Although we’ve had a lot of rain this spring and the river was too high for rowing this past week, Tuesday was still a good day because we loaded boats for transport to the (hopefully) sunny South.

My husband and I bought new singles this year, and we’ll be racing them on Saturday morning in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, which is one of our favorite rowing courses (Nathan Benderson Park in Sarasota is the other). Because my new boat has a gold-and-red color scheme, and because single sculls often race at dawn when the water is calmest, I named her Aurora. This photograph under a cloudy sky doesn’t do her justice, but the colors sparkle much more brightly in full sunlight. Adventures, here we come!