by Tim Tilson
"Nine for Kellys Ford" - Wouldn’t that be a great name for a Rock Band (as Dave Berry would say) or maybe a Western. In any case we had nine paddlers on the river today;
Ginny and Gary Q, Bob Whiting and his buddy Randy Cooper, Hendrik and I met at Andes Store in Remington. All OC1s btw. I had set 10:00 as the meeting time, and those OC1 folks are some on-time people. When I arrived at 0948, all were there. We did a quick shuttle and were on the river by around 1100. Va DOT had only recently opened the Bus 15/29 bridge which had been closed for repairs. We think they did something to the area underneath, because there didn’t seem to be as much room as before. Also the Randy Carter gauge on the bridge pier appears to have faded away.
The level was 4.4 and beautiful fall day. Everyone ran Sandy Beach Rapids just fine. As we sat down to lunch I was expecting to see John S and Jim Long coming up the river because they had planned to attain up from Kelly’s Ford. . However, they were soon spotted coming down river with a third paddler Karl (?). Turns out the attain was tougher than they anticipated, and so with a pickup truck they did a quick trip to one of Jim’s buddys' and used another secret put in to get on the river just above the rapids.
We almost had a 10th member as we met a fisherman at Sandy Beach who stayed and talked with us for about 30+ minutes. There was some excitement during the post luncheon surfing session.
Most of us then went down stream and as we turned a bend in the river and looked back upstream, there were Jim and Karl surfing away.
No ice cream at Remington Drug, as they were doing curbside only service.
Off the river around 1:45.
from John Snitzer:
Fine day on the river, as reported. The attainment from the Kelly's Ford Bridge is a challenge. I'm bringing a jet boat next time.
FYI, there is a place on the west side of Rt 29, just north of where the bypass through Remington rejoins, called the Moo Thru, https://moothru.com/ They sell dairy products. It lacks the old time charm of the drugstore in town but had the advantage of being open today for drive through service. I stopped by for research purposes. Good results so far, but clearly, more sampling is needed.
JS
John Snitzer
5:20 PM (21 minutes ago)
to Tim, Mark, Gary, Hendrik, Bob, Jim, me, Wayne, Barb, David, gusanderson@aol.com, Ron, Bob, Larry, Tony, Miki, Kim
Fine day on the river, as reported. The attainment from the Kelly's Ford Bridge is a challenge. I'm bringing a jet boat next time.
FYI, there is a place on the west side of Rt 29, just north of where the bypass through Remington rejoins, called the Moo Thru, https://moothru.com/ They sell dairy products. It lacks the old time charm of the drugstore in town but had the advantage of being open today for drive through service. I stopped by for research purposes. Good results so far, but clearly, more sampling is needed.
JS