Cherry Blossoms

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 personal distancing (née social distancing). Suzanne had warned us that there was a Meetup outing at Columbia Island earlier that same day and sure enough, we ran into them on their way back. Personally, in a time of pandemic I wouldn't have organized a big Meetup group outing of any kind, but y'know, vive la différence. To tell you the truth, it's a little much to be calling them a "group", as they seemed to have been paddling in a pretty dispersed way, with kayakers straggling back in ones and twos over a long period of time. When we arrived there were a few people already on shore, and when we launched 45 minutes later there were still people coming in. It made it a little hard to maintain personal distance at the boat ramp - I spent a bunch of time sitting at a picnic table away from the ramp just to stay out of the way of close contact with returning paddlers.

The three of us set out into what had been forecast to be calm conditions, but as we headed south under the 14th St. bridge the wind and waves started to pick up. This made me a little nervous as I had worn my wet suit rather than dry suit and the water was still a little cool for a wet suit. Under benign conditions it wouldn't have been an issue at all, but we soon found ourselves paddling into waves tall enough to roll up over our decks and land in our laps. We really weren't at any significant risk - conditions like we encountered are not a challenge for us, but of course in my head I was thinking about the 0.1% chance that a wave might catch me and capsize me, in which case I would have wound up pretty cold! By the way, COVID-19 was the reason I didn't wear my dry suit. My suit has an unusual configuration. It zips across the back, and it really takes a partner to zip it for you - and with 6 ft. social distancing in force, I didn't want to ask anyone to stand right next to me and zip me in and out of the thing.

Anyway, we strained our way down the river, checking out the pretty blossoms along the way. When we reached Hains Point we took a short break then started back. I had been in the rear the whole way downriver (into the wind/waves) but on the way back the waves were coming from behind us and I started to catch some nice rides surfing the waves. I like to think that at least part of that was based on skill - on knowing how to stay on top of a wave and ride it - though Jim later attributed it to the hull shape of my boat. In any case, I wound up far out in front. I had to keep moving at least somewhat to stay stable, and as slowly as I tried to paddle I kept staying way out in front (I did keep checking behind me to keep an eye on where I was relative to Rob and Jim).

Finally, just below the 14th Street Bridge Jim caught up with me. He and I started chatting (that was when he complemented my kayak's ability to surf). Per our plan, we crossed under the bridge and then prepared to cross the river paralleling the bridge. We stopped to let Rob catch up with us and suddenly realized that he was no longer in sight. Where the heck was Rob?

We turned around and paddled back a little bit looking to see if we could find him, but didn't see anything. Then Jim noticed what looked to be someone clinging to the Hains Point fence a ways down the river. Whuh oh. We took off back downriver towards whatever/whoever that was - Jim damn near gave himself a heart attack, he was paddling so hard. When we approached we realized this was not, in fact, Rob. Rather, it was some guy launching some tiny motorized skiff over the fence. How he got there, how he got the boat into the water, and why he thought that was a good place to launch were all beyond me, but as soon as we realized it wasn't Rob it was no longer my problem. What was my problem was that there was still no sign of Rob anywhere.

I know from long experience that Rob likes to break off and check out things that interest him, and he's a fast paddler so he has the speed to go off exploring and then get back to a group. So at that point we figured that most likely Rob had gone off on his own and we'd find him at the marina, and if not it would be time to call 911. There also would have been a lot of explaining to do to Rob's wife, who had accompanied him as a chance to go for a walk and get a change of scenery from being trapped in the house.

The 14th St. bridge is actually five different spans, and with all the different supporting piers the sight lines in the area of the bridge(s) are pretty poor. Rob had indeed broken off early to cross the river and at the point when we first realized we couldn't see him he probably wasn't all that far from us but we couldn't see him with all the obstructions from the bridge spans. Likewise, he had seen us cross under the bridge, but then from his perspective we disappeared as well (likely when we went back to look for him) and so he then turned around to go look for us (on the other side of the river, though). Eventually we all spotted each other and we made it back to the marina without further incident.

Rob, not invisible after all!

Lessons-learned:

1) We should have had our radios on. I had mine with me and eventually turned it on. When Rob lost track of us he tried to hail us on the radio, but that was before I turned mine on, and Jim didn't have his.

2) Stay with the f*cking group.

3) Always maintain situational awareness of the others in your group.

4) Even under the worst of circumstances, cherry blossoms are beautiful!

We all made it back safe and sound. We each loaded our own boats (no touching each others' gear), said our six foot distant goodbyes, and vowed to paddle again the following week. Alas, by a week later the Stay At Home orders were in effect and all of our usual launches were closed. I'm glad we got out when we did - who knows when we'll be able to paddle again?


*OK, "leading" is an exaggeration, but it's safe to say he's contributing more to the response than many members of the Administration 

Loudoun Lockdown

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) reveals some obvious answers: a chance to ride quiet roads that aren't chockablock with high speed homicidal drivers (n.b.: on country roads one may avoid the high speed traffic, but there is always the chance of an encounter with a homicidal redneck pickup truck driver), beautiful country scenery, a great workout from extra effort that's required to move a bike over a rough surface, and of course the lack of road-biking culture. Since I never miss an opportunity to do so, let me take a moment to trash the obnoxious culture of road riding - roadies are the people riding in packs in matchy-matchy Lycra outfits, and if you can't match their fast pace in a tight pace line, they have no use for you. Elitist, competitive, obnoxious.

So, gravel cycling offers a more mellow, in touch with nature workout - much more my kind of experience. Plus, if you for some reason want all of your internal organs vigorously rattled until you feel that your internal organs might start leaping out of your body, there's nothing like riding a no suspension bike down a washboard gravel road.

That about sums it up

One downside to gravel riding is that for those of us in urban environments it can't be done close to home. The closest unpaved roads to me are out in Loudoun County, a good 45 minute drive from home. So, I don't get to do it too often, but I enjoy it when I do!

Holsteins

A new friend

I parked in the nearly empty parking lot of Harmony Middle School in Purcellville (when I set it as a destination Google Maps warned me it might be "closed permanently" - ulp!). There was a cop in a police cruiser sitting near the front of the school, but he didn't seem to mind my being there. I pulled out my bike and geared up, including a new innovation. As mentioned above, I have a bike computer/GPS device which I had loaded with the route I was going to ride. Through a mechanism that remains a little bit of a mystery to me (by this I mean that there's no app explicitly handling this this connection), the bike computer connects to my phone. It was about 2 PM and I knew the release of the Executive Order initiating the lockdown was imminent. I stuck an earphone in one ear (leaving the other open for situational awareness), started the local news radio station streaming, and headed off. It worked out really well - I had the radio playing in my right ear, and every time I was due to make a turn the bike computer would beep and the radio would momentarily be interrupted and the GPS would deliver directions in my ear - just like GPS in the car. After the lockdown news report I switched to podcasts. Listening to something really makes the miles fly by, and the turn-by-turn directions are great, as I do have a nasty knack for missing turns when I'm out riding in the countryside.

Horse farm

Sadly, Loudoun keeps getting more and more built up and along the way more and more roads are getting paved, so my ride switched back and forth a lot between paved and gravel roads.And have I mentioned the wind? This was something I hadn't anticipated. The weather overall was just about perfect - sunny, 70-ish temperature, but oh, the wind! Blowing from the west at 20+ MPH (according to Weather Underground, peak gusts were 29 MPH). I started out riding right into it, and after a few miles I wasn't sure whether to even continue. Actually, the first couple of miles were pretty miserable overall. For my route, I had cut a 40 mile loop I had found online in half and the extra connecter part, which is where I started, was classic no shoulder high speed traffic riding. But then I made a turn of off the highway of doom and ... graveltopia! Well, I was still riding into the wind, but otherwise it quickly got pretty bucolic. Open vistas, mountains in the distance, farms, barns, animals, flowers, rolling hills - climbs steep enough to make you work, but not so long and steep as to challenge the stitches in my patchwork ticker.

The donkey

Let me tell you, this part of Loudoun has some pretty spectacular houses, too. Big, estate-sized homes on acres of land. I enjoyed looking at them (I wouldn't enjoy mowing the lawns). When I got home I looked up the area on Zillow and was amused to discover that only the largest homes were worth more than my dumpy little Arlington house. Yes, I could trade in my life for 5,000 sq. ft., a two car garage and three acres in Loudoun. But I wouldn't want to.

Anyway, I really enjoyed the ride. It was a beautiful day, the scenery was great and I particularly made sure to experience it to the fullest knowing it would be a while before I could do a ride like this again (while outdoor exercise is allowed under the pandemic lockdown order, it doesn't seem right to by traipsing all over Virginia during an order to stay close to home).

Country vista

Toward the very end of the ride I noticed that my rear tire was losing air. I had three choices: keep riding and hope I got back before it went totally flat, use my precious compressed air canister to fill the tire, hoping that even with a slow leak it would hold me long enough to get back, or stop and change the tube. Well, I knew I had maybe a mile left to ride and could walk it if I had to, so I opted for the first choice, figuring I could use the other two as a backup. I made it - barely.

Overall, a great ride and I zoomed home on cruise control in what ordinarily would have been peak rush hour - lockdown does have its silver linings.