Miscellany (mainly Canadian)

Lake of the Woods
Kenora, Ontario, Canada
July 24-27, 2008

-Timbits are a good idea, except maybe when you eat more than 12 in a day. Um, or at one time. Even if you did row 5 races in 2 days, your stomach will still probably hurt. Especially when you combine it with other really random fast food items to which you are unaccustomed.

-I am tired of the wind. This is the second regatta in a row where at least part of the racing has been cancelled due to wind conditions. I can't even remember the last regatta where wind didn't play a factor (I think it was last year some time).

-For having such a short growing season, the bugs in Kenora are gi-normous. This in turn seems to make for larger bug bites than I'd expect. (And I live in Minnesota, where the mosquito is practically the state bird.)

-Drinking coffee is good (even before a race, a nice latte will do the trick of snapping a person awake). Having a Starbucks that doesn't open until 7am is bad. And weird. Do Canadians in Kenora not drink coffee before 7am?

-Our Kenora hotel was clean and seemed to be made of all glass, but it rather unusually felt like it was still 1983 when you walked through the door of our room. Here's one of the reasons why I say that:But then the views from our room were really great.

(You can even see the Mini Cooper in the parking lot in this one. It looks like a toy, but it was fun for a road trip. Until some idiot with a trailer hitch backed into the poor Mini.)

-Even with all of the randomness, I had a good time, and the drive up there is beautiful.