An Urban Boychick Takes on the Outdoors

We wouldn't let a little plague get in the way of a cherry blossom paddle, are we?? This year planning a cherry blossom paddle was complicated by the fact that right about peak blossom time the nation was spiraling down into the coronavirus pandemic. Restrictions were changing every day and we were all a little nervous about paddling. This being the DC area, we had to watch what three different jurisdictions were mandating, as some of us come from Virginia, others from Maryland, and we paddle in DC. In the end, while Stay At Home orders weren't yet in place, Suzanne (rightly, I think) decided that it wasn't cricket for her to drive all the way from Baltimore to paddle. Tom, who is leading the global crisis response from his basement*, wasn't available to break away and go paddling. That left Rob, Jim and me (two retirees and one guy who's not particularly motivated about his job) to do a nice Thursday afternoon paddle. We were of course diligent about person...

It's a little hard to write an outdoors blog during a "Stay At Home Order", but at least I did get to sneak out one last time before the lockdown hammer dropped. I had been planning on doing a Loudoun gravel ride anyway - I even had a route laid out and loaded into my bike GPS. As it happened, just about the time I had planned to head out my son David stopped by to pick up his mail (three years after he moved out, why do checks from his clients still come to my address?). Valerie, David and I spent some time chatting, but once I heard the rumors that a lockdown was coming I excused myself and headed straight for Purcellville. Gravel riding Wildflowers For those not in the cycling world, gravel riding is a thing. I don't know exactly why it's a thing, but it is. Actually, maybe I do know why. A quick search of a " Why is Gravel Riding So Popular? " thread in the gravelcycling sub-Reddit (see, it must be a thing if there's a sub-Reddit for it...