The first of August was the kickoff of the NABA Convention, and my short work week. We took a bus ride down to Monroe, WI, and toured the Minhas Brewery. They gave us generous portions of their beer to taste, and a nice lunch to boot.
That evening, the Brewmaster’s Dinner was held, and (as usual) it was a splendid affair, with delicious food, including Duck Soup (despite the Marx Brothers jokes flying around the room).
Thursday, August 2, was a bunch of workshops etc. for the beer memorabilia collectors, and my usual “day off” during the Conventions, so I can get out and see some of the local color.
Naturally, Jack and I took another of the wonderful bike circuits around the city. We saw the sand cranes again, right next to the path near a warehouse, and they didn’t have any issue at all with me stopping and snapping some shots.
Somehow, the pair ended up on opposite sides of the chain link fence.
This time, we hit the Southwest Path after riding across the long boardwalk near Babcock County Park and hitting the Capital City Trail, still under construction. We crossed the “jetty” between Lake Monona and Monona Bay into the downtown Madison area again, and then, instead of heading east as we’d done the other day, we struck out west, on the Southwest Path.
Look who we met! Of course, Jack had to take photos of Rugby Badger.
It was a thoroughly wonderful ride. Jack reported it far surpassed the ride he’d taken yesterday which tried to be the same thing, but never quite came together for him. Circling through the countryside, and a small part of the University of Wisconsin area, we finally hit the Cannonball Path, which took us back to the Capital City and thus home.
At the long boardwalk, I stopped to see if I could possibly capture the length of the structure across the water, and I saw some ducks and turtles.
These photos don’t do the boardwalk justice, but there simply no place to stand and get a photo of its breadth, without a boat.
This is from a small fishing dock you can get to via the boardwalk. This is the end closest to Madison.
We could see a lot of the boardwalk from the Babcock County neighborhoods — but this shows by no means all of it.
Bike Stats:
Ride Time = 2:25
Stopped Time = 37 minutes
Distance = 28.5 miles
Average Speed = 11.75MPH
It was a great ride, and we completed my day off with a package meal of pork chops, potatoes, carrots, onions, and celery. It is all packed together in foil and the packets are roasted on the grill (or campfire) and what results is simply delicious.
This trip is in honor of several April birthdays, including mine and Jack’s. We’re off to go camping with Mary and John (Mary has an April b-day, too) over to Virginia Beach, to stay at First Landing State Park. Our first stop along the total 6-ish hour drive was an overnight at our fave southern Virginia campground, North Bend (about 3 hours drive from home). Followers have heard about our excellent experiences over the years at North Bend, and this was no exception, even if it was too short (one night). We didn’t even unhitch or take the bicycles off the rack.
But we did go to have a look at the unserviced site, along the same peninsula into Kerr Lake, that we reserved for our return west again—at that point, we’ll be meeting up with Alto trailer friends, and doing a “boondock” for a 3-night stay with them. It is a lovely site, #117 at the end of the peninsula, with a nice park bench situated so a body can watch the sun set. Our friends will be across the small road on a similar but east-facing site.
We decided to try out the park bench. As we sat there, unwinding from our drive, we saw an eagle fly into a tall pine across the inlet. The Canada geese below had a bit of a heart-attack when it flew over, because one of the pair was sitting on a nest (could see all this with binoculars). The one not incubating the eggs was in the water, and it honked and splashed around, getting big and mean when the eagle flew overhead; but then it settled when the predator perched and stayed put for a while (despite being harassed by crows).
Look who was there at North Bend to greet us!
Our outbound site, #114, has pretty robust cell service, but down at #117, it’s truly magnificent. Among the purposes for this trip is to de-winterize Roomba, so when we got to North Bend, we spent some time at the dump station. Before leaving, Jack had filled the fresh water tank, and flushed all the antifreeze into the gray waste tank. Then he refilled the fresh water tank and dosed it with some Clorox, so that would get some good sloshing around on our drive to North Bend. Then, before even seeing our campsite, we dumped the gray tank and ran the fresh water tank empty again; filled it again, and dumped everything again. It took a while, but it was the middle of the day and there weren’t too many rigs there on a Tuesday, so we didn’t create any long waiting lines.
Narrow entry to back into.
Sunny now, but soon to be more shady.
While the site has full hookups, we opted for only the electricity, as we wanted to have one more flush of the system before we used any site’s water hookups. Around 6P, we had a dinner of pesto pasta and a salad, and listened to some more of our audiobook (the next in the “Department Q” series, called The Scarred Woman) before hitting the hay.
The next day (April 11) we set out for Virginia Beach by about 10A. Things were fine until we got close to the Suffolk/Chesapeake/VA Beach metroplex, where we found some construction that backed up one lane onto the “Outer Loop” of Interstate 64, as everyone including us tried to exit from I-64 onto I-264 East. Other than that one long crawl to the exit, it was the best way to go. I-264 ends up ending as a highway and becoming the last city street before you “T” into Pacific/Atlantic Ave. along the shoreline at VA Beach. Turn left there and First Landing is just a few miles north, around the curve into the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay, and thus to our spot, #181.
The site is tight but cozy and discreet except at our bumper end.
Roomba from the dune, on the northwest, toward the Bay.
We took our time nesting and setting up, figuring out how best to occupy our very small (intimate) site. But things worked out and we put the picnic table under the screen house, which is arranged at the hitch-end of the trailer. Unfortunately, there are no trees here big enough to hold our hammocks, but over the dune to the west is a flat, sandy area like a private sunning area. We’re a goodly distance from the water, and don’t want to walk over the dunes to get there anyway, but there are boardwalks arranged strategically for campers to use to get to the water.
The bath house here offers 4 private showers, but the toilets and sinks are commonly-accessed, with the men’s on one side and the women’s on the opposite. Between the two sides, where the showers are, is a generous amount of space for washing dishes—two sinks (but no drain stoppers) and a long counter for putting your dishes.
Somewhere in the midst of set-up, a couple walking a pretty dog happened by and they hailed us as fellow Alto owners. We had driven past their 1743 model without seeing it, but they’re just down the road a bit from our site.
Michel and Claudette are from Quebec, and we’ve become familiar with their names from our Alto owners group on Facebook. Michel has some Scottish background, and he and Jack got to talking malt whiskey, so after dinner (grilled tuna steaks & zucchini, with rice) we got together in our screen house to share. It was a chilly but very fun night, and putting 3 panels on the windward side of the screen house kept things from getting too terribly cold.
We enjoyed talking of travels, and plans, and cultures far into the night. By the time we actually called it an evening, both Jack and I were chilled to the bone and Roomba’s insides felt even colder than outside, so we turned on the heat pump—even though the outside temps were in the 40s. We slept well at the end of a long, fun day, looking forward to bicycling and seeing John and Mary when they arrive tomorrow.
Finally got our lazy behinds moving enough to take a ride today (April 27). We suited up, lubed the chains, and met Kerry on the opposite side of the main highway (Rt 60 or Shore Drive) where the mainly day use areas and woodsy trails are in this enormous state park.
We took a paved trail, named the Cape Henry Trail, in the direction of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel, until it ran out. Saw some interesting things along the way, once we left the Park and headed through some pretty residential areas. We were also surprised to see that we passed behind the grocery store we’d been shopping – knowing we could ride our bikes easily and off-road to get provisions is a good thing for next time.
It is difficult to see here, but one sculpture id Spiderman, made of wire mesh or mesh panels
Reversed course to see where the pavement on the opposite side of the main park entry road would take us, and the pavement itself was terrible, with deep potholes and high ridges pushed up by roots. It circled back to the main road at another entrance to the Cape Henry trail (and several others) which were unpaved. Kerry decided he had had enough for the day, and returned to the campground.
Jack and I deliberated a while, due to the fact that we’d placed skinny tires our bikes for the Cycle NC ride just passed, but then said, “How wrong can we be?” And took off into the woods.
While there were tree roots pushed up along the path, it was wide and flat and we had no trouble avoiding the hazards, which also included deep loose sand in a spot or two. But for the most part, the trails was packed and covered with a light dusting of pine needles, so it was soft and quite lovely.
We found a map that said we could exit the trail at 64th Street in VA Beach, so we checked that out and while we didn’t find a bike lane proper, there was a parallel road that had almost zero vehicle use, bordering a residential section, which served as a lovely bike road.
A little while later, as the bigger road turned into Atlatic Ave., we found something called the Maritime Trail, and that led us right to the boardwalk. Which, by the way, isn’t made of wood any more.
The wind off the Atlantic Ocean was quite strong, and the clouds were gathering for the afternoon storm that was forecast. Jack had neglected to bring along a jacket, and we had to ride pretty fast to keep him warm, so we began looking for a bike shop so he might be able to buy a coat. Cycled down to the Pier without any luck, and decided it was time for lunch.
I was glad to see that the seaside amusement park remembered from my youth was still there
Had an excellent pizza and a salad at a place just off Atlantic Ave., looked for where our devices directed us to a cycle shop (evidently now closed with the space a barber shop today), and decided to beat a fast path back to the campground. Again followed the parallel road until the main road made a bend and turned back into Shore Drive, where we found excellent pavement and a dedicated bike line along both edges of the four-lane. Doesn’t get much better than that.
Jack was really cranking the pedals up the road, and I just managed to keep up, and we got back to camp around 3, and took hasty showers. The rain was definitely coming, so we took down the screen house and had the greatest time watching the osprey over the bay.
They were hovering like kestrels, using the wind (blowing strongly out of the east) to just “sit” in the air. We saw many of them dive into the water, where we would lose sight of them beyond the dunes. But now and again, one would fly over the campground and our site, carrying a fish overland to their nests. This went on for ages, and we saw many, many of them score successes and carry their bounty over our heads. Total bliss.
We left with Kerry and Gloria in their car to head out to Trader Joes. What a nice store! We had a great time looking at all the fun foods and planned and provisioned for the trip to North Bend Campground, where a grocery store is not just right around the corner but rather 20-30 miles away.
Got back home and began prep-and-grill of our quit late dinner together. Pork roast, asparagus, salad, and rice. Just as we sat down to eat the skies opened up and it rained significantly on us as we sat under our awning. We stayed dry, ate well, and enjoyed the close of our last day at First Landing. This is definitely a place we’d like to return to one day.
The next morning, April 28 (Roomba’s adoption anniversary) I was up just after dawn when I saw a blue grosbeak, just foraging around the campsite. I haven’t seen one of those for years. Later, as we were nearing the completion of the pack-stow-and hitch process, I first heard, then saw a little hummingbird in one of the nearby live oaks. Such a bounty of birds!
Not my photo, rather, borrowed from my bird guide
Headed west for the final camp-stop of this adventure, and lost track of Kerry and Gloria somewhere near Portsmouth. Had a fuel stop and lunch in Emporia, Virginia. Texted with Jack and Martha (coming from Meadows of Dan to meet us), Gloria and Kerry, to locate everyone en route, and got to our site at about 3:30.
The setting by the lake – site C-152The view from our “porch”The screen house
It is truly a lovely campground, and quite inexpensive for senior citizens — far les expensive than my fave state park, Occoneechee, nearly next door. But since this is a federal site, also on Bugg’s Island/Kerr Lake, as is Occoneechee, it is a true asset to the citizens of America, so is available for less cost.
Anyway, we gathered not only with Jack and Martha, and Kerry and Gloria, but also Jack and Martha’s friends, John and Lisa. All of us are near one another and John and Lisa built a fire and we told stories and lies, ate dinner, and laughed tougher until about 10, when we hit the hay. Two great days.
peregrinations 