![]() No wonder I had been getting all those rips over the summer. What’s more, the fabric of the jacket seemed really weak. There was no way I was going to get tape to stick to that. ![]() When I got back to Alley 3 and pulled off my sprayskirt I saw a rip in the front of the jacket about 8 inches long right next to the zipper. On a hot fall day I wore the Houdini for sun protection on a kayak tour to Little Tybee Island. We finished our western road trip and ended up in Savannah, GA for the winter. My Houdini was starting to get a sort of patina of legitimacy that only comes with extended use. A patch inside and outside fixed the problem. Holy Crap! I didn’t think I was THAT close to the burner! Oh, well. ![]() The Houdini was starting to look pretty authentic.Ĭooking breakfast over the two-burner I got the arm a little too close to the flame and “whoosh,” I melted a fist-sized hole through the fabric near the cuff. OK, I thought, I must have rubbed up against something sharp. My Houdini, which had been remarkably bombproof up until then, started to rip. Long live the Houdini.Ī strange thing happened this summer. It logged countless backcountry days and city nights. My Houdini was wind resistant, breathable, bugproof, water repellent and compact. She was an immediate fan and eventually ordered a Houdini of her own. I introduced Cristi to the Houdini on a windy afternoon in downtown Asheville as we walked from our car to the Early Girl Eatery. It travels with me almost all the time ready to block a cold urban wind or backcountry bugs. Since then the Houdini jacket has been the single piece of outdoor gear that I’ve used the most. The Houdini was feather light and came in a light color that would be visible at night. I was trying to increase my running mileage, and I needed a breathable windbreaker. My friend Mark and I were house sitting for the former dean of the UW School of Engineering in a big house up on Highland. Memory fails, but I know I was working at Rutabaga at the time. I bought my Patagonia Houdini jacket sometime back in the mid-2000s. There are a handful of pieces of outdoor gear that legitimately qualify as classics.
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