Ah the 4th 'o July weekend wrap-up! Explosions in the sky. Suntan lotion. Funnel Cake. Harborfest. The tourist season is in now in high gear now. This kind of thing made me want to leave SE Virginia faster than dry wick burning on one of the thousands of cheap bottle rockets lit over the weekend when I was a kid. I have never really cared much for crowds. Mob mentalities and the descent of the collective IQ have no appeal for me.
Instead I celebrated by doing different stuff. I began the day with an early morning trail ride out at Ipswich which I have discussed here before. In the past I have stated that this trail is always different every time I go. I do not go there much. A couple of times around and that's about all there is. Not much to see. There are the basic trails which see little to no maintenance, random man made obstacles (bridges, A-frames, teeters, drop offs, log piles) strewn about and the dirt jump lines. New things spring up, things get torn down and life goes on. This time around most of the obvious man made stuff had been removed since the last time I was out. This was kind of bummer as some pretty nice bridgework was gone necessitating alternate routes to complete the loops. There was several different versions of bridges that spanned this creek pictured below since I returned to the area, but there was not even a trace of any of that left. I have a feeling someone may rebuild something here as it really kinda screws up the loop without it.
Nonetheless, the "switch" still felt like it always had since I began riding out there nearly 20 years ago. It is still a chaotic mess that is fast, twisty and filled with naturally technical terrain that keeps you focused. The faster you ride it the better. I was cooking along pretty well so no complaints.I then picked up the fam and went down to see a buddy and his family that I played with in a band in the early 90's down at the beach. It felt great to catch up and talk about all the crazy shit from back then. Good times.
Then it was off to my friends house who had left us run of his place while he was away for the weekend. He has a pool and it overlooks the cargo loading docks across the river. I had a neato floaty doo dad that I wanted to try out with the lil' man. He loved it and it was just nice and low key fun.
Tons of explosions in the sky rang out through the evening. We had no need to go get in the middle of any of that. We lucked out as our balcony afforded us a perfect view of the Harborfest show. Best of all I could sip wine w/o having to deal with any alcohol check points. Once in a lifetime...
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