Way Up High

Last month my sweetheart and I spent nine days at a beautiful lake high in the Cascade Mountains of Oregon.  Of course you know a trip like that takes planning and packing and preparing and all kinds of activity.  I thought I would show you what happens behind the scenes when we take my sweetheart’s little fishing boat and our travel trailer, too.  In Oregon we can’t tow two vehicles, as in some states, so we have to be creative.  Someone came up with this idea and they started the company where my sweetheart bought his ‘car-top boat rack’.  Only, it doesn’t go on the car – it goes on the truck!

The first step is to empty the boat of anything that is not ‘nailed down’.  My sweetheart removes the anchor, the comfy seats, the fish-and-depth-finder, the battery and all fishing equipment.  The motor comes off and it all goes into the back of the truck until it's all put back in place when the boat is afloat in the water again.  Then he takes the boat out of the backyard – on it’s trailer.  He ‘tows’ the boat to the street with a tow dolly (done by hand, lots of pushing or pulling).  You may wonder why he doesn’t just back the truck up to the boat.  He’s tried that in the past.  The boat is parked in the backyard and he’s found it’s much easier to leave the truck parked on the street in front of our house. The process begins once the boat and trailer are backed up behind the truck.  The car-top rack is permanently mounted to the truck.  It goes with us wherever we go when we’re out and about – with or without the boat.  Guidelines that are part of the rack are attached to special hardware installed on the boat.  Then my sweetheart inserts his hand-held drill into the gears on the rack, turns it on and away she goes.  She is slowly lifted off the trailer and up in the air.The process doesn’t take very long but, for some reason, I always seem to hold my breath until she's horizontal again!  But, every time those strong guide lines do their job and she just keeps moving into place.Up and over.  I often think she’s just going to crash onto the rails of the car-top rack when she gets to this point.  But she doesn’t!My sweetheart’s hands guide her a bit at this point as the guide lines tighten and she smoothly begins to move down into place. Then, she’s down.  Safe and sound.  Horizontal again.  Upside down.  A few more turns of the gears and she moves forward into place - until a mechanism in the gears has wound the guide lines tight and she comes to a stop. I let out a big sigh of relief!  There she sits – on top.  Safe and sound.  Ready to go.  No matter how bumpy or how steep the road, she stays right there.  And soon, it’s time to go.  Time to head out for the chosen fishing spot.  Plans have been made, things packed, lists checked one final time – and we are off.  Off on our way to somewhere in the beautiful world around us.  Off on our way to rest and relax – and, hopefully, off to get the grill ready for a fish dinner.  Or two.