I don’t think we’ve mentioned yet that there are a bunch of high school kids here doing “intro to the Academy” or some such session. And when I say a bunch, I mean like 1200. Apparently today was a special march day and beginning at 5:30 a.m., yes that’s 5:30 in the morning, they began marching from the courtyard outside our building off to who knows where. Now with approx 50 in each company, there were a lot. Each group left about 10 minutes after the other. They were all chanting their marching cadences, maybe interesting to hear, but not at 5:30 in the morning. I did catch “looks like muddy water, tastes like turpentine” and believe me I really didn’t want to hear the rest of that diddy. Rolling over and holding the pillow over my head brought me about another 30 minutes of sleep.

After two spectacular sunny days, we must have displeased the weather gods because we woke to overcast skies and a forecast of nasty, rainy, windy afternoon weather. We did get our morning row in, a bit extended since it seemed we would miss our afternoon row. Practiced some racing starts since, as we discovered today, there will be a race prior to “graduation” tomorrow. Our boat is rowing really well together. Karen is sitting in 3 seat which is her favorite, and I’m rowing stroke. We have high hopes for the race, our stiffest competition is the boat comprised of the returning campers. They are good! But I think we are better!!!

We had a great strength training session this morning in the varsity mens gym with the womens crew trainer. We got a short but strong workout in. We filled the afternoon session with additional performance enhancement info and then an open question and answer period with the coaches that was really informative.

We finished off our camp day with a wine and cheese party. One of the return campers (5 years of coming here!) owns a vineyard in Sonoma, CA and shipped 3 cases of wine for us to enjoy. Some campers ran to the store for some treats so we had a wonderful time unwinding with other campers and coaches.

Only one day left. It’s been a great experience and I wouldn’t hesitate to come again. It was a perfect level for those with 2-3 years experience and possibly even for those with less. We are divided by experience level in boats so I can only speak for our level but I assume the novice (less than 1 year ) and the complete beginner boat is just as satisfied as we are.

Will try to blog one more time from home tomorrow night with race results. Hope you have enjoyed reading this. Thanks for sharing this time with us.

Lynne & Karen