Aaron and Dad head to Florida!

Aaron and Steve headed to Clemont, Florida for the 2017 US sprint kayak national championships.  There was a fairly small group of paddlers from our club so we rented one large house to hold everybody.  Steve did most of the cooking for the all the kids and coaches and nobody died.

We managed to borrow boats from another club since the travel distance was so far.   Steve didn't have the best races (feet didn't fit borrowed boats didn't fit too well; and, a lot more competition this year) but Aaron had better results.  He and partner Jake were 2nd overall in the K2 1000 meter event and Aaron was 3rd overall in both the 200 and 500 meter sprint events and made the final in the 1000 meter event.  Those results were good enough to get him picked for this year's US Olympic Hopes team headed for the Czech Republic to race the best junior paddlers from all over the world.

As might be expected for August in Florida, we had some stormy weather.  We had to finish early one day due to a big thunderstorm with winds strong enough to blow the tops off of a couple of our canopies.