Getting Where You Want to Go

Getting Where You Want to Go

a Carolina Paddler Article

by Stan Cole

-We mark our lives in years. Those years are made up of months which as a kid seem to come and go slowly as we look forward to summer breaks and Christmas vacations which then seem to zoom by quickly. Those months are made up of weeks, which we adults begin to think of as weekdays (workdays) and weekends. Hopefully on the weekends we can play, go to church, or do whatever it is we do to reconnect to ourselves and others. When it comes to the weekdays, some of us are lucky enough to work in industries which feed our soul. It can be different for each person, but for our group it is often outdoor sports, recreation, community building, or conservation of the outdoors we love. I am fortunate to work in a profession which I enjoy. I work with wonderful people, and the work I do is fulfilling. But let’s be honest it’s not paddling and being outdoors during the work week. It’s IT. Information Technology. It’s adulting. Ultimately wouldn’t we all just rather spend time doing what we love all the time. So how do you “Get Where You Want to Go” as this article is titled. It’s usually not by sitting in one place wishing you were in another. It takes making steps in the right direction. You’ll have setbacks, but stay true to where you want to go and have fun getting there. This is my longer than planned story of Getting Where I Want to Go. I’m not there yet, and I’m not sure I ever will be. Or maybe I’m already there. It may even be more fun that way, but here is a glimpse of that journey for me and a harrowing example of how things can go wrong along the way.

I grew up outdoors, a story to be expanded on another time. I was blessed to be raised in rural NC, on a 350 acre farm. The house I grew up in was a typical house of the late 70’s and early 80’s constrained in size by the oppressive 15-20% interest rates of the time. But guess what, I had the whole outdoors. I not only had a house, but a loving home, with parents that appreciated nature, and a dad who loved the outdoors. He and my mom are another story for another time, but dad was a father who loved the outdoors and adventure as a kid. He signed up for the Marines during the Vietnam war out a sense of adventure, came back to get a physical education degree from Appalachian State, and met the woman whom he would fall in love with and spend the rest of his life. A family and responsibilities require buckling in and taming some of those inner desires, the trade-off for stability and providing for others who now depend on you. Dad applied his talents to the farming and banking industries which put him behind a desk most hours of the day. However that inner spirit to explore and enjoy the rawness of being a part of nature just took on different forms.

Why do I tell you all this about my dad? Well, I was the beneficiary of all those outdoor and adventurous outlets. In some ways I am a lot like my dad; in others I am not. He had a way of coming up with fun (or crazy) plans, convincing others it was a good idea—whether it was or not—and figuring out how to make it happen later. I like to have it all figured out first. That can be pretty limiting. Dad broke me out of my self-inflicted barriers. Tagging along with him included fishing, bike riding through the woods, deer hunting, climbing trees, scouting and tracking, shooting and cleaning rifles, tennis, karate, bodybuilding, hang gliding, canoeing, and learning to roll a kayak at twelve. The list could go on.

Time rolls on and history repeats itself. While my adventures were not as great as my dad’s, I too have an outdoor spirit about me. While in college I too met my future wife. At the young age of 23 my wife, Kristen, and I married, and we launched into our lives together. Before we knew it we were in our early to mid 30s with three kids, a mortgage, and responsibilities. This country boy had traded 350+ acres of farm to roam for a .25 acre lot and adulthood. During that time, my dad passed and Kristen and I both lost all of our grandparents along with many others we hold dear from that generation. We are blessed to have our remaining parents and lots of close family. We are truly adulting, but that inner spirit to get out and be adventurous has always remained burning inside of me regardless of how dim the ember.

I and some of my extended family, an uncle and several cousins (more like an additional father, and brothers) decided to  rekindle a camping trip that had become a yearly tradition.  The first trip was in 1986 and they continued pretty much without fail until 2001 or 2002. This event originated with my grandfather, dad, uncle, and several of us cousins.  We called it, “The Boys Camping Trip”. The attendance varied from year to year. Family members were always welcome, but summer activities could get in the way for different people in different years.

Despite the name, my sister and other female cousins joined the trip several years and were always welcome. It always occurred around July 4th. Most years we camped on the banks of the South Fork New River on a farm near Todd, NC. The farm was a beautiful property across the river from Railroad Grade Rd and was owned by a family that my grandfather knew. The owners had allowed a church youth group my grandfather led to camp there 30 years prior, in the 1950’s. We would share stories, devotions, marshmallows, and noises that campers make at campgrounds around campfires, haha.

Beyond that, the highlight of each trip (at least in my mind) was our canoeing. Dad would bring his yellow Blue Hole, a neighbor’s blue Blue Hole, and a 1970’s Grumman aluminum canoe that we called “Thunderbolt” due to the noises it would make scraping through the often low river at that time of year. In later times, I grew to man the front of dad’s canoe several times a year. For my cousins and I, these early years were more about sitting in the middle, or sitting in the bow believing we were in control when really we were still along for the ride. We’d listen to tales of dad and his friends tackling much larger and more difficult rivers such as the Chatooga, Tellico, French Broad, Nolichucky and many others. Around 2001 or 2002 the trip became tougher to manage. Dad’s declining health, along with the challenges I’ve already mentioned, were a barrier. It just became more difficult to make the trip happen. We still loved this trip and memories we made and wanted to recreate it the best we could one day.

The year after my dad passed, 2011, we decided to try and kick off the annual camping trip again. The Blue Hole canoes were long gone. “Thunderbolt,” which to this day resides beside my mom’s pond, wasn’t in the best of shape and we had no means to transport it anyway. What we were left with were four or five inflatable fun-yaks that my uncle bought and maybe a rec kayak or two.  One year we had an inflatable pool float that I paddled with my son in the bow. I made up my mind that day, paddling the pool float, that my son would be afforded a better opportunity than this. My dad had been the primary logistics person in years past, and even though it was not stated, I felt I should help lead the charge. While I wanted to take on this challenge, it would take us all to make it happen. Over several years, we upped our camping and canoeing game a little each year.

Eventually I got an Old Town Penobscot 164. My wife had been to an REI garage sale and saw they had a canoe. She may regret it now, but she remembered I was dreaming of getting a canoe, but they were a little out of our reach at the time. This one was on sale and we got a great deal on it. While whitewater canoeing and kayaking had evolved since the late 80’s and early 90’s, my vision of what it should be had not. This canoe, while capable, was no longer the whitewater craft most suitable for the job. Still, it absolutely served us well on these trips. Shortly after getting the canoe in 2013, I needed a way to transport it. We were due for a newer vehicle anyway so I bought a used pickup truck with a ladder rack. We all learned and got better and we now had all the right equipment and proficiency to feel good and prepared for these trips.

And so the journey back to paddling began.

I quickly took on the mantra of, “I may never get to paddle like I want to, but if I don’t have the equipment to go paddling, I for sure won’t be able to go.”

I soloed the Penobscot 16’+ canoe several times. Once down the Upper Haw at low water with no flotation and managed to pin it about half way down. I had broached it perfectly in the middle on a rock while leaning upstream and it quickly filled with water. Fortunately it was low water and I knew enough to get it unpinned, only losing my water bottle and a good bit of pride. I also ran it solo down the upper Wilson Creek (not the gorge) with another experienced kayaker. Again at low water. It didn’t take many of those trips to figure out that there had to be an easier way to enjoy this sport.

My uncle had given me an old Perception Dancer kayak years before. I had used it to maintain the roll I had learned when I was 12. I got out in it about once a year in various lakes and would scare the bejesus out of my wife practicing rolling up. While I learned to roll at 12, I really didn’t do any kayaking until later in life. So with that limited knowledge I started getting kayaks. I started with nicer recreational kayaks made by Old Town and Dagger. They worked fine for float trips, but as I got plugged into the CCC, mostly online, I realized the equipment I had still wasn’t cutting it. So for my 40th birthday in 2019 I bought a “modern” kayak, a 2014 Dagger RPM. While it is a wonderful boat, and had modern outfitting, I learned very quickly it wasn’t a “modern” boat at all. It was first released in 1996. Ahead of its time no doubt, but I was still boating in the 90s. It wanted to play when I did not, and I was probably a bit too heavy for it. The reality is, I wasn’t great at kayaking, and my paddling style was pretty timid. The RPM wasn’t a great fit for me to learn with at this point in my progression. I loved the kayak, but I ended up moving on to a Liquid Logic Remix and saving the RPM for ocean surf days. While still not the newest of designs either, the Remix is a classic boat and a great kayak for beginners. Don’t mistake the word classic for outdated. It is still manufactured to this day by Liquid Logic and is a fantastic kayak.

Why did I tell all of this story about my canoe and kayaks? Well all along this journey there was yet another generation of Cole watching all of this go down. My kids had either sat in the middle of the canoe just as I had, manned the front of one, or even paddled in one of the several recreational kayaks I had on our “Boys Camping Trip”. It was on one of these trips 3 years ago that Connor, my middle child, asked during a lunch break, if he could take the kayak out and play. He had never really turned the boat back upstream. I challenged him to ferry across to the still water in an eddy behind a boulder mid stream. He set a good boat angle and did it with ease. On his own accord, he decided to surf a little class I wave. Connor was 10 at the time. When we settled in that night after the trip, I asked him if he would be interested in whitewater kayaking. His answer was an emphatic yes. My wife and I booked him a weeklong camp at the USNWC for the next summer. Two days into that camp, he was hooked and has never looked back. You can read about that experience and the year after in a previous Carolina Paddler article titled “Summer School at the WWC” written by Alton Chewning.

Now that you have the background, fast forward to this year, 2023. For our family it was a good but busy year. My wife and I both started new jobs, we had a nice vacation at the end of June, we had a week back at work, to both get caught up, and try and get ahead. Why you may ask? Well, the “Boys Camping Trip” was coming up and Connor and I had participated the previous year in CCC’s Week of Rivers. Our plans were to do it again. How could we miss it after having attended the previous year and had a blast. So by now you are putting the pieces together. I am “Getting Where I Want to Go”. You’ve probably also put together that these two trips overlap a bit. So the plan is to camp and canoe with my family Friday through Sunday in Jefferson, NC on the South Fork New River. A very special time for me. Then repack, and head up with Connor to Week of Rivers directly from Jefferson. It is an ambitious schedule, requiring a lot of coordination, but ultimately a lot of adventure. I spent the previous week prepping, packing, sorting, planning, communicating, and rechecking. I needed a lot of boats and a lot of gear. Connor and I both wanted a playful kayak and a more substantial stable one for Week of Rivers. That’s 4 boats right there. Then I needed our 16’ Old Town for our family trip. I loaded all five boats on my ladder rack the night before we left. Sounds ridiculous, but it is a commercial grade rack rated for 800 lbs. I would never put that much up there, but by my calculations for the five boats came in around 260 lbs when you add airbags, ropes, etc. Nissan sells a similar setup rated for 1200 lbs static and 750 lbs dynamic weight rating for the same truck. So I am not out of spec here. I take pride in my ropes, knots, straps, and my ability to secure everything. I secured every boat individually and then the whole load together. I secured the rack to the truck and tied bow and stern lines. The morning we were to leave I loaded the bed with the rest of the camping gear. I’m not one to ignorantly overload a vehicle. I’m sure it was maxed out, but not overloaded.

We were all set and ready to go. All the gear accounted for and secured. All three kids loaded into the vehicle, we told my wife goodbye, and we were off for a week of adventure. I was getting to where I wanted to go. We pulled out of the neighborhood. I did a few brake checks to make sure the load was secure and we were on our way. I live in Durham, so we had about three hours ahead of us to get to Jefferson. We pulled up to the stoplight for the onramp to I-40 west. At this particular intersection there are two left turn lanes. I took the most inside one, knowing I would need to merge in once on the ramp, but with the larger load I didn’t want cars to have to wait on me. I normally would take the lane to our right. The kids and I sat at the stoplight waiting for it to turn green. We noticed the car to our right and talked about how it was black with a Batman decal on the hood. The light turned green. We had green arrows to go.

Along with the rest of the traffic, we eased into the intersection and as we were 90% through, it happened. What my kids first remember was me saying, “You Idiot!”. What happened next was them finding out why. As I accelerated to try and get out of the way, a shuttle van for a local car dealership, loaded with a driver and 6 passengers, was running the red light, careening through the intersection. It hit the “Batman” car virtually head on as the driver tried to avoid it. It then glanced our way impacting our truck on the passenger side, directly at the rear wheel, sending us into a sideways slide. We slid off the road, and then a short way down a grass embankment. Still sliding sideways the wheels finally caught traction and we rolled onto one side and then onto the top of the truck. Actually, onto the top of the truck, canoe, and kayaks. As we completed our roll upside down, the airbags went off. Now here we are, upside down in a heavily loaded vehicle, hanging upside down from our seatbelts. As we sit there, I do a self check and am in no pain. My arm is bleeding steadily cut by glass from the driver’s side window shattered as we rolled over. I check in with each kid; they say they are ok, shaken up of course, but ok.

My next course of action is… decide if we try and get out of this thing. My first instinct is yes, we are getting the heck out of this thing. I smelled oil burning and leaking from the engine and that was enough to strengthen my resolve. I unbuckled and fell to the roof of the vehicle. Glass everywhere. I explained to the kids that they needed to do the same and I had to get out first since the only way out was my window. A witness who was there trying to help, forcefully encouraged us not to get out. I let the onlooker know under no circumstances were we staying in the vehicle and they needed to get out of the way. I crawled out and had each of my kids from the youngest to the oldest crawl out next. We were out and stood there together, double checking with each other that we were ok, and then said a prayer of thanks giving that we were all ok.

I looked over at the truck upside down. 10 years worth of putting all the right equipment together down the drain. We were all ok, which is what was important, but the other realities began to set in. We had done everything right to get where we wanted to go and in the blink of an eye all the material aspects of that goal looked ruined, and for sure the next week of vacation wasn’t happening. As sirens from everywhere seemed to get closer and closer I took a few pictures of the scene. I sent one picture of the upside down truck to our family. Another to various friends who were already at Week of Rivers or our family trip, on the way, or packing to go. The captions read, “This wasn’t the roll I was looking for”. And soon after, “I think I trained my boats too well to want to be right side up.”

I won’t go into all the details of cleanup. What I will say is I could care less about the equipment and the vehicle. My family is ok. The other stuff can be replaced. Out of all that, I lost the Old Town Penobscot canoe, 2 of the kayaks were damaged to the point that the manufacturers recommended replacement, and my truck was totaled. There were other smaller losses, like paddles, fishing rods, and the complete contents of my cooler, but that was it. My comment to the officer that “they don’t make egg cartons like they used to,” seemed to ease the tension and help him believe I was not in shock. Needless to say I wasn’t going where I wanted to go that day and I thought everything we were looking forward to was lost.

Shortly thereafter, I got a text from my friend, Steve McConnell, that said something like “Hey, I am very happy you guys are all ok. But you and Connor still need to go. Did any boats survive? If so, I’ll load them up along with your gear. All you have to do is find a way up to WOR when you get everything at home settled.”  And so it was. Steve picked up our equipment that same night, I borrowed a vehicle from my mom, and 2 days later Connor and I visited with family in Jefferson for the final day luncheon that has become a tradition. While we couldn’t participate in the camping trip, the group got along fine without us and we were fortunate to see them anyway. Then we were off to the CCC’s Week of Rivers. We enjoyed one of the most wonderful weeks of paddling we have ever experienced. Each day paddling was special in its own way. Wilson Creek, Cheoah ELF, Nantahala, and Tellico Ledges + Middle. Steve carted us around virtually everywhere.

Take away what you will from this story. I would say ask yourself honestly who you want to be, where you want to go, and how you want to impact others?

Take that first step and get started heading that direction. Where you eventually go and how you get there may likely change, but you are headed in the right direction. And you are going to hit obstacles. Make that part of the adventure. Life is like paddling a river, the rocks in the river are what make it interesting. Set your plan, and navigate the river of life.