem work of two paddlers. Some of those folk songs they sang even talked of canoeing—the voyageurs in Canadian wilderness. On The Trip, my dad entrusted me with a seat in the stern: the steering seat.
“My paddle’s keen & bright, flashing with silver.
Follow the wild-goose flight, dip dip and swing.
Dip dip and swing her back, flashing with silver
Swift as the wild geese fly, dip dip and swing.
(one of the songs my parents used to sing to us)
We set up camp near the island beach where we landed. I’m looking fondly at these photos now—Dad looking young and spry and slim, no gray in his beard. I think he even had some of his hair. (“My face is getting taller,” he joked as he balded.)
I was an accomplished campfire-cook by this age (the only type of cooking I’ve ever mastered, actually), so I proudly served up supper….
And then it began to rain.
Buckets and buckets of rain.
Rain on the tent roof is actually a very pleasant sound, when you’re cozied up in a warm sleeping bag… Until you have to get up and go out in it to squat in the bushes.
Luckily we had each brought a book, because we spent the entire next day lying on our sleeping bags, with a bag of trail mix between us, reading.
It wasn’t what I had planned, but it was actually very pleasant.
On the second morning we decided to forego the campfire breakfast, packed up our gear and our soaked tent, donned our rain-jackets, and paddled our way back across the lake to our waiting car. After slinging our duffels in the back and strapping the canoe upside-down to the top, we blissfully turned on the heater! And we pulled in at the first McDonalds we saw, for Egg McMuffins and hot coffee.
I wasn’t a coffee-drinker yet, but that morning (feeling very Grown Up) I ordered one.
It wasn’t how I had imagined The Trip, but it wasn’t a failure. I got my Daddy-daughter time, and we had a three-hour car trip ahead, to talk and laugh about our “adventure.” The Daddy-Daughter Downpour.
Kana's Chronicles 
Join the Conversation!