James - 4.6ft – Miki, Tim, JSnitzer, Cotton, Gus, Jim K, Bob, Wes, John L, Dave N, Glen, Barb, Jon Hauris
12 paddlers braved the traffic on I-95 to reach the flavor of the week - the James. Although careful thoughts and some mathematical algorithms were involved in choosing the time of meeting to avoid traffic one unexpected truck which caught fire near Richmond made all predictions obsolete and yet again all but one were waiting patiently on the highway. However, one miracle did happen on that day – all cars maintained the convoy from Dale City and reached the takeout (despite some prophets of the apocalypse predicting lost cars on bridges, dead end roads, and open fields).
The group put in at Ponypasture around 1:30, whence we had 2.5 miles to catch up on gossip, politics, etc… while floating in the beautiful sun. Bob M took the lead making sure no one was going to float accidentally into Hollywood. Hollywood was more formidable than a few of us remembered resulting in quite a dithering on the rock. In the end some of us took pictures while the rest took 3 different lines through the rapid. No carnage for Richmond’s youth and beauty, tastefully assembled on the shore, to watch. All of us enjoyed playing the whole way down to the takeout. For the record, one paddler was new top the run.
A few paddlers took the locals' advice and had a great dinner at Legend brewery, congratulating ourselves as well for missing rush-hour traffic on the way home.