Arrrrgh.

One of my projects this week has been installing new rudder lines on my three surfskis.  I think the general wisdom is that any surfski paddled regularly should have its lines changed once a year, so the boat I keep down on the riverfront was definitely due for new ones.  Meanwhile, my other two mostly just sit in storage in my garage, but when I took one of them down to Ocean Springs in March I noticed that one of its lines was getting pretty worn right at the rudder post.  So I decided to just change them out on all my boats and head into the summer with some peace of mind on this particular boat-maintenance issue.

The problem is that changing the rudder lines on a surfski is a monumental hassle.  No other task I can think of makes me want to scream impolite words at the top of my lungs like stringing rudder lines does.

The first challenge is to get the new line to feed through the tube inside the boat.  The best-case scenario is to have the old line still in place, because then you can just attach the end of the new line to the end of the old and pull it through.  But... you can't just tie them together, because the knot is too bulky to fit through the tube.  In the past I've used a little piece of electrical tape to join the ends, but you have to make a very neat, very thin tape joint so it will fit through the tube.  And then you have to pull it through very gently, lest the tape joint fail deep inside the boat.

This time around, my strategy has been to fray the end of each line, like so:

and then soak each end in G-flex epoxy resin, twist the two ends together, and let it cure overnight, with the intention of pulling it through the next day:

Each time, the epoxied joint has been too bulky to fit through the tube; so I have to whittle it down with a sharp knife or work on it with a piece of sandpaper.  One of the joints failed during this trimming process, and I had to glue the ends all over again.

(If you are not so fortunate as to have the old lines in place for pulling through the new lines, I know of a couple of things you can try.  One is to feed a stiff wire through the tube, and then use that to pull the new line through.  The challenge with this method attaching the line to the wire in a way that will fit through the tube.  Meanwhile, there are videos on You Tube that show the use of a vacuum cleaner to suck the line through the tube.  I've tried this a couple of times, and I seem to remember having success at least once but having more trouble other times.)

As of this writing I've been working on two of my three skis, and I've successfully installed two of the four new lines.  The other two have raised the frustration level of this project to a new height.  On Tuesday morning, while pulling on the old line to move the new line into place on one of the boats in my garage, the joint hit a snag inside the boat and broke.  Upon further inspection, I realized that the tube was broken inside the boat.  This was bad, because a surfski is a closed shell with no way to get inside short of taking a saw to it.

That is in fact what I ended up doing to my oldest ski when I found its tubes were broken a few years ago.  I hated to do it, but at least by that time the boat was getting old and beat-up and I was using it just for training anyway.  This photo shows what I did:

First I cut a circular hole in the deck aft of the seat bucket.  Peering through this hole, I found that the tubes were broken in many places and would have to be replaced entirely.  To do so, I would have to access the boat's insides closer to the footboard, and I ended up using a circular saw to make slits on either side of the seat.  After much painstaking work I got the new tubes in position and secured them in place, and then, by way of repairing the surgical damage I had done, I installed a hatch on the back deck (I ordered it from West Marine or some such supplier) and used Kevlar and fiberglass seam tape to patch the slits on either side of the seat.  The boat is now rather ugly and at least 10 pounds (4.5 kilograms) heavier than it was when it was new, but like I said, it was already sort of beat-up anyway and relegated to training duty.  It has paddled just fine, and that's ultimately all that matters.

The broken tube I discovered Tuesday morning causes me more anguish, because even though I've had this boat eight years, it still feels new to me because I've mostly kept it in the garage and gotten it out only for races.  I was so infuriated by it all that I had to walk away from it and go down to the river to paddle (the whole point of all this work, after all).

I took the other boat from my garage--the one I hadn't messed up yet--down to the river with me because I wanted to bring my training boat back home so I could replace its rudder lines.  The boat I was taking down there happened to be the most stable one I own (V10 Sport), and that was a good thing because there was a strong south wind blowing and there were some pretty legitimate downwind conditions out on the Mississippi.  They weren't epic like the Miller's Run or the Columbia Gorge, but they were more than adequate for practice in reading conditions and linking runs.  And they were ideal for the mood I was in: infuriated with the awful turn my rudder-line-replacement project had taken, I needed to do lots and lots of hard sprints until I was too exhausted to feel angry anymore.  And that's what I did.

I brought the other boat home from the river and spent some time working on it yesterday.  I got one new line strung, but had that glue bond fail on the other one like I mentioned above.

This morning I returned to the river.  Some heavy thunderstorms had moved through overnight, part of the same system that spawned deadly tornados farther east in Tennessee.  By the time I got down to the dock the sun had come out and there was a mild breeze blowing from the northwest.  There would be no down winding today, but I paddled the V10 Sport out onto the river hoping maybe there would be some barge wakes to ride.  But the river was free of traffic, so I just paddled for 60 minutes, working hard on hip rotation.  With a more stable boat under me I felt comfortable rotating hard out on the river, so much so that my whole pelvic area was quite tired by the time I was finished.

This afternoon I went down to the shop to work on my training boat's other rudder line.  I was expecting this task to be the smoothest yet; after all, should anything go wrong I have access to this boat's innards through that hatch I installed a few years ago.  I shaved down the glue joint so that it would fit through the tube, and began pulling.  The line hit a snag, so I opened the hatch to investigate... and discovered that the tube had broken up into many fragments.  This is a tube that was new just a few years ago.  The only thing I can figure is that when a boat lives outdoors year-round, the tube material can't withstand the constant fluctuation in temperature, with the freezing and thawing and all that.

I'll have to install a new tube, and that'll probably mean taking the circular saw to the edge of the seat bucket again to get the tube properly situated there.

Or...

Maybe it's time to retire this old boat.  Fifteen years is a long life for just about any canoe or kayak, and I've certainly invested a good bit of money and many hours of labor to keep this one going for this long.  It's seen me through hundreds of days of training and exploring, and it feels like an old friend, but perhaps the time has come to take it behind the barn and put it out of its misery.  Sigh.

That would leave me with the V10 Sport that's currently down at the dock (the state of whose insides I have yet to explore), and that other boat in the garage (a V10L) that also has a broken tube.  In that boat I'm pretty sure there's just one break near the stern, and I'm hopeful that I can cut a smaller hole, run the rudder line across the break, and repair the hole with a smaller hatch.

Anyway... what a week it's been, all because of what one might think is some simple routine maintenance.  And yes, I do have sort of an issue with the manufacturer of these boats regarding the durability, accessibility, and repairability of their interior parts, but I'll save that rant for some future post.

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Monday photo feature

John P. Batson of Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, competes in the "Nooga Loop" canoe and kayak race on Saturday.  This is a 10.9-mile (17.5-kilometer) race on the Tennessee River at Chattanooga, Tennessee.  Photo by Rick White.

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Warmer weather makes wetter better

Both the weather and the water are getting warm enough that I'm starting to feel comfortable surfing wakes out on the Mississippi.  I got to do a little of that both Tuesday and Thursday.  On Tuesday I was on the river north of the Hernando DeSoto Bridge when I saw the Coast Guard's buoy tender the Kankakee coming upriver, and I found some nice waves in its wake.  The vessel was moving fast and I really had to sprint hard to catch something, but each time I did I felt that rush of satisfaction that's part of what makes surfing/downwind paddling so addictive.

As I was paddling out of the harbor on Thursday there was a barge rig heading upstream in perfect position for me to get out to it, and I was eager for more surfing goodness.  I achieved a couple of nice rides, but unfortunately there was another barge rig coming upriver behind this one, and it started blaring its horn at me, so I moved over toward the Arkansas bank to ease the pilot's troubled mind.  Once I was down below this towboat I checked out its wake, but the waves weren't nearly as good.  Oh well.

I had a bike ride planned for Friday, and my biggest challenge was the weather: when I checked the Internet radar Friday morning, it showed a huge mass of rain moving across Arkansas right toward Memphis, and I didn't think there was any way I could do my ride in the morning without getting drenched.  I figured I would have to wait and hope the rain would move out by the afternoon, but as I continued to watch the radar it looked like the system was moving slowly enough that I could squeeze the morning ride in.  I rode the Greenline out to Shelby Farms and back, thinking there was a good chance that the last 20 minutes or so of my 95-minute ride would be done in the rain.  But the rain held off, and once I was back inside I checked the radar again and the rain had only just arrived in Forrest City, about 50 miles west of Memphis.  So it was moving more slowly than I’d thought.  And when the afternoon arrived with still no rain, I checked the radar again and saw that the part of the system that appeared headed for Memphis had fallen apart.  Spring weather is unpredictable.

Yesterday I headed out on a slightly longer paddle--80 minutes--and I was expecting it to be a calm distance paddle.  But as I left the harbor I saw three upstream-moving barge rigs down below the Harahan and Frisco and Memphis-Arkansas Bridges, so I knew that before I was done I'd have an opportunity to surf some more.  I ferried over to the Arkansas side and paddled up into the lower reaches of the Loosahatchie Chute before heading back downriver.  By this time the barge "convoy" was passing beneath the Hernando DeSoto Bridge, and once I was below the last rig I paddled in to explore the surfing possibilities.  The waves were moving fast, and they were sort of wandering from side to side rather than moving in an organized wave train, so I really had to sprint to catch them, and once I did catch one, the ride didn't last long.  But it was good practice for the next time I'm in a true downwind situation.  I had to focus on staying balanced on the crest of a wave, and keep my eyes open for another run to catch when the one I was on petered out.

This morning I paddled for 60 minutes on a river that was all clear of barge traffic, and that was okay with me.  Surfing is hard work, and I was ready for a calm session.  All this week I'd worked on that thing that's been the theme of the whole winter and spring for me: improving my rotation from the hips.  Again, now that swimming is no longer such a frigid prospect I'm feeling a lot more relaxed out on the turbulent waters of the Mississippi, and rotating more freely.  It's still a mixed bag, though: some days I feel like I'm still making myself do it rather than doing it naturally.  Today I actually felt better rotating out on the river than I did in the harbor.

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Monday photo feature

This screen-grab from NBC Sports footage shows Casey Eichfeld of Drums, Pennsylvania, moments after crossing the finish line in his final run of the U.S. Olympic trials at Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, on Saturday.

How long has Casey been participating in the sport of whitewater slalom?  I was still racing slalom myself when he first started showing up at races, so that's a pretty long time.  If I remember correctly (it's possible I don't), the first time I ever saw him was at an age group nationals event at South Bend, Indiana, in the summer of 1999.  He was hard not to notice: at 9 years old, he was three or four years younger than the next-youngest kid there.  Then in November of that year I attended a Thanksgiving training camp on the Tuckasegee River at Bryson City, North Carolina, and Casey was there too.  This would have been just after his 10th birthday.  He was a tiny little kid, not exactly a threat to us "grown men," but he was already showing some solid technique in the gates.

Over the next several years I did less and less slalom racing myself, but I spotted Casey here and there, training and racing wherever he could even though he was too young to be eligible for the junior national team.  Little by little the kid grew up, and in 2008--less than a decade after I'd first seen him--he made his first Olympic team, racing in men's double canoe (C2) at Beijing with partner Rick Powell.  Four years after that Casey was in the Olympics again, racing in single canoe (C1) at London.

He was staying busy in the non-Olympic years, too, training all over the world, making national teams, and racing in World Cup series and, of course, the world championships.  His finest moment might have come in the 2015 worlds at La Seu d'Urgell, Spain: in his final run, Casey seemed to be laying down a winning performance before a gate-touch penalty near the end of the course knocked him back to fourth place.

Unbowed, Casey came back to make his third Olympic team the next year.  At Rio he raced in C1 and teamed with Devin McEwan to race C2 as well.

At this point Casey wasn't exactly old--he wasn't even 30 yet--but he was a veteran of two decades full of hundreds of thousands of paddle strokes all over the world.  And he was now married, with thoughts of starting a family.  The question of whether he shouldn't stow his paddle and get a "real job" was a legitimate one.  But after serious thought and support from his wife, Casey decided he wanted to try to do something no other U.S. slalom racer had ever done: make a fourth Olympic team.

That meant another four years of training, and the Covid-19 pandemic turned that into five years, as the Tokyo Olympics was pushed back into 2021.  And then Casey failed to make the team.  He was beat out at the trials by a surging Zach Lokken of Durango, Colorado.

Once again it was decision time.  But at least this time the next Olympics was just three years away, and Casey decided to give it one more shot.  A few more cycles of training brought him to this month's Olympic trials, which began the weekend of April 13-14 at Montgomery, Alabama, and concluded this past weekend at Oklahoma City.  Once again Zach Lokken was Casey's most formidable competitor, and coming out of the first weekend Lokken held a slim lead.  Lokken maintained a slight edge after first runs at Oklahoma City, and Casey would say later, "Honestly, I thought it was gonna be Zach after the first run."

But then came second runs, and Casey uncorked a simply gorgeous display of speed, power, and precision.  In the photo above he's just a couple of meters past the finish line, knowing he's posted a terrific time and unable to contain his emotions any longer.  At this same moment Zach Lokken is sitting in his boat up at the start, about to take his last run, and while he can't know exactly what Casey has done, he's able to hear the spectators' reaction and the commentary of the venue announcer, and he has to know that Casey has just done something exceptional.  In other words, he's not in an enviable position.  He went on and made a valiant attempt to stick to his plan, but a time error early in the run spiraled into bigger mistakes farther down the course.  I suspect he knew deep down it was game over.  You can watch video footage of both Casey's run and Zach's run here.

Casey is one of two slalom racers the U.S. will send to Paris this summer.  The other is Evy Leibfarth of Bryson City, North Carolina, the trials winner in women's kayak and women's canoe.  Unfortunately, the U.S. did not qualify to enter a men's kayak athlete in the Olympics this year.  Such qualifications are based on U.S. athletes' performances in last year's world championships and in a Pan American competition this spring.

I'll conclude by saying that even in this era of pro athletes at the Olympics and lucrative "N.I.L." endorsement deals and all that stuff, most Olympic athletes are not rolling in the dough, and that is especially true of athletes in the more media-marginalized sports like canoe and kayak racing.  Meanwhile, the expenses are quite huge.  In the several months between now and the opening ceremony at Paris, Casey will be traveling to train on the course there and also to do some World Cup racing to make sure his game is in order.  He might get a little bit of financial support from the sport's national governing body, but it won't be nearly enough to cover all the airfare and lodging and other expenses he'll face.  And so... anybody who would like to send a few bucks Casey's way can do so here.

For more information on what this blog is about, click here.

Another week of spring-fever fun

It's been another week of trying to keep something going in the athletic department while having lots to deal with in my non-athletic life.  The next race I'm considering doing is in mid June, so before long I guess I'll ramp things up again.  But I'm satisfied with how this past week went.

I made it down to the river Tuesday for a 60-minute paddle.  It was quite breezy from the south and I went out on the river to see if there was any downwind action, but it was small.

I did a leisurely bike ride Wednesday afternoon, thinking I would do a more serious one on Thursday, which has been my bike-riding day lately.  But rain moved in Thursday afternoon.  I'm just fine with paddling in the rain, but riding my bike in the rain?  I don't like that so much.

So I pushed the bike ride to Friday, and I made it a good one, taking the Greenline out to Shelby Farms and looping around the lake before returning home.  I often see deer out in Shelby Farms or in the Wolf River bottoms, and they usually dash away when they see me coming.  But on Friday there was a whole flock of young deer grazing no more than 30 feet off the bike path, and when I rode by they stayed right there and kept on munching grass:

I continued on and did my loop around the lake, and when I passed back through this location about 20 minutes later, the deer were long gone.

Yesterday I was ready to get back in the boat for a longer paddle.  There was a strong south wind blowing, and rather than expose myself to all that with another trip around the Loosahatchie Bar, I elected to stay on the Tennessee side of the Mississippi River and paddle up the Wolf River to the Danny Thomas Boulevard bridge before heading back.  Up on the Wolf the water is much more sheltered from the wind, and I was able to relax and focus on technique and stroke mechanics in a way I can't quite do on rougher water.  Meanwhile, I was actually feeling tired and sluggish in the boat; I think Friday's bike ride took more out of me than I realized.  So it was a pretty tough two hours.  I had to paddle some rough water on my way back down the Mississippi, and I tried my best to relax and let the current carry me.  Even so, I was flat-out exhausted by the time I was back in the harbor.

I woke up a couple of times last night with my arms throbbing, probably because I'd used them too much out on the river.  I went back down there this morning planning to keep the intensity low.  The south wind was blowing even a bit harder, and I relaxed and didn't fight it as I paddled down to the harbor's mouth.  Once I got a look out over the river I saw some small but serviceable downwind runs, and I couldn't resist going out and playing on them a little.  I didn't stay out there too long: the runs were confused and hard to catch, and I also still wasn't entirely comfortable out there myself.  In another six weeks, when hot weather has settled in for the summer, I'll be able to go out there and not care about swimming.  Anyway, back in the harbor I paddled easy and tried to take good strokes until time had expired on a 50-minute session.

I'm still not in super-serious training mode, but I'd say it wasn't a bad week.

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Let's hear it for Admore!

I've visited the town of Fish Hoek, Cape Town, South Africa, twice.  A big reason that I want to get back there sooner or later is the daily dose of goodwill and hospitality I can expect from Mr. Admore Dzinzi.  The Zimbabwe native is the caretaker at the Fish Hoek Beach Sports Club, and it's clear the club members are fond of him as well.  Local You Tube celebrities Zach & Jerry put together this video in tribute to Admore and his commitment to the general awesomeness of the club, the town, and the sport of ocean paddling.

For more information on what this blog is about, click here.

The Loosahatchie Bar

I've paddled around the Loosahatchie Bar twice in the last two weeks, and it's occurred to me that it's been a while since I've shared a map of this route.  I'm kind of a hopeless case when it comes to generating maps from my G.P.S. device, but fortunately my friend Adam Davis has the procedure down.  Here's a map he produced after we paddled around the Bar several years ago:

The Loosahatchie Bar is the big island in the middle of the Mississippi River.  The river's main channel that the barge rigs use is to the east (right) of the Bar.  The narrower channel on the west side of the Bar is known as the Loosahatchie Chute, which happens to be maybe my favorite wilderness spot in the greater Memphis area.

This image shows the start/finish location at the downtown Memphis cobblestone landing, where Adam parked his car that day.  The distance units are in miles, and as you can see, we covered about ten and a half miles starting and finishing there.  I, of course, keep my boat at Harbortown Marina (circled in yellow), which is about a mile north of the cobblestone landing, so when I go around the Bar I cover about twelve and a half miles (that's about 20.1 kilometers).

On this day we ferried across the Mississippi's main channel where the 4-mile mark appears.  Sometimes I make the ferry higher up than that, and other times I make it sooner than that.  This past Saturday I ferried across about where the 3-mile mark appears in this image.  That's because there was a big river tour boat moored along the bank there, and rather than fight the current to get around it, I decided to just go ahead and ferry from there.

Anyway... I hope this image is helpful to those who have wondered what I am talking about when I mention paddling around the Loosahatchie Bar.

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Monday photo feature

A big reason I prefer to do my athletic stuff outdoors is the chance to see wildlife.  On the Memphis riverfront I see many species of waterfowl and wading birds, fish, beavers, turtles, and snakes.

Meanwhile, things I do in the middle of town--running and bike riding, primarily--might not offer as many wildlife-viewing opportunities, but there are a few.  When I ride my bike out to Shelby Farms like I did this past Thursday, I often see some wildlife in the park and in the adjacent Wolf River bottoms.  Most of the time it's deer, but on Thursday I came up on the creature pictured above near one of the smaller Shelby Farms lakes.  I could tell right away it wasn't poisonous; I'm not much of a snake expert, but I'm thinking maybe it was a king snake.  I dismounted my bike to watch it for a few minutes, snap its picture, and make sure it got across the path without being run over by other riders.  When I rode back through this location some twenty minutes later, it was nowhere in sight.

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Some paddling and some pedaling on days balmy and brisk

Warm weather continued for much of this past week, with the temperature exceeding 80 degrees Fahrenheit a couple of times.  I had a nice 60-minute paddle Tuesday morning in calmer conditions than what Adam and I had paddled in on Sunday.  The mornings are still cool enough that I'm not just dying to take a hose bath on the dock after I paddle, but those days will arrive soon enough.

I got a good bike ride in Thursday afternoon.  I took the Greater Memphis Greenline out to Shelby Farms, did a loop around Patriot Lake, and came back.  Riding neither super-easy nor super-hard, I did that in about 95 minutes.

Thursday was one of those days when I didn't even start up my car; the bike ride was my only venture away from home.  And on Friday I went all day again without cranking the engine.  I spent most of the day on a woodworking project for a client.  Meanwhile, Friday differed from Thursday in that it was much cooler.  A front had come through overnight, and I don't think we ever made it to 60 degrees on Friday.

It was time to paddle again yesterday morning, and I really didn't want to do it.  Part of the reason was that my homebodyish ways of the previous couple of days were starting to gel, and part of the reason was this "blackberry winter" we're having.  Six weeks ago I welcomed a day with a high temperature in the 50s, but after those 80-degree days we just had it feels awfully chilly.  The temperature was around 50 degrees when I got up yesterday, and a brisk wind was blowing.  I think the only reason I managed to get myself to the river is that I'm such a creature of habit: when it's Saturday morning, I paddle.  That's just how I'm wired.

I fought through a thick mire of ennui to get my boat off the rack and get myself dressed for paddling, knowing that once I was in the boat, I would find the energy.  And sure enough, I did.  I spent the two-kilometer paddle from the dock to the mouth of the harbor shaking off the sluggishness, and then I was ready to do a good long session.  I had a couple of options: with the Mississippi flowing at 21.7 feet on the Memphis gauge, I still had enough water to paddle around the Loosahatchie Bar.  Or I could stay on the Tennessee side of the river, paddle up to the mouth of the Wolf River, and then paddle up the Wolf to the Danny Thomas Boulevard bridge and back.  Helping me make the decision was a big river-touring boat (the Mississippi Symphony) moored along the bank up near the Wolf: while I could have just fought the Mississippi's current to get around it and access the Wolf, I decided that I might as well stay out in the channel and ferry across, thereby committing myself to a trip around the Bar.

The wind was blowing from the northeast, and I'd had some shelter from it while paddling up the Tennessee bank.  But over on the west side of the Mississippi's main channel I had to fight some stiff headwinds to get up to the top of the Loosahatchie Bar.  Once I was paddling down the Loosahatchie Chute the wind was coming from about my eight o'clock, so it was a mostly helpful tailwind  but not without some nuisance effects.  As I emerged from the Chute and rejoined the main channel I found myself with more of a beam wind.  Northerly winds don't cause the same kind of rough water on the Mississippi that southerly winds do, but I still had lots of pesky chop slapping against my boat on the port side.

I've mentioned in the past that I like to break two hours (elapsed time between leaving the dock and returning to the dock) when I go around the Bar.  By the time I was passing beneath the Hernando DeSoto Bridge, I knew I was going to have to push it to have a chance.  I made it from the bridge to the harbor entrance about as quickly as I could have asked, but then I had a headwind for the two kilometers back to the dock.  Having paddled this stretch thousands of times over the years, I knew just how imposing my task was as I passed one landmark after another.  With about 500 meters to go, I could tell I was going to fall just short.  I completed the journey in about two hours, one minute.

I left the river feeling good about it just the same.  I was dead-dog tired the rest of the day.  There were all kinds of events happening around town, including some live music I might have liked to hear, but in the end I stayed close to home.  I slept soundly last night.

This morning it was slightly cooler and just as windy, but at least the sun was out.  Today I would stay in the harbor and paddle mostly easy for 60 minutes.  As I set out I was quite stiff in my pelvic area after two hours of hip rotation in bumpy conditions yesterday.  I paddled to the harbor's north end first, trying to let my body move without forcing it as much as I could.  Eventually things loosened up for me, especially once I was paddling back south with the wind at my back.  Back on the dock I was tired again but congratulating myself on a solid few days of work.

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Monday photo feature

Here, I tried to make my telephone's camera do what it couldn't.  At this moment the sun has the moon sitting right in front of it, but the corona is too bright for the camera to get an accurate image.  But the image exists in my memory, and that's all that matters.

I mentioned a couple of posts ago that Bald Knob, Arkansas, is not the most interesting town I've ever visited.  But it is home to the Bulldog Restaurant and its killer milkshakes.  You better believe I got me one of those to sip on while the moon slid between me and the sun.

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All hail the mighty Mississippi River!

The weather here has been alternating among warm sunny days, warm rainy days, and cool, breezy days.  Little by little, the warmer days are starting to win out, and that was the case this weekend.  It’s been mostly sunny with temperatures flirting with 80 degrees Fahrenheit.  I typically stick close to the harbor during the winter months, but in warmer weather I venture farther out onto the Mississippi River.

I had a good 60-minute paddle yesterday, going down below the Frisco and Harahan and Memphis-Arkansas bridges before paddling back up the Arkansas side and ferrying back over to the harbor.  All that rain we had earlier in the week also fell in the Tennessee and Cumberland and Ohio River watersheds, and now the Mississippi is on a big rise.  The Memphis gauge reading was 21.5 feet when I paddled yesterday.

By this morning the level had inched up to about 21.9 feet.  Warm temperatures continued, and today they were accompanied by quite a fierce southwest wind.  I'd arranged to meet Adam Davis in the harbor, and with an adequate water level at last, we wanted to do a trip around the Loosahatchie Bar.  It was clear that conditions would be rough out on the river, however, and as we headed from the harbor's mouth up the Mississippi, we left open the possibility of logging our miles up on the protected Wolf River instead.

The going was bumpy with lots of side chop as we paddled upriver along the Tennessee bank.  Nevertheless, I was feeling good about how I was moving my boat, and having a friend with me helped me relax and paddle more confidently.  The water is not as cold as it was a month ago, and that helped too.  When we reached the mouth of the Wolf, we decided to go through with our lap around the Bar.  We continued up the Tennessee bank, and then a bit of a lapse in communication resulted in us getting separated: I started my ferry across the main channel and expected Adam to follow my lead, but he stayed close to the bank and continued upriver.  I made my ferry a slow one, hoping Adam would start his soon.

Once I was in the middle of the river I found myself navigating some small downwind action.  With my attention now fully occupied, I lost track of where Adam was and decided to work my way across a bit faster, and then wait along the opposite bank for Adam to get across and rejoin me.  Once over there I paddled slowly from eddy to eddy, scanning the river for Adam's white boat.  For the longest time I didn't see him, and I rued my mistake of letting us get separated without making sure we knew each other's plan.  Finally I looked way upstream and saw him ferrying across.  Now I had to push the pace to get up where he was so he wouldn't wonder what had happened to me.  Eventually I rounded the northern end of the Bar and found him hanging out at the top of the Loosahatchie Chute.  It turned out that he'd paddled much farther up the Tennessee bank than I'd expected before making his ferry.

We proceeded down the Loosahatchie Chute into a headwind.  In the early going the water there was as rough as I'd seen it (I don't often go over there on super-windy days).  As the Chute widened toward the lower end of the Bar, the water smoothed out.  But once we were back on the main channel angling toward the entrance to the harbor, our boats were pitching and bobbing all over the place as the screaming wind churned the river into a washing machine.  I spent the final approach to the harbor trying to keep my boat moving over all the slop.  Once we were back on protected water, Adam and I agreed that our outing had been stressful, but fun nevertheless.  My paddling year wouldn't feel complete without at least one trip around the Bar, and I was glad to get that in today.

I had a tailwind and smooth water for the last couple of kilometers back to the dock, and I relaxed and tried to close out my time in the boat with good stroke form.  I realized how grateful I am to have something like the Mississippi River to paddle on.  For a mid-continent dweller who wants to be good at ocean-style surfski paddling, I could do much worse for a place to train.  It's not a downwind paradise like the Miller's Run, but it throws all kinds of different conditions at me, and as a result I'm not too intimidated when I do travel to a place like that.

What's more, the Mississippi is to flatwater for paddlers as cross country is to track for distance runners.  There's a wide belief among runners and their coaches that cross country, with its hills and softer turf, builds core strength in a way that running on a track cannot, and so even many postgraduate runners hoping to compete on the track in the Olympics incorporate some cross country racing into their training years.  I think something similar is true of training out on the Mississippi.  Even on a much calmer day than today, a trip around the Loosahatchie Bar includes a lot of upstream paddling and a long, hard ferry.

So let's hear it for the Mississippi River.  I give it a lot of credit for me being as good at this sport as I am with the modest degree of talent I've got.

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Some time off to behold the cosmos

There's no question I'm in a training lull these days.  I'm not doing nothing--I'm still getting in the boat several days a week and trying to get in some bike riding, too.  But there have been other things going on that need my attention, and I'm hoping that if I can beat back some of that nuisance stuff, I can get into a more substantial athletic routine with plenty of time to be fit for the next competition.

Last week I paddled on Tuesday and Saturday, and so far this week I've paddled Sunday and Tuesday.  The sessions were mostly steady paddling with lots of thought given to moving my torso as a unit with my hips.  Some days I've felt sluggish and slow, and other days I've felt sharper.  I felt quite good this past Tuesday, and I threw in a couple of lengthy surges just to remind my body what it feels like to push the pace.

Of course, we had that solar eclipse on Monday this week.  Here in Memphis the moon was supposed to obstruct 97.7% of the sun, but having been disappointed with a similar percentage here during the 2017 eclipse, I decided to drive a couple of hours west into the path of totality.  I knew that I should count on investing the whole day, more or less, given all the warnings about traffic snarls caused by me and everybody else who had the same idea.  I got an early start, crossed the Mississippi River on the Hernando DeSoto Bridge, and picked up U.S. 64.  My destination was the town of Bald Knob, Arkansas.  The drive over there was just plain pleasant.  The cloudy skies gave way to sunshine, and I enjoyed watching the picturesque Arkansas Delta go by as I drove along at an unhurried pace.

Bald Knob sits where the Delta meets the Ozark Foothills.  I've driven through it many times en route to races on the White River at towns like Batesville and Calico Rock.  It's a pretty unremarkable place; the main reason it even exists, probably, is the junction of several U.S. highways, a railroad line, and several state highways.  There's not really a town square there or a clearly-defined downtown district.  The city hall is located in a ramshackle little building right on the main highway through town, which it shares with the police department.

But the moon would be casting its shadow there just as well as on nicer towns, so it suited me just fine.  I arrived there around 10 AM, and since the total eclipse would be occurring just before 2 PM, I had plenty of time to explore a little.  I parked behind a gas station and took my bike off the car, and spent the next 80 minutes or so checking out the backroads nearby.  I was hoping to find a road that would take me all the way to the White River, but every road I tried turned to gravel, and I lacked confidence in the "slick" tires on my bike.  So I just zigzagged around on the country roads, and then rode back into Bald Knob and checked out what little there was to see there.  Once the ride was finished I had lunch at a picnic table in the only apparent park in the town, and then it was about showtime for the eclipse.

For some 80 minutes, the eclipse didn't seem much different from any other eclipse I've seen.  The daylight got gradually dimmer, but it didn't really get dark, even when the moon obstructed all but the tiniest sliver of the sun.  But then the moment of totality arrived, and I knew then that my trip was worth it.  The landscape went dark except for what I heard one person describe as "a 360-degree sunset."  Up in the sky there was a black circle with a fiery ring around it.  The moment lasted maybe a couple of minutes where I was.  Then a sliver of sun reappeared, and we were back to the kind of eclipse I'd seen a few times in the past.

My main concern now was to get home ahead of the worst traffic.  I figured most Memphians had probably traveled to places like Greer's Ferry Reservoir and the Spring River, and since I was at least half an hour closer to Memphis than those places, I believed that if I left right away I'd beat most of them back.  Turned out I was right: except for a brief stretch of heavy traffic on Interstate 55 at Marion, I had smooth sailing all the way home.  A while later I saw reports on social media of an awful traffic jam in West Memphis.  One friend of mine who had been up in Walnut Ridge, Arkansas, said it took him two hours to travel the last 25 miles back to Memphis.  So I was feeling like I'd pulled off the perfect crime.

Besides Monday's ride, I've also ridden my bike last Thursday and today.  The weather the last couple of weeks has been quite rainy or very windy, sometimes both.  We got a whole lot of rain over the last several days; it was raining Tuesday morning and I briefly considered skipping paddling, but since it was reasonably warm outside I decided to go ahead with it.  A steady light rain fell the whole time I was in the boat, but it didn't really bother me.  Wind is more of an annoyance in my opinion.  Last Thursday I rode my bike on the Greenline out to the Wolf River and back, and the whole second half of the ride was into a headwind.  Even though the ride wasn't but 70 minutes or so, I felt beat to the socks when it was over.  And then it got very windy again today, once the rain finally moved out this morning.  The last mile of today's ride was done into a fierce headwind.

In summary... there's been plenty going on, even if it hasn't been pure training.  I believe that as long as I keep moving, and keep accomplishing at least one decent thing each day, I'll have no problem getting serious again when the time is right.

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Monday photo feature

This image appeared in my social media feed recently.  It's a meme, and I know you're not supposed to think too deeply about such things, but this one got my pedantic juices flowing.  I offer the following observations:

--Whoever created this image must not be a whitewater paddler.  Two of the four states in the "where you never go" category--West Virginia and Idaho--have some of the best whitewater in the world.

--I couldn't disagree more that the Mountain West states and Alaska have a monopoly on "nature."  I honestly think every state in the Union can make some kind of claim to being a nature destination, but for the sake of arguing I would at least add the Carolinas, New Mexico, Maine, and the Pacific Northwest states to that list.

--I must be poor, because I've visited those four deep-orange states many, many times.  Of course, that's largely because the city I live in is nestled right in the middle of that region.

--I'm not rich, but I've been to Hawaii.  Granted, when I visited that state, I availed myself of the Poor Man's Special by staying with my cousin, a colonel in the U.S. army who was living with his family on-base at Pearl Harbor Hickam at the time.  I visited only the island of Oahu.  Airplane is the most viable means of transportation to the other islands, and that would have involved greater outlays of wealth.

--I have lived in two of the cities in the state of Tennessee, and they are both city enough for me.  I don't need to go to those yellow states just to see a city, though I did in fact live in New York City for a couple of years.  Speaking of those yellow states... there's nothing to distinguish California, Maryland, Illinois, and New York State but their cities?  Really?

--I've spent much time in the state of North Carolina, and considering all it's got going for it, I'm puzzled that the creator of this meme could think of nothing better to do with it than lump it together with Florida and Arizona as a place for tanning and elderly people.

--I will admit that there is some truth to the characterization of the Great Plains states.  Pretty much every time I've visited this region I've been en route to or from the Rockies or the West Coast.  But several of those times I went out of my way to spend some quality time there, and I didn't regret it.  Meanwhile, I have no idea why New Mexico is lumped into the category of "where you go on the way to somewhere better."

I'm proud to say that I have visited every one of the 50 states.  I have also paddled a boat at least once in 47 of the 50 states, and hope to do so in the remaining three before long.  Those three are Arizona, which, if it's the Lord's will, I'll pick up when I paddle through the Grand Canyon in August and September of next year; Minnesota, an entirely accessible place that I just need to make time to visit with my boat; and Alaska, which might require the same kind of planning that I'm currently putting into the Grand Canyon trip.

In short, I think every place has dignity and value.  I don't care if it's majestic mountains, picturesque seashore, or desolate prairie.  I know this meme is supposed to be just for laughs, but it rubs me the wrong way somehow.  Categorizing the states based on snide generalizations does injustice to the experiences one can have in each of them.

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Waiting for spring to establish itself

While watching the forecast last week to see what weather I could expect at Ocean Springs, I thought I saw that warm temperatures were on the way this week.  It didn't turn out that way, at least for the first half of the week.  It was overcast and chilly Tuesday morning when I went to the river for my first paddle since the race.  I spent 60 minutes in the boat, just relaxing and paddling free and easy.

The next race I’m likely to do might not be until the middle of June.  So I’m dialing back the time in the boat for the next several weeks.  Part of the reason is a lot of non-athletic obligations, but I’d also like to incorporate some other stuff—some bike riding and running, stuff like that.  The latter part of the week brought some warmer weather, much nicer for doing such things.

I spent much of this past week finishing up a big woodworking project, but I did get a little bike ride in on Thursday.  It was more of a cruise around the neighborhood than a real fitness activity.  I was hoping to do a more substantial ride Friday afternoon, but I was called away to give my mom a ride when she discovered a flat tire on her car.  Oh well… there’ll be plenty of days to ride as the weather gets more consistently warmer.

I was back in the boat yesterday, paddling for 70 minutes.  As usual, I worked on hip rotation.  I'm hoping that eventually the desired body mechanics will come naturally to me, and there have been moments where that's seemed to be the case.  But I didn't feel that way yesterday, and when I paddled for 60 minutes today, I felt even worse.  It felt like I was making myself do it rather than just doing it, and by the end of both sessions I was feeling tired and worn down.

Surely there will be better days in the future.  For now I'm just glad to be getting in some exercise in whatever form I can.

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Monday photo feature

Here's a scene you'll see before just about any canoe and kayak race: competitors milling about waiting for the pre-race meeting to begin.  That's me in the red pants and blue sweatshirt holding a paddle.  To my left are Kelly and Nick Kinderman, my friends at whose home I'd stayed the night before.  The sun will come out eventually, but right now it's overcast and awfully windy.  Photo by Brent Futrell.

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Ocean Springs results

As promised, here are the results of the 2024 Battle On The Bayou race that took place on Old Fort Bayou at Ocean Springs, Mississippi, yesterday.

My G.P.S. device measured the race distance at 13.47 kilometers (8.37 miles), though you might give or take a hundred meters or so, given the messed-up start yesterday.  At last year's race, my same G.P.S. device told me it was 13.56 km (8.43 miles).

As reported in my last post, it was not a day for any course records because of the relentless wind.  My fastest time ever on this course is one hour, 11 minutes, 38 seconds, but I'm happy just to have broken 80 minutes yesterday.

Place        Name         Residence Class Time

1 Scott Cummins Louisville, KY K1 Race men 1:17:54

2 Elmore Holmes Memphis, TN         K1 Race men 1:19:20

3 Jeb Berry         Gulfport, MS         K1 Race men 1:19:24

3 Stephen Lynn/Joey Sturm London, AR         C2 Race men 1:19:24

5 Matt Taylor         Brantley, AL         K1 Race men 1:23:48

6 Nick Kinderman Moss Point, MS K1 Fast men 1:29:32

7 Robert Houck         Fairhope, AL         K1 Fast men 1:34:21

8 Drake Herrick         Lafayette, LA         K1 Fast men 1:34:26

9 Robert Brooks         Biloxi, MS K1 Fast men 1:34:46

10 Grant Guidry         Lafayette, LA         K1 Fast men 1:36:28

11 Nate Payne         Gulfport, MS         K1 Fast men 1:37:36

12 Nova Cross         Ocean Springs, MS         K1 Long women 1:41:05

13 Ray Tipton & partner Gulfport, MS         K2 Rec mixed 1:43:52

14 Stephen Harris Mobile, AL         K1 Fast men 1:47:35

15 Kent Overmeyer & partner Saucier, MS         K2 Rec mixed 1:48:22

16 David Waters         Pensacola, FL         K1 medium men 1:48:33

17 Kelly Kinderman         Moss Point, MS K1 Fast women 1:48:04

18 Karen Kesselring         Hot Spgs Vill, AR         K1 Fast women 1:48:13

19 John Collier         Brandon, MS         K1 Long men 1:50:05

20 Elmer Landry         Lafayette, LA         K1 Fast men 1:50:35

21 Susan Jordan         Lucedale, MS         K1 Fast women 1:53:36

22 Tommy Williams         Monroe, LA         K1 Short men 1:57:48

23 Henry Childres Watson, LA         K1 Long men 1:57:49

24 John Shannon         Monroe, LA         K1 Short men 2:00:08

25 Jessica Roberie Lafayette, LA         K1 Medium women2:03:39

26 Scott Gallagher Marietta, GA         K1 Short men 2:06:49

27 Lauren Drummond Dale         D’Iberville, MS K1 Fast women 2:16:20

28 Kevin Black         Fairhope, AL         SUP men 2:22:14

29 Charlie Lee         Sandy Springs, GA         K1 Pedal men 2:27:25

30 Carsen Crocker Mobile, AL         K1 Long men 2:43:13

31 Eddie Crocker         Mobile, AL         C1 Race men 2:44:13

32 Dirk McCall         Fairhope, AL         SUP men 2:46:04

33 Case Davis         Lucedale, MS         SUP men 2:46:11

34 Chris Hart Diamondhead, MS         K1 Long men 2:48:34

35 Michael Michaud         Ocean Springs, MS         K1 Short men 2:52:24

36 James Davis         Lucedale, MS         K1 Long men 3:10:42

37 Phillip Lee Mobile, AL         K1 Short men 3:32:12

38 Steven Dews         Hattiesburg, MS K1 Short men 3:35:17

39 Stuart Dodds         Ocean Springs, MS         K1 Short men 3:35:30

40 Matthew Dufour & sons         Amite, LA Unlimited 4:14:28

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Another year, another race at Ocean Springs

It was cool and breezy when we woke up yesterday morning, and the word was that we could expect a strong north wind blowing out on the race course.  Nick and Kelly and I headed for the race site at Gulf Hills, near the mouth of Old Fort Bayou at the eastern end of the Back Bay of Biloxi, and found that very state of affairs.

I'd spent the last few weeks unsure of my competition in the race, but by yesterday morning it was apparent that it would be as intense as the weather.  By midweek Jeb Berry of Gulfport, Mississippi, had moved from the double surfski class into the single ski class with me.  Matt Taylor of Brantley, Alabama, who finished some minutes behind me last year, was also signed up, and he's a young guy with plenty of room to improve.  And a late addition to the start list was long-time racing friend Scott Cummins of Louisville, Kentucky.  Meanwhile, veteran canoeist Stephen Lynn had traveled from London, Arkansas, to team up with Joey Sturm in a tandem outrigger canoe, and I knew they would probably be in the mix for that coveted "fastest overall boat" distinction.

As soon as the pre-race meeting concluded we put our boats on the water and began to warm up.  Things got dicey almost immediately, as the starter for the race was a new guy who seemed to have too literal an understanding of when exactly he should start the race.  By the time the meeting had ended there was very little time before the "official" start time, and some racers were still getting situated in their boats by the putin ramp when the starter announced that the gun would go off in 30 seconds.  I was actually in a better position than most--I was paddling back toward the starting area from the mouth of Old Fort Bayou--but I had to make a quick U-turn to get pointed the right way just a few seconds before the starting signal sounded.

Knowing that it was not a fair start, I started paddling forward sort of half-heartedly, thinking we might all be called back for a do-over.  But I didn't hear a thing.  I'd been spotted a lead of at least four or five boatlengths, and I moseyed around the point and up into the bayou, thinking I would let the competition catch up before I started racing for real.  Scott was the first to pull even with me, and he recommended that we just stop for a minute because many racers were nowhere close to being in position when the gun went off.  So we did, and we waited until we had something of a quorum before easing back into a full race pace.

Now it was time to get down to business.  In the early going Scott and I were joined by Matt and Stephen/Joey; Scott said that Jeb was nearby as well but was struggling with the conditions a bit.  And pesky were those conditions indeed.  Even though we had mostly a tailwind for the first couple of kilometers, the chop was coming from our seven o'clock and my boat seemed to be bobbing all over the place.  I tried my best to settle onto somebody's wake--Matt's, then Stephen/Joey's, then Scott's, then Stephen/Joey's again.  Once we'd crossed beneath the Washington Avenue drawbridge and were navigating the bayou's many meanders, we were having to deal with headwinds, beam winds, and a sloppy soup of small waves.

By the 6-kilometer mark I couldn't see Matt anymore, and Stephen and Joey were leading with Scott and me trying to hold a position on their wake.  Eventually they opened a gap on me, and I suppose that letting them do that was my definitive mistake for the race, though it didn't really feel like a big deal at the time.  My attention had been divided between staying on their wakes, keeping my boat upright in the waves, and following efficient tangent lines from one bend in the course to the next.

As we approached the island that we would loop around to head back toward where we'd started, Stephen and Joey continued to lead with Scott hanging close behind, and I was two or three boatlengths back.  I knew I should have been up there riding their wash, but I was feeling good and confident I could make a move once we'd rounded the island.  But as we left the narrow channel between the island and Percy Miller Park and entered a more open stretch of water, Scott made a move of his own, taking the lead and pushing the pace.  In retrospect I realize I should have anticipated such a move from Scott: it was his first time on this course, and he was going to wait until he knew for sure where he was going before taking command.  Whatever the case, the next thing I knew, he and the OC2 had tripled their gap on me.  I tried to relax and continue taking the best strokes I could, but considering the messy conditions and what was now largely a headwind, I had a feeling it was "game over" as far as competing for the overall win.

I soldiered on just the same, bobbing up and down over waves that were now mostly quartering in on my right bow.  My speed got as fast as 11.9 kilometers per hour when the wind was favorable and down below 9 kph when I hit the wind head-on.

All alone in third place, I knew I was vulnerable to an attack from my rear flank, and I wondered who might be lurking back there.  As I made my return approach to the drawbridge, I stole a glance over my left shoulder and spotted who I figured must be Jeb.  As we passed beneath the bridge I debated whether to keep making him work to reel me in or let him bridge up so we could trade wake rides.  After another minute or so I settled for the latter.

Up ahead it appeared that first place and second place were a done deal.  Scott had opened a gap on Stephen and Joey, and those two boats were well out of reach of Jeb and me.  But then, suddenly, Scott veered off course.  A bunch of marshy islands lie between the drawbridge and the finish line, and Scott, a first-timer on this course, began to move to the right of these islands rather than the left side where the course actually goes.  The pair of canoeists, at least one of whom (Stephen) was also an Ocean Springs rookie, followed Scott.  Jeb and I tried to alert them to their mistake, but we were at least 300 meters back and it was doubtful they would hear our shouts.  Eventually a race official was able to get Scott's attention, and Scott corrected his course to the left side of the islands.  Jeb and I were now closer to the two lead boats, but still not close enough to have any real hope of running them down.

And we had our hands full with the conditions, anyway.  As Old Fort Bayou opens up into the Back Bay of Biloxi, all protection from the wind falls away, and Jeb and I were grinding against as fierce a headwind as I have ever encountered in a race.  The waves continued to pound against the right side of our bows, and they got bigger as we neared the point where we would turn some 110 degrees to the right and have a straight 300-meter shot to the finish line.  Entering this turn I had to fight the wind to move my blade into position for each stroke.  The only thing keeping me from utter despair was that I could tell Jeb was struggling too.  He fell back a couple of boatlengths in the turn, and with the finish line in sight my goal was (a) keep the boat upright, and (b) try to move the boat over the beam waves at least a tiny bit better than Jeb was doing.  I tried to raise the stroke rate into a mad sprint, but the survival instinct restrained me just short of that.

I was so busy trying to hold off Jeb that a funny thing happened: all of a sudden Stephen and Joey were right there.  Less than five minutes ago they'd looked out of reach, but now I was closing on them fast with enough race left that I might actually get by them.  I continued trying to sprint as hard as I could.  Scott, who had finished his race, urged me on.  I moved up and over the OC2's side wake, edged ahead, and... just like that, I was the second overall finisher.  It probably wouldn't have happened if Joey and Stephen hadn't veered off course earlier, but at that moment, I had a reason to feel elated.

I looked back over my right shoulder just in time to see what appeared to be Jeb edging out Stephen and Joey as well, though from my angle of view it was hard to tell for sure.  I understand the race scorers ruled it a tie.

(Stephen later explained that the boat he and Joey were paddling doesn't move so well in shallow water.  There's a lot of shallow water rounding the point into the home stretch, and the water gets shallower in the final hundred meters to the finish line, and that probably had a lot to do with my coming from way behind to overtake them.)

Scott had won the race with a time of one hour, 17 minutes, 54 seconds.  I was not quite 90 seconds back in 1:19:20.  Scott would have beaten me even worse if he hadn't gotten temporarily lost in those last two kilometers, so I'm not feeling inclined to beat myself up too bad for letting him put a gap on me mid-race. Even if I'd stayed on his wake, he probably would have dropped me eventually.  Scott's reached a new athletic peak here in his mid 40s--several years ago he managed to shed a lot of weight, and he says that was a game-changer for him--and I'm happy for him.  All I know is that I was in an upbeat mood as he and I and our fellow racers sat in our boats beyond the finish line, comparing notes from the race.  It was a lovely (albeit very windy) day, I was surrounded by friends, I'd laid down a good solid effort in challenging conditions... all was well.

The complete results are posted here.  I prefer my results in overall order of finish, and as soon as I can I'll share the results in that form in a separate post.

Scott has added his name to the list of overall winners, and that list is pretty short.  I'm proud to be on it, for in 14 tries, I have been the fastest boat at Ocean Springs a mere three times.  Besides Scott and me, the list includes three-time U.S. Olympian Mike Herbert of Rogers, Arkansas, and Christian Massow, a former German national team member who now lives in Texas.  Mike has also taken the overall win in a tandem kayak with his daughter Savanna, and one year Jeb Berry and Nick Kinderman won it in a double surfski.  And that's it: only seven people have crossed the finish line first in either a solo or a tandem craft.

Nova Cross of Ocean Springs was the fastest female finisher, clocking 1:41:05.  The largest class was "K1 Fast," for those surfskis that are a touch wider and slower than the elite-level ones, and the male and female winners of that class were my friends Nick and Kelly Kinderman, who had just hosted me the night before.  Nick's time was 1:29:32, and Kelly's 1:48:04.

I socialized for a while after the race.  Once the awards had been handed out, I had to hit the road because the handbell group I play with had a gig scheduled for this morning.  I made it home about 9 o'clock last night, good and tired but satisfied with my latest racing trip.

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