We're on the last leg of our journey, the first of the two days before we get back home. We've been about four hours driving when my dad says, "Let's take a rest stop," and pulls up to a McDonald's to use the restroom. I feel a tinge of pride at not emptying my bladder once since we left the hotel room at noon. As we pull up, a woman with red hair and nose plugs asks, "Whoa, are those boats?"

The whole trip we've been traveling with two kayaks on top of the car. Since they didn't fit perfectly on the boat racks, my dad decided to place aluminum ladders on top of the racks, then the kayaks on top of those. And then there's the elaborate system of cinches that I never dare to attempt on my own, for fear of my dad coming up behind me, telling me that I'm doing it all wrong, and the whole process of cinching or uncinching taking twice as long as it should. It seems like every time we take the boats off and uncinch, by the time we get back to recinch he's come up with a better way of doing it. "If you tie the loose ends off under the first hook, then they don't flap in the wind!" "If you throw the part with the hook over from the inside part of the kayak, then there's no need to worry about struggling to get it over from the outside!" "You did it wrong, you have to do it like THIS!"

This isn't the first time our kayaks have gotten someone's attention.

Gas station somewhere in Las Vegas: "Are those canoes?" A young man with a red baseball cap walks up as my brother fills up our gas tank. My dad leans out his already rolled down window, "They're kayaks." This young man ends up telling my brother how his grandmother was dying and how she lived in Las Vegas and how she died in Las Vegas and how he came to visit her at her deathbed in Las Vegas and how he ended up "hanging around, you know…" in Las Vegas for a couple months after the funeral.

Campsite somewhere in Glacier National Park: "Are these wood kayaks?" We're roasting marshmallows in the sunset when an older man walks up to us. "Yep," my dad proudly answers.

"I didn't know that these were still around," the man continues.

"Well, I got them a while ago, but they're still good." The man walks around the car, examining the kayaks, then he continues on, probably back to his own campsite. 

When we pull up to a diner to eat some breakfast, there's this little car next to us, and it has boat racks, and four cinches exactly like ours. Instead of wooden frame kayaks, though, it has two shiny yellow new-looking plastic kayaks. And there aren't any ladders. I wonder what the owners of those two new kayaks would think of our clunky wooden ones and the contraption that holds them in place on top of our car.

My dad's eyes light up with every river that we pass, and he asks us, "What would you think of a float down that nice river... there's the water... watching the view, and having fun enjoying ourselves... So, do you want to go?"

We're driving by the Snake River in Montana, and my dad brings up kayaking. Maybe we're all tired of hearing his suggestions, or maybe no one really likes going down rivers, but for whatever reason, we all start moaning. And three to one means we don't go down the Snake River.

As it turned out, we only used the kayaks three times. On the whole trip. Which was a month long.