If it's summer, there must be racing on the White

I spent a nice weekend at the River View Hotel in Calico Rock, Arkansas, on a bluff overlooking the White River.  The weather was quite hot but not too humid, and on the clear, cold White even the hottest day is not so bad.

The Aluminum Canoe Nationals were Saturday morning, starting at Calico Rock and finishing at Sylamore, a distance of about 18 miles.  I have competed in the Aluminums a couple of times in the past, but this year I was happy to be a shuttle driver and photographer for the race.  Congratulations to the 2012 national champions of aluminum canoe racing: Joy Emshoff and Teddy Gray (women), and Dale Burris and Don Walls (men).

After this race was over I made my way up to Red's Landing for the afternoon race for kayaks and single canoes.  The race would start at Red's and go downriver nearly 10 miles to finish at the Arkansas 5 bridge at Calico Rock.  It turned out I was the only single kayaker, so I tried to beat all the other boats and managed to do that, passing under the bridge one hour, four minutes, and 32 seconds after I started.

The highest drama occurred in the mixed tandem kayak class, with three boats fighting for the lead for the entire race.  In the end Joe and Carol Lee Royer emerged victorious, with Phil and Robbie Capel finishing just 26 seconds behind them.  Bill Cains and his daughter Julie took third, only 25 seconds slower than the Capels.

In single canoe, Rocky Caldwell took first, just over a minute ahead of Bob Spain.

The race weekend concluded this morning with the Arkansas "Big Dog" race for C2 pro boats, contested on the same section of river as the Aluminum Nationals.  Many of the same pairs from Saturday morning were together again in their lighter, faster composite boats.  The team of Walls/Burris was the fastest once again.  Today the all-female tandems were replaced by several mixed teams, and of these the fastest was Becky Burris and Nathan White.

After cheering every last boat across the finish line at Sylamore, I got in my car for the trip home.  I still had yet to paddle myself today, and I decided to take care of that business on the St. Francis River, just east of Crowley's Ridge and some 50 miles from Memphis.  I had driven over this part of the "Saint" many times and was curious about its potential for paddling.  Today I got a better idea.  It is small and meandering and quite shallow on the insides of bends, but otherwise very nice.  The Arkansas Delta needs more paddles in its waters, and I was happy to make a small advancement toward that objective today.