A Tiny Trip to Canada

One of the big highlights of my summer has been getting to travel with The Banana and Mr. TOF to Canada for their biggest rowing regatta of the season. Both of them had traveled there several times previously, but it was my first time to get to go and spectate. Dr. Peds took Peanut Maximus to visit Grandma Kathy for the weekend, and my rowers loaded the van with all our supplies. We brought two friends as well, so we squeezed five people and all of everyone’s camping supplies in.

It was a delightful car ride with delightful people. Seriously, they played car games the whole six hour drive north! These people were so much fun! The scenery we drove through in Canada was also gorgeous, like out of some movie.

The whole junior rowing team along with most of their parents camps together at a group campsite for three nights. This rowing regatta happens to last two days, with heats and finals for all the events. Although I have camped with my family and with my neighbors, I haven’t ever gone camping with a large group of people I didn’t know very well, so that was an interesting (but good) experience. The Banana and Mr. TOF slept in hammocks, but we knew that there would probably not be another spot for my hammock, so I was in our tent. (It was truly a city of tents!) I borrowed my neighbor’s tenting cot, and I actually slept very comfortably!

Our days started out early, since we had to leave the campsite by 5:20 to get to the regatta site in time for Mr. TOF, who was coxing, to be ready for the first races. I don’t mind getting up early at all, so it was great, and along the way we passed some amazing misty lakes and saw a stunning sunrise on the first day. The regatta site is truly one of the most perfect rowing courses. The beautiful lake is just exactly the right size to fit a 2K course, and small, so the water stays calm. Plus you have excellent viewing as a spectator. The weather was sunny and beautiful the first day, and drizzly the second day, which made for slightly soggy spectating and rowing, but we are all just happy none of the races had to be canceled because of weather.

The Banana had several really great races, and Mr. TOF was busy coxing two boats that each raced twice. The speaker in his boat broke several times, so he ended up shouting all the commands, and lost his voice by the end of the regatta. But his last race was so exciting that the vocal duress was totally worth it. Our boys eight was neck and neck with another boat for the whole course, and they ended up loosing by a seat (like 1 second) at the end. It’s somewhat rare for a rowing race to actually be that close, and it was really fun to watch from the shore.

(Also, the doctor has cleared his wrist to start rowing a little now, so he’s very excited about that).

You could hike down a trail to see the start of the races at this regatta also, which I really enjoyed. The Banana was in a dash eight race, which is a short sprint for a boat of eight people. You can only see it from the start because it ends so quickly. It was super fun to watch, and her boat ended up winning that race.

Side story: The drive through most of Canada to get to the regatta site is a bit remote, so we wanted to make sure we had a full tank of gas before we left to drive back home. The Banana did the Canadian part of the driving since she had driven there before and knew where she was going. She pulled up to a little gas station and got out of the car, and pop! There was a teenager ready to put the gas in the car! Without realizing, she had inadvertently picked a full service station, and I was the ONLY person in the car who had ever been at a full service gas station, ever. They were all stunned. The guy explained that he needed to put the gas in the car before they could pay, and while the gas was filling, he washed all the windows. All the teenagers were nervously chatting with one another about how awkward it was! They couldn’t get over how wrong everything about the experience felt! I was riding in the very back of the van and enjoying every second of watching them! I tried explaining to them that when I was a child, this is just how almost all gas stations worked.

Because I have heard stories upon stories from my kidlets about things that have happened at the regattas in Canada for the past several years, it was really fun for me to get to see where everything actually happens. It was a little weird too, like reading a book and picturing everything so vividly, and then seeing the movie of the book where things look different from your imagination. I actually am finding myself recataloging all the stories in my mind with the new environment at the campsite and regatta course that I can now visualize!