Weak Links

I’m always afraid that some $2.39 piece of plastic will spell the end of the entire enterprise. It’s impossible to carry spares for everything and next to the same to imagine all the problems that Murphy dreams up.

Meet the weak link. I knew the wheel bearings on Karta were suspect but figured then good to at least Saskatchewan River Crossing. If need be, the plan was to replace the entire wheel assembly in Edmonton. Browning knew best when he wrote ‘the best laid plans o’ mice and men’.

Getting to Armstrong yesterday evening, I had big plans the next day for Enderby and the Shuswap River. Flipping the canoe over for the night revealed the $2.39 piece of plastic that put all future plans on hold.

Today was spent scrambling around Armstrong jury-rigging a fix. Gilbert’s Industrial Supply, Home Hardware, Armstrong Machine Shop, OK Bikes, and finally Dave at Kin RV Park all played a part. In the end, I cobbled together something that looked reasonable and promising. Sadly, it cost much more than $2.39.

I was underway at 1615 determined to make Enderby. Earlier than I thought, later than I planned.

Feeling pressured to make up for lost miles and chagrined for not being well prepared for something I knew to be problematic, I stomped out of the RV Park.

Turning the corner into Pleasant Valley Rd, I gaggle of grade-schoolers were being shepherded up the street by a smiling teacher. All decked out in Earth Day t-shirts and toting garbage bags full of road-side refuse, I heard a young, and giggly voice call out after me ‘Who ever heard of a kayak on wheels!’.

Smiling at last, I called back ‘Just about nobody! But now that you have, imagine what you might see tomorrow!’