Boy can I relate to this thread! I also live with a nonactive wife. I knew what I was getting into when we got married, and I still love her. I spend time with my wife and second with my boat. I will not give up my activities, I just need to be flexible. I am sure that my priorities are in order. ahem. We have three kayaks in the garage right now and my wife has never sat in any of them. We have 4 bikes, 2 of my 3 have been run into the ground and her 3 yr old Diamond Back still has the nubbies on the tires. (I ride it lovingly now) I have a paddling partner, a single professional female, who's company I enjoy immensely. I find that I have to schedule my trips for times when my wife is working or has some event to attend. I feel guilty leaving her alone, even if I am paddling alone. I have to take care of her first. It can be difficult wanting to talk about my days activities with a person who could not care less about something I love to do. So I find other places to chat about my hobbies, other friends, other listservers. I love being outside, she is a homebody. I love to kayak, bike and snowshoe until 3 AM, she wants a treadmill in front of the TV. We have our differences, but make time for each other. It is awkward and sometimes strained, but we make it work. We promised. Inactive Mates and Kayaks, the delicate balance. Phil Huck huck_at_mhd1.moorhead.msus.edu thekayaker_at_yahoo.com *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - All postings copyright the author and not to be reproduced outside PaddleWise without author's permission Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************
While reading this thread on "inactive" spouses, I guess I'm one of the lucky guys, but I also think its unfair just to blame the spouses. My courtship of my soulmate of 20 years (OK, we've only been married for 17 of them . . .) consisted of winter camping trips in the Adirondacks, Backpacking in the Canadian Rockies (as my grandmother-in-law used to say, we just took our honeymoon before we got married) and rowing and sailing a homebuilt dory from Lake Champlain to Cape Cod via the Champlain Canal and Hudson River. After we were married two years, we canoed the South Nahanni River together, three weeks in the wilderness. And those moonlit cross country skiing ventures after the metropolitan snowstorms! When Robin's OB GYN told her it was time to give up downhill skiing because it was her fourth month of pregnancy, we went cross country skiing and winter camping to Avalanche Lake (not sure that's really what the Dr. had in mind!). Turned out that was our last winter camping trip alone together for eleven years. Some of you may not have noticed, but it gets a little tougher to go on high adventure with small children. Sure, we dragged our one year old up several high peaks in a backpack, and have made our annual week long canoe camping trip without fail. When Justin got to be seven, we dragged him up to the Adirondacks on a mild long weekend after a heavy snow for some "winter" camping (he had a blast; the temperature never got below freezing that night, he floated on the soft deep snow on XC skis while we sank). Then his sister was born . . . So, over the past decade or so, most of my best wilderness trips have been without my spouse. But that's not her fault! Its hard to find overnight babysitting, and besides, since we both work we feel too guilty to abandon our kids to strangers on weekends too. Last February, Robin and I finally got another winter camping overnight in by leaving the kids with their aunt in Albany. But most of the time, I sneak in my kayak paddling by working it into my morning commute (that's another story . . .) and steal winter camping weekends with my brother (who unfortunately is also about to be a dad . . .) and my son (now 12). Unfortunately I have this funny feeling that the year my son starts to keep up with me on skis will be the year he starts refusing to be seen with me . . . even deep in the woods, and by the time he's ready to go ski camping with his Dad again, it will be me that has trouble keeping up with him. Ah well, there's always my daughter (now 5) who loves to go camping and will make a great catch for some outdoorsy guy someday . . . (She'll probably elope with one of those spookily incompetent guys in a cigarette boat . . .). Don't worry -- Robin gets her licks in to, since she travels on business much more than I do, and I have played Mr Mom while Robin spent several consecutive field seasons in the Antarctic . . . While family canoe camping is a blast, I still havent figured a way to take the kids real sea kayaking safely. When I get that blue water feeling we all pile into our sailboat (as long as there is no little league or soccer game or junior sailing regatta or birthday party going on . . .) So, how many of you guys complaining about inactive spouses have somehow forgotten to mention that someone had to stay home with the kids while we all had our wilderness fun? Just rambling . . . Professor Karl S. Coplan Pace Environmental Litigation Clinic, Inc. 78 North Broadway White Plains, N.Y. 10603 kcoplan_at_genesis.law.pace.edu (914) 422-4343 *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - All postings copyright the author and not to be reproduced outside PaddleWise without author's permission Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************
I consider myself fortunate that both my wife and son have paddled with me. When I started paddling it was in a double with my wife and we did quite a bit of it for the first few years. She has tapered down quite a bit only paddling a few times a year with me. But it is still fun to be out with her on the water, though we now do so in singles. The last time was a night paddle in the harbor late this summer as the sun went down and we poked around the edges of piers and moored boats mainly staying clear of the channel. As for my son, he lives away from us as a career soldier in the US Army. But we have paddled at times when he's been home and the water warm (I don't have anything tall enough for him in the way of cold water clothing). I really got a kick when he came back from Desert Storm that the first thing he wanted to do was to go for a paddle. We did so, fittingly enough, out of West Point and paddled up the Hudson. We landed on Bannermann Island, which is the site of an old mansion and arms depot run by an eccentric arms dealer at the turn of the century and since largely destroyed by an explosion and weather exposure. One is not supposed to land there because the buildings arefalling down and you could get hurt; but we landed anyway. As luck would have it, a NY State Parks patrolman showed up while we were on the island's small beach. He was quite nervous and had a hand on the butt of his holstered sidearm demanding we leave. I thought to myself that wouldn't it be ironic that my son had more of a chance of being shot by a trigger-happy cop back home than he would have in combat at the hands of the Iraqis. But it was a good trip. In reading the biographies given recently as part of the Who's Who, I had to smile at what was written by Bob and Joan Volin, both of whom I know from local paddling circles. They wrote that their interest is kayaking and each other. That was nice to see. Also, Jack Martin, who I knew only from the 'Net and mutual friends. His building a CLC kayak with his son sticks in my mind as a pleasing image and thought. These examples go to show that kayaking can have a bonding effect and provide cherished moments. ralph diaz -- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Ralph Diaz . . . Folding Kayaker newsletter PO Box 0754, New York, NY 10024 Tel: 212-724-5069; E-mail: rdiaz_at_ix.netcom.com "Where's your sea kayak?"----"It's in the bag." ----------------------------------------------------------------------- *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - All postings copyright the author and not to be reproduced outside PaddleWise without author's permission Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************
My wife Mary was an indoor person and I have always enjoyed physical outdoor activities. She claims to have always done very poorly in physical sports (i.e. PE when in school). She believed that she had a balance problem is bothered by arthritis. Vacation camping ended when our children were too old to go on vacation with us. From then on it was comfortable motels or B&Bs. Ironically, we have occasionally discussed how our differences actually may have helped to sustain our fourty year marriage. I have been kayaking, most of the time alone, for several years and this year picked up a recreational double in the hope of getting my two grandchildren out on the water. After much discussion and persuasion, I took Mary out for a paddle in the double. She liked it and declared a desire to go out again. After the third trip, she declared, "I want my own kayak". We picked out a very stable sea/recreational kayak, a Current Design Breeze. To make a long story short, for the past four months we have been going out twice weekly. We picked up a Nautiraid Grad Raid double, took it to Maine after Labor Day and had a wonderful time paddling around Rockport/Camden and Acadia National Park. She is now a kayaking nut. Her paddling skills have vastly improved with time on the water. We usually paddle in the Potomac River and the tributaries of the Chesapeake Bay and will be using the Nautiraid this winter to minimize the chance of capsize in the cold water (yes, she even has cold weather gear now). Sometimes when it gets choppy, I see her smiling while paddling with her smile geting bigger as the chop increases and I think to myself that miracles do happen. *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - All postings copyright the author and not to be reproduced outside PaddleWise without author's permission Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************
>These examples go to show that kayaking can have a bonding effect and provide >cherished moments. ....You're so right, Ralph. We never dreamed what this sport would bring us: peaceful beauty, rough/stormy beauty, fun, excitement, challenge and goals, serious exercise, and so many people to love. Bob V (in a decidedly cheesy mood) *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - All postings copyright the author and not to be reproduced outside PaddleWise without author's permission Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************
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