The garage door failed catastrophically after I started the garage door opener as My Darling B and I stepped into the garage to go to brunch this morning. I thought the door sounded a lot like it was being torn apart by the garage door opener, but no matter how long I gaped at it, it stayed in one piece and nothing seemed wrong with it. Not until it was fully open did B notice the pulley on the floor at her feet. At the same time, I noticed the broken cable dangling from the corner of the door. It was the cable that helps pull the door up, and it had snapped, whipping around atop the metal garage door and flinging the pulley against the back wall (good thing B didn’t catch that with her face). That and the cable flailing around is probably what made a noise like a thousand trash cans being dropped into an empty alley.
So fixing the garage door was one of my tasks this afternoon. Lucky for me garage doors are surprisingly easy to fix. I bought a new cable at the local Menard’s store and installed it in about fifteen minutes by following the directions on the back of the package. The door worked perfectly on the first try.
That left me the rest of the afternoon to do whatever I wanted, so I put the kayak on the little trailer and dragged it down to the beach at Frost Woods Park, launched it and paddled around the bay, then down the river and into Mud Lake where I took a left turn at Nine Springs Creek. I’d taken this particular left turn last summer but got no farther than the train trestle that crosses the creek about 200 yards upstream. The water level was at least two feet lower than it was back then, though, so I could just squeak under the trestle by leaning forward and hugging the deck of the kayak. After passing under the trestle, I could go another 300 yards upstream until the creek broadened and the water became so shallow that the kayak’s bottom scraped along the mud as I desperately tried to turn it around. And I did manage to get it headed back downstream, but not without a moment of panic that I might have to get out and drag it.
This Is Drivel 