Settled in at the NAC

We arrived!! It turns out that driving from Urbana to Dallas only takes 12 hours. And, with no major cities to drive through (I'm looking at you, Atlanta!), and very little in the way of hills, the drive was easy. Of course, if you are Bryan Hunt you are disagreeing with me, since you had trouble with your trailer bearings ... and Eric might have had trailer trouble too....But we had a fine time!  ;-)

Here is the parking lot at the club. Across the water is the house Ben and I are staying in.

Plus, our friend John Kreidler found a house to rent that is on the water and just across a tiny bay from the club. If you look at the photo below, our house is in those trees!! Amazing!!! Stacey and Ryan also are in the house, together with John Wake, Tyler Andrews and Bill Bruss.





This morning Bill made eggs and bacon for us all and tomorrow morning I imagine Ben will fire up his cappuccino maker to the delight of all the coffee drinkers in the house.

Meanwhile, Ben and I headed over to the club on the early side so we could rig the boat and get it measured before it got too hot. We had to weight the boat and get the centerboard checked, so that took a while. Between a steady breeze and a nice cloud cover the temperature was downright pleasant. 

Most years Ben has to rig the boat on his own since I'm at the executive board meeting and the board of governors meeting. This year, although I retired from being the magazine editor, and so was available, I also spent a lot of time visiting with people and catching up on Flying Scot news. "Swanning around" as Amy Linton so accurately put it.

In the afternoon, although there was a practice race, some of us went back to the house and discovered that we had a perfect vantage point to watch the racing. I was very happy I had brought my binoculars! Looked to me that Eric Bussell and Perry Cameron were on fire out there. It was magical to watch the Flying Scots, not just those in the practice race but also the Junior Nationals, from the comfort of our living room.

I can tell it's going to be an awesome week. Next is the competitors' meeting and then qualifiers start tomorrow at 10 am.