We had time to hike or kayak one last time, and we rented kayaks. If not for the racks, the rental place would look more like a boat junkyard than a rental location. You launch from a muddy beach, so John pushed Kate out into the water. He though it would be “easy enough” to crawl into the kayak, flip his legs around, and scoot the kayak out into the water. It was on par with the tight rope act at the circus, but he managed – barely – over about five minutes.

In addition to the hiking trails, the park has two kayak trails. We kayaked around the one-third of kayak trail #2 that is near the rental shack. Sadly, the rental kayak makes it look like you are paddling a yogurt dipped banana.

Add a bright orange life vest, and it is not a flattering look. We are pretty sure they do not even need to lock these up to prevent theft.

When kayaking, we stay within sight of each other, but we are often a few hundred feet away looking at different things. We should probably bring walkie-talkies to pass information about what we see.

Kate paddled over to look at a bird, but not far out from launch beech, John saw something swimming towards him. It was not clear if it was a duck, muskrat, or turtle. It took about 30 seconds to process that “it” was not moving; the wind was blowing the kayak closer to a sunken log. This is probably how the myth of the Loch Ness monster started. At least an orange dragon fly landed on it to justify a picture of the “lake monster”.

We paddled along the shore into the various inlets looking for birds and turtles, and there was surprisingly little wildlife. This might have been because there were about ten people kayaking around just before we launched. We did each see a turtle. Kate’s turtle was bigger than John’s, but bother were on the small side.

And a strange bird that was too far away to identify. It was grey on the back with bright yellow legs. Our best guess was something like the Moore Hen (Gallinule) or a Green heron. You can see the bird just to the right of the branch sticking up in the middle of the light tan log lying in the water. We saw another one in a different inlet, and it was certainly a Green Heron. It is also on a log lying in the water.

After exploring the inlets, we started paddling into the middle of the lake to the islands.

We saw a few Osprey hunting for fish. And, of course, the ever present Double-crested Cormorant. The ugly birds never seem to be endangered.

We saw one of the COVID flowered bushes on a small island, but we did not get a picture of it. It is actually called a Common Buttonbush. You can read about it here on WikiPedia.

Next, we turned right towards the boat launch at the rental area, and we saw a few ducks. We could not get close enough to tell whether it was a female Mallard or Wood Duck with babies.

This year, we have been talking about getting kayaks. The Ohio parks are nice because you can kayak for free with the naturalist. The only problem is that it is only available about once a week. Many state parks rent the kayaks for $25 to $30 per hour. At that rental price, it does not take long to just buy your own.

If you get them on sale, they are not cheap, but they are better than renting. There are probably seasonal deals in the fall, but these are some of the current cheap-ish prices.

• Quest kayak (Dick’s Sporting Goods): $179.98, 45 lbs, 10 ft x 31 inch, 275 lb capacity, adjustable seat back
• Kayak Paddle (Dicks’ Sporting Goods): $29.99, 2.5 lbs, 230 cm, breaks into 4 segments
• Kayak Life Vest (Dick’s Sporting Goods): $33.97, V cut for paddling

If we get one kayak, we can strap it to the roof of Kate’s car. One year of renting five times per year would cover the cost of a single kayak, but we could not kayak together. We do not want a divorce, so a tandem kayak is out of the question. If we get two kayaks, we need to get a roof rack, hitch rack, or trailer. A rack is costly enough to take about three years of renting to equal in cost.

Summit Lake State Park is a bit of an anomaly because they rent the kayaks for $10 per hour. Since we are old and weak, we typically only kayak for one to two hours. If all the parks were $10, it would take almost a decade to equal out with renting. That might not be worth while, except that we could kayak in all the places with no rental options.