We’re back! We spent a big chunk of July on the road, driving from Oregon to Michigan and back for the US Rowing Masters Nationals (these days they combine it with Junior and Open Races, held earlier at the same site and call the whole thing RowFest, but that doesn’t tell you much.) We hit record heat on the way there – 107F in Billings, Montana, and hot enough to cancel practice rows the day before the racing started. Then the first two days of racing were canceled due to smoke from the wildfires in Canada and Minnesota, and the afternoon of the third day was canceled due to high wind.
As a result, the had a whopping day and a half of races, out of the planned four days. My husband Ted got to race twice: in a mixed double heat and a men’s double final. (I don’t race these days, mostly because I don’t want to train hard enough to race at a standard that wouldn’t embarrass me). He didn’t get to race in his single at all. For the mixed doubles race, since there was no final they just gave medals to the three fastest finishers, who were all from the first heat. (It had the most competitors in it, and thus the boas were likeliest to have to race flat out to get to finals.) That’s not really a fair way to do it, but I sympathize with US Rowing on that one, because there were really no fair options, and this was probably the best choice they had. The men’s double in his age group went straight to finals, having no heats, so there wasn’t a problem with that one. They came in fourth, and felt pretty good about that, especially given that rowers in two of the other boats were former national team members.
We got to do more sightseeing on the way back: the Crazy House statue and Native American museum, Mount Rushmore, the Badlands, Devil’s Tower. We did hit some more smoke on the way back and Oregon was downright scary, with the eastern half of the state on fire. But overall, despite smoke and racing issues, we had a great time on the road: time spent together, meeting up with a couple of old friends, sightseeing. Also, it’s funny to see people’s reactions when you’re driving around in a big old truck with three boats on top! (The longest one is 31′, ten meters or so.)
And don’t worry, the writing didn’t suffer from the time off. I sent Together in Percival to my editor before we left, and got it back just a day or two before we returned. I even got some work done in hotels while we were on the road, on the next series. This one is tentatively titled Other Duties As Required, and is set in Northeast Philadelphia, my colorful native land. Now I’m deep in edits for TIP, and plan to publish in late September or early October.