While trying to fall asleep but failing to do so, I decided to write down my retrospective of this weekend's fishing and kayaking fiasco er festivities.
Unlike the camping trip, which took literally weeks if not months to plan out and prepare, this one kind of came together at the last minute, using nothing more than the proverbial duct tape and hopeful thinking. However, it also helped that my adventure buddy was the one providing and transporting the kayaks.
I still had to come up with my own fishing pole and supplies. Luckily, it turns out that those things are not that expensive. Unfortunately, I showed up thinking I had brought my fishing pole with me, but no, of course I left it at home. When I got there, I had to fess up to my buddy, and he was like, "Wow, you forgot the ONE THING you needed on this trip!" We all had a good laugh about it, though unfortunately, I did have to buy a second fishing pole.
Anyways, for those who are curious, this was my hotel room:
What's wild about this room is that it also had absolutely the worst view I have ever seen in any hotel. My buddy and I were laughing and joking about how I will at least be safe, because nobody is going to try to risk tetanus climbing through all of that, just to break into my room.
I personally don't care about the view anyway, as price was my biggest priority in this case. Anyway, the room itself was decent enough.
The next day, we finally set out to do the actual kayaking and fishing. I have to tell you, not only have I never fished in my life (I technically did once when I was 4 years old, but I remembered next to nothing), but I also have never kayaked in my life. So, all of this was a brand new experience for this, and to sum it all up, it was honestly grueling.
First of all, I had no idea that it would be so easy to tip the kayaks. If I ended up falling overboard, that would absolutely be the end of all my fishing gear, phone, and whatever else is on me. Trying to get in and out of the kayak felt so dangerous.
We also had to turn on YouTube videos on our phone for guidance, as we slowly figured out how to rig our fishing pole with hook and lure. As we finally set out and started fishing, you want to see the magnicient specimen that I caught? Behold!
By the way, that's not a fish, that was my lure. The branch was what I caught, and I fought it for a good 15 minutes too, thinking I caught something big. Well, I guess it was technically big enough branch anyway hahaha.
At one point, I had to pee really bad, and while trying to get out of my kayak without capsizing, I also nearly lost my paddle, and even slipped and fell in the kayak, accidentally sitting on top of my half-drank can of Monster energy drink, which caused it to soak my pants and underwear. There was nothing I could do about it until I was able to paddle back to the dock. By the time I got back, I was done with the whole thing.
Because we both failed to catch any fish, we decided to give it one last shot, but to fish on land this time. Still no luck though, and after baking in the sun all day, with my groin still soaked in Monster energy drink, we finally called it off.
So was the trip a success? While we never did catch any fish, I can finally check both fishing and kayaking off my bucket list, all the while learning that I do not particularly care for either one of those activities.
Regardless, I still had a great time seeing and hanging out with adventure buddy (and his wife who came along but stayed back at the hotel). Now to try to fall asleep and drive home tomorrow.
As a bonus, here's a Halloween decoration I saw that I thought was pretty neat:
