The popularity of endurance sports has exploded in recent years not only among adult athletes but mong the youth segment as well. This is positive news in a world where inactivity threatens the health of a generation of youngsters.  Swimming, cycling and running are activities that many youth gravitate to naturally, so encouraging your children to join in your endurance-sports lifestyle can lead to years of quality family time and healthy living. There are several key points to keep in mind when introducing your children to the endurance lifestyle.

Keep it fun!

Adults speak ‘workouts’, but kids speak ‘play,’ and as long as fun is the main focus, young athletes will eagerly participate in physical activities. With a little creativity, any workout can be turned into fun and games. For example, turn cycling intervals (in a traffic free zone) into a game of Cops and Robbers. The ‘robbers’ have a head start based on need, and the ‘cops’ try to catch and pass them (yelling ‘Caught you!’ if successful). Both sides will get an intense workout and have a blast playing this catch-me-if-you-can game.

Keep it fun and reap a lifetime of rewards. Credit: Endorphin Fitness

Head out to a local park and lay out parkour style laps to run. Jump small creeks, vault fallen trees or small boulders along the way, and repeat the lap after a rest. Trying to maintain or better the time it took to run a lap is something most kids find highly motivating. You can work on core strength together during a cool down by playing Duck, Duck Plank, a twist on the classic schoolyard game. Participants form a circle and hold a plank pose while the ‘goose’ is being chosen. Once the chase is on, the remaining players may rest from their plank pose. Kids love this game and will beg to play until everyone has had a turn (or two!).

Keep it Short

It’s important for youth to train and race at distances that allow for speed development, as this is a crucial skill to acquire during the adolescent years. While endurance is something that can and should be built upon over a lifetime, there is a specific window in which to develop optimum speed in young athletes. Shorter distances allow them to develop their skills, optimize speed, and race events at competitive paces rather than merely finish an adult distance event. Thankfully the growth of youth endurance sports like triathlon, cycling and running has led to many opportunities for racing at age appropriate distances. Base training distances off of these USAT recommended youth race distances:

6-9-year-olds: 100-meter swim, 5k bike, 1K run

10-14-year-olds: 200-300-meter swim, 10k bike, 2.5k run

Awwww! Credit: Endorphin Fitness

Let the Child Own the Sport

Sharing a passion for endurance sports with your kids can be a wonderful bonding experience that allows for years of adventure and fun together. As you enjoy the sport as a family, take care to keep your competitive nature limited to your own training and racing. For a child athlete, nothing will kill the joy faster than a parent who is overly invested in their child’s athletic achievements. Let the child lead in terms of how much training or racing they are ready to take on, and then nurture their desire and support their personal goals.

It is the nature of children to be active and enjoy the outdoors, so no matter the endurance sport you participate in, you are setting a positive example they will be inclined to follow. Involving your kids in a youth version of endurance sports will enable you to reap many additional rewards as a family. Just remember the key points — keep it fun; keep it short and let the child own the sport. Doing so will allow you to reach the ultimate goal — having fun together while staying active in a sport that can benefit all of you for years to come.

This May is National Bike Month, a nationwide celebration of bicycles and bicycling. Every city and region celebrates National Bike Month differently, and festivities range from rallies at City Hall, to rides with elected officials, to bike parties, to bike commute contests. Which got us thinking at Bike Walk RVA: “How big can Bike Month be in greater Richmond?”

So a few weeks ago, we brought together our most active community volunteers and starting putting small-scale but fun events on the calendar. As the evening progressed and the beer was consumed, the calendar began to fill and pretty soon we had a packed month of activities for everyone to enjoy.

View the full calendar here!

Richmonders ride through Monroe Park during Bike to Work Day 2013. Credit: Phil Riggan

The idea wasn’t to take ownership of events all over the region, but rather help facilitate and empower community members to think creatively and come up with one or two small-scale events that they could pull off in their own backyard. Our collective focus was on inclusivity, family-friendliness, and most importantly, FUN. The events range from morning rides to local coffee shops, “Kidical Mass” group rides for children, a Mother’s Day ride, a women’s only scavenger hunt, and even a “donut crawl” to visit local donut shops. National Bike to Work Day, May 16, will feature five commuter coffee and snack stations throughout the city of Richmond.

The full calendar of the month’s festivities can be viewed online and includes all the various large-scale bike events planned for May as well, such as the USAC Collegiate Road Cycling National Championships (volunteers needed) and the Virginia Capital Trail Foundation’s Cap 2 Cap Ride (volunteers needed for this, too). Anyone who is interested in hosting an event and adding it to the calendar is encouraged to contact Brantley Tyndall, Community Engagement Coordinator for Bike Walk RVA at Brantley@sportsbackers.org.

Every month is bike month in Paris. Credit: Wikipedia.org

Also notable on the Bike Month calendar is a regional series of post-work, social bike-commuting seminars targeting dense employment centers in Henrico, Chesterfield, and the city of Richmond. Employees of area businesses are encouraged to come meet others interested in riding to work who may share a similar commute path, learn some tips and tricks from those with riding experience, and get plugged into the development of bike-friendly projects in the region. Snacks and beverages will be provided.

Local employees are encouraged to sign up for any of the following seminars:

May 7 at The Boulders in Southside, 5:30 p.m.; May 8 at Innsbrook for West End riders, 6 p.m.; May 21 at MeadWestvaco in Downtown Richmond, 5 p.m.

Finally, Bike Walk RVA is working in conjunction with the City of Richmond to conduct Richmond’s first-ever Bicycle Documentation Project, where bike riders will be counted by volunteers over a three-day period at 22 locations all over the city. Why are we doing this? Because new bike lanes often start with good documentation about what streets are used – or not used – by bicycle riders. And it’s our job to count them, so we know how much bike traffic a corridor gets pre- and post-bike lane, and help make the case for future bikeways in our region.

Interested people can sign up for one of the following shifts: Tuesday, May 6, 5 to 7 PM; Wednesday, May 7, 5 to 7 PM; Thursday, May 8, 5 to 7 PM

Participants will be assigned a location in central Richmond that is convenient to them and supplied with all the materials needed to be an excellent and prepared bike count volunteer.

There’s a lot going on for Bike Month this year! It might not all be high-profile, but hopefully there’s at least a little something for everyone.

A scene from last year’s East Coast Triathlon Festival.

Richmond is fast becoming the country’s endurance hotspot, and everyone better be ready. During the first weekend of May, Richmond will host two of the country’s premier endurance events on the same weekend: USA Cycling’s Collegiate Road Cycling National Championships and USA Triathlon’s Youth/Junior Elite East Coast Cup (aka East Coast Triathlon Festival).  These events will bring the country’s top junior and collegiate athletes to Richmond from almost every state in the country where they will compete head-to-head against the very best.

The United States’ future Olympians and professional athletes in the sport of triathlon and cycling will most likely come from these two fields. More so, these two events are a prelude to the 2015 Road World Cycling Championships, which will be one of the biggest events to ever touch down in Richmond, with the world’s best cyclists and thousands of spectators traveling to Richmond.

Richmond, stand up and take your place as the country’s endurance capital. Let’s not miss this opportunity to show the country (and in 2015, the world) why these events have chosen Richmond as their host. This is our chance to take this momentum and grow our lead even further while creating endless future opportunities.

The Collegiate Road National Championships will be held May 2-4 with events each day. The East Coast Triathlon Festival featuring the Youth/Junior Elite Triathlon East Coast Cup will be held May 4 with events for youth and adult amateurs in addition to the elite races throughout the day. Be at these events! Bring your family and your friends – especially those who do not quite get the endurance thing and show them what it is all about. Come out ready to cheer hard – bring your cow bells, face paint, and what have you and let’s show the world that endurance sports are to be spectated to the extreme just like its participants. 

Let’s also go beyond that and show an amazing amount of hospitality to these athletes, too. They will be easy to recognize – just look for the cleanly-shaven, chiseled legs ready to go to work in the race of their life. Strike up a conversation with them, ask what you can do to support them while in Richmond, wish them good luck, and, if nothing else, tell them you will be there on race day cheering them on!

Stand up Richmond and take your place.  Let’s all grab this opportunity, this victory, and run away with the crown, setting ourselves apart as the forerunner in the endurance world. Stand up Richmond – the time is now.

I don’t know anyone who doesn’t want their kid to enjoy fishing. The peace and quiet, the beautiful settings, the ability to spend quality time together with no electronic devices – fishing has it all from a parent/kid standpoint. But, let’s be honest, getting a kid to like fishing as much as you do – or even just enough to get them out the door and on a boat – is often easier said than done.

It’s smiles all around when the lines are tight.

They get “bored” if they don’t catch something in the first three casts. Or they don’t like being wet. Or they’re hungry.

Luckily, there’s a solution: Shad fishing in downtown Richmond from late March to early May. Sure it’s temporary, but shad fishing is a great way to get the kids outside and probably the best way in this area to get something consistently pulling on the other end of the line – the key to getting kids hooked (so to speak). And you can do it from the bank or a boat.

When it comes to taking kids fishing, I always gravitate toward lures that can be tossed out and reeled straight in without a lot of unnecessary finesse. Most shad baits are perfect for that.

The most kid-friendly rigs are shad darts and spoons. They are best fished on a medium to light spinning rod with 6 to 10 pound test.

My favorite rig is to run the line through a ¼ ounce egg slip sinker and tie the tag end to a swivel. Attach about 18 inches to two feet to the other side of the swivel and tie on a shad dart or spoon. The line from the swivel to the dart or spoon should be rather stiff and a little heavier gauge. If I am running 8-pound test to the swivel from the reel, I will go with something like 12-pound test from the swivel to the spoon or dart. The thicker, stiffer line is most important when fishing a spoon to avoid line twist.

Shad fishing (not pictured) this time of year is one of the best ways to keep kids catching fish.

From there it is just a matter of casting across the current and commencing with a slow to medium retrieve, depending on the depth and current.

Then just hang on when they bite.

One thing I have learned out there is that you can’t be afraid to move. Sometimes a matter of 10 yards can be the difference between catching them hand over fist and not getting a bite.

As for color of spoons and darts, if you aren’t catching them on one then switch to another color. I generally start with a silver spoon, then switch to gold and finally chartreuse if I need to. If one of these colors doesn’t work, you are in the wrong spot or the fish just aren’t around.

The white perch will show up soon as well and they certainly prefer a curly tailed grub or shad dart over the spoons.

Larus Park boasts a couple of unnamed streams. Credit: Leonard Adkins

I probably owe you an apology, dear reader. When Andy and I first discussed my writing for Richmondoutside.com, Laurie and I were relative newcomers to the Richmond area, having lived here for little more than a year. The idea was that I was to write about places to walk and hike as I gradually discovered them as a newbie. Well, I’ve been here more than five years now and there’s a place that I’ve been going to quite regularly for the past four years that I’ve yet to tell you about it.

It’s probably due to a bit of selfishness, I guess. You see, every time — but one — that I’ve walked in Lewis G. Larus Park, I’ve encountered only one other person. That doesn’t necessarily mean that no one else was on the park’s 106 acres, but it is definitely an indicator of how little the park is used. Sure, you can hear traffic from Chippenham Parkway on the eastern edge of the park, and there are houses visible along the western boundary, but it is this lack of human encounters and sense of solitude so close to downtown Richmond that has selfishly kept me from telling anyone about it.

The place kind of has the feel of being the poor relations in the city’s park system. Richmond has owned the land since the late 1970s, but it wasn’t until 2006 that there was a sign identifying it as public property. There’s no real parking lot at the main entrance, just a place to pull off the pavement so that you don’t black the back entrance to Fire Station #25 on Huguenot Road. Larus doesn’t have a “Friends of” organization like many other Richmond parks do, such as Monroe, Bryan, and Libby Hill. Finally, whereas Battery, Byrd, Gillies Creek, and other parks have their own web pages on the Department of Parks, Recreation, and Community Facilities website that describe their many attributes, Larus is lumped together on a single page with every other park and is identified as having only one amenity, an exercise trail.

A boardwalk in Larus Park. Credit: Leonard Adkins

The city may consider it just an exercise trail, and it could be used for a light cardiovascular workout, as the main route does lose and gain a couple of hundred feet in elevation as it goes in and out of a small creek valley and some of the side trails have some short ascents along them. However, the trail system has no circuit routes and it’s not very extensive. Unless you’ll be shuttling with your car to hike from one park entrance to another (other trailheads are next to the Sabot at Stony Point School, the Virginia Urology building near Stony Point Fashion Park, and Old Holly Road near the James River), you’ll have to do some backtracking. You would probably walk a little more than three miles if you were to do all of the trails with as little backtracking as possible.

However, as I said, I come here primarily for the solitude — and the appreciation of a bit a green space within a large population center. From the Huguenot Road parking area, the trail enters an evergreen plantation and goes beside a carpet of running cedar, a plant that has always intrigued me. It resembles tiny hemlock or pine trees and, in fact, the small, evergreen club moss can trace its origins back more than 300 million years to when its ancestors grew to be over 100 feet tall. Sadly, the plant is becoming increasingly rare as poachers gather it to use as greenery in Christmas decorations.

The trees that tower above are loblolly pines, adapted well to poorly drained and heavy soils. Growing straight and tall, with scales that become larger and smoother as the tree ages, the loblolly can be identified by its deep green needles that grow in bunches of three. Pitch pine needles also grow in bunches of three but are more of a yellow-green. The needles of the Virginia pine are in bundles of two.

Later this summer, there will be two trailside treats growing in the park — blueberries and pawpaws. Many people use the names huckleberry and blueberry interchangeably, but they are two distinct plants. The branches of blueberries always have small warts and each berry will have more than 100 seeds. A huckleberry contains fewer than a dozen seeds and its twigs are wart-free. Usually growing in moister soils, the pawpaw tree can grow to 40 feet tall. The best way to enjoy the pawpaw’s fruit is fresh off the tree. Cut it open, scoop out the flesh, and be sure to discard the seeds, which are poisonous. Some people say the creamy white-to-orange flesh has the consistency of custard or yogurt and tastes like a very ripe banana with hints of mango and pineapple. Enjoy, and eat away. Pawpaws contain three times as much vitamin C as an apple, twice as much riboflavin as an orange, about the same amount of potassium as a banana, and lots of amino acids.

I’ve unburdened my guilt; take advantage of my apology and go visit the solitude of Lewis G. Larus Park. Just be sure to go during the middle of the week, because — that single instance when I saw more than one person? It was on a Saturday during New Year’s week and I encountered more than two dozen people, most of them walking their dogs.

Spring means pollen, lots of pollen coating our cars and porches in an ugly yellow film. It’s produced primarily by trees that depend on the wind to disperse it and comes from most conifers, such as pines, spruces, and firs, and from many broadleaf trees  such as cottonwoods, oaks, ashes, elms, birches, and walnuts.

Red maple flowers — insect- or wind-pollinated. Flickr Creative Commons/Martin Labar

Trees take a big reproductive chance by throwing their pollen to the wind, but various strategies increase their chances of success. The hardwoods usually flower before the leaves come out to block the pollen. The pollen-producing male flowers tend to occur in long, drooping catkins to increase dispersal, and most of these trees are high up in the canopy where their pollen is more likely to catch the wind. To further ensure success, the trees produce huge amounts of pollen — as many as 10 million pollen grains from one cluster of birch catkins, for example; most of them land somewhere other than the intended female flower.

Other trees spread their pollen via partners — mostly insects, but also birds and bats. These trees need to produce much less pollen, but they do reward their pollinators with nectar as an energy source and pollen for protein. These tend to be understory trees with relatively large and sometimes fragrant flowers. Their pollen may be sticky rather than dust-like. Insect-pollinated trees include apples, basswood, cherries, black locust, catalpa, holly, horse chestnut, tulip tree, and willows.

Red maples are the first trees to flower — just look up. This is one of the most adaptable native trees. They grow in many soil types and in conditions ranging from wet to dry. Some trees have male flowers, some have female, and some have both on the same plants with the relative proportion changing from year to year.

These trees may also be wind- or insect-pollinated, probably another adaption because of their huge range, from Newfoundland to northern Florida. The wind blows everywhere, but fewer insects are found farther north in early spring, so using both methods is like having an insurance policy.

Oak tree producing pollen.

So after you have taken your antihistamines and are out washing the pollen off the porch, remember that you have experienced one of nature’s amazing strategies for reproduction. In the grand scheme, cleaning up the pollen is a small price to pay to witness this amazing spectacle.

Ask the old-timers, and they’ll give you a variety of indicators that the shad are in the river. My neighbor across the street even has a “shad” bush whose buds and blooms send him digging through his garage for gold spoons and shad darts. When the dogwoods bloom is another classic sign and as reliable as any. Well…if you haven’t noticed, spring has come to the commonwealth, the dogwoods are blooming, and my retired neighbor is scarcely to be found. The shad are here!

The 2014 shad run has only just begun. There’s still plenty of time to get after it.

This time of year marks an amazing transformation to the James River, as hickory and American shad, as well as herring, stack up below the fall line in Richmond on their annual spawning runs. And one shouldn’t overlook the striped bass that come along with them. Every year there are some real bruisers caught right off the banks of the river within the city limits.

Fishing for shad from the banks of the James might be accurately described as urban combat fishing, but I love it. People from all walks of life find their way to the river, from the guys fishing off 14^th Street Bridge to the downtown businessman fresh from work still wearing dress pants and loafers. You laugh, but I’ve seen it all!

Every boat owner within miles flocks to the river. Jon boats, canoes, ski boats, kayaks, bass boats, and small yachts take up just about every inch of fishable water from the 14^th street bridge downstream to I-95 and all the way back to Ancarrow’s landing. If you are looking for peace and solace in your fishing experience, this ain’t it. This time of year is about the birth of a new fishing season, about something pulling on the other end of the line, about getting outside.

They come for the same reason Native Americans and then the first white settlers set up fish camps at the fall line in Richmond each spring, the river is literally teaming with fish this time of year. And it should only get better in the coming month.

The beauty of fishing the river this time of year is that everyone can do it. You don’t need fancy gear or high-end fly rods, just a basic spinning outfit will do, or an old beater fly rod with a sinking line.

When the shad are running, don’t expect to have the James to yourself.

If you are new to the game, I would suggest heading out to Greentop Sporting Goods and having them get you set up with what you need. Shad darts and spoons should do the trick. Many prefer to catch them on the fly rod, which requires a boat. A sinking line and small, simple shad flies in green, orange, or white are all one needs to get the job done.

For those wishing to fish from the bank, the 14^th street bridge parking lot is a good start. Walk downstream. Where you see the anglers, you will likely find the fish. Those with boats are best to launch at Ancarrow’s Landing just below I-95 and head upstream.

A few things to remember while you are out there: You may not keep American shad. Usually the American shad is bigger than a hickory shad, but that is not always a true marker. The easiest way to tell them apart is their jaws. The American’s upper and lower jaws are equal in length when the mouth is closed while the Hickory has an under bite. Also instituted this year is a moratorium on catching herring. You have to throw them back. A good rule of thumb, if you are unsure, just throw them back. Most people do any way.

Even if you are not an angler, I encourage you to head downtown and check out the scene over the course of the next month. It is something to behold.

Richmond, you need to go on a diet – a “road diet”, that is!

Roadway rechannelizations – or “road diets” – take streets that have an excess amount of carrying capacity for cars and reconfigures how the space is used through re-striping of the lane lines. When done right, a good road diet actually improves traffic flow while dramatically increasing the safety of everyone using the road, including people on bikes (by adding bike lanes), on foot (by improving pedestrian crossings), and behind the wheel (by reducing speeding and collisions).

How a road diet might work.

Richmond has a number of streets that can easily go on a diet. Best practice says that most roads with four or more travel lanes and an Average Daily Traffic (ADT) volume of 20,000 cars or less can be reconfigured to one lane in each direction, a center turn lane, and bike lanes.

Full disclosure: I am not a traffic engineer. But it doesn’t necessarily take one to see that some of Richmond’s roadways are significantly overbuilt for cars, and underbuilt for bicycles. Here’s my top seven:

The Leigh Street Viaduct (or MLK Bridge): If you’ve driven across this bridge, you’ve probably noticed there are three lanes in each direction and very little automobile traffic. It’s an important connector from downtown to Church Hill and with an ADT of 9,100 automobiles, this is a perfect candidate for a road diet. In fact, Mayor Jones has already announced plans to stripe wide buffered bike lanes on the bridge by this June.

Brookland Parkway: Between Hermitage and Brook, Brookland Parkway has four travel lanes, two very narrow parking lanes, and a wide center median. A road diet on Brookland Parkway could increase the width of the parking lane (so your car door isn’t hanging out in traffic), and include a nice wide bike lane in each direction. Extend this further east, and you’re connected to the Cannon Creek Greenway.

What Franklin St. would look like with a road diet and bike lanes. Credit: Marc Kaplan/Sports Backers

Manchester Bridge: One of the biggest bicycle and pedestrian challenges we have in Richmond is how to safely get across the James River. The Brown’s Island Dam Walk will be the great new shining star of the riverfront once it’s completed, but the Manchester Bridge is just waiting for new striping that will make biking across safe and easy. With seven total travel lanes and an ADT of 18,000 cars, the Manchester Bridge needs to go on a diet!

Hermitage Road: Hermitage is a major north/south connector from the Northside into the Fan. It also has a bunch of extra carrying capacity. Sharrows were installed on Hermitage over the past couple of years, but wouldn’t a fully separated bike lane be so much better?

Leigh Street (again): One of the best east/west connectors through central Richmond, Leigh Street generally has a lot of extra room for bike lanes. It cinches down to two lanes at times (that’s what sharrows are for), but for the most part, you can easily wedge a bike lane in there and ride comfortably all the way from Scott’s Addition to Church Hill.

Brook Road: Another important north/south connector to and from downtown for many commuters and families. Speaking of downtown…

The MLK Bridge on a road diet and with bike lanes. Credit: Marc Kaplan/Sports Backers

Franklin Street and Main Street: The idea here is to convert one travel lane on each street into a fully protected bike lane. On Franklin, you’d be biking east and on Main, heading west (this type of relationship is called a “couplet”). Franklin and Main have the potential to be Richmond’s first protected bike lanes (or “cycle tracks”) running right through downtown.

There are many other great candidates for road diets out there not listed here. And you know them better than I do, because they are in your neighborhood – you walk, bike, or drive them every day. So what are they, RVA?

Hot, bright, and dancing, the surface of the sun is an explosion of energy hurling visible flares of incandescent plasma millions of miles into space. While these flares and other gaseous prominences flicker like flames at the surface, advancing and retreating, invisible photons of energy are launched on one-way, far-reaching trips to the ends of the universe. The electromagnetic radiation identified as “light” emitted as the sun’s immense mass of hydrogen is continuously fused into helium moves as fast as our conception of motion will allow it — 186,000 miles per hour.  The universal speed limit.

In the deep vacuum of outer space the light-speed travel of these wave-like streams of energy can be intercepted only by larger fields of energy or by chunks of matter. If the chunks of matter are just the right distance from that ball of nuclear fusion, if they are just the right size and rotating at the appropriate speed, and if some of the elements on the chunk of matter have gathered together as water molecules, the energy of the star we call “sun” is not merely intercepted. Having travelled 93 million miles or so to reach us, these streams of universal magic are captured, transformed, and take on new life as mass, form and visible motion. When not used immediately or reflected, the light energy is stored either as plant tissue or as the digested energy for “life” in the animated bodies of an immense population of creatures who consume raw plant tissue or other plant-eating life forms.

2014’s new solar panels emerging.

On our own special chunk of matter, the sun’s portable energy, no more visible to the naked eye than a bright thought, is re-formed into a complex, beautiful, and quite confounding work of physical art. It becomes all the life forms found on the surface of our planet today.     

I can’t believe the temperature will drop into the 20s tonight!  Shivering slightly I run out to the woodpile in the dark and begin kicking and scraping the ground for scraps.  My firewood pile is usually a fairly reliable hourglass, tilting in harmony with the tilting of the earth’s axis and measuring out the two major seasons in Richmond– “cold” and “not cold.”  During the summer and early fall the reserved space under my silver maple tree gradually fills until I have split and stacked two and a half cords or so of wood waiting for the tilt. Sometime in October or November, maybe the first time the breath escaping my mouth looks like a faint wisp of smoke, the timepiece is tilted and this pile of stored energy begins draining or burning through the small throat of my fireplace.  If this were an average winter these scant scraps and oversized knotty pieces I rummage through in the dark, clumped together along the fence like unchosen girls waiting hopefully at the side of the gym for dancing propositions, would indicate the arrival of spring. Usually, before I find myself asking these awkward chunks of tree to the winter dance of flames inside my house, winter has become spring, and it’s time to re-tilt and measure out the “not cold” season again.

Not this winter! And now I’m shaking the hourglass, really, to make every bit of burnable material tumble through the fire.  I find an old chunk that was holding up a wooden bench three or four years ago. Splitting it open reveals burnable wood on one side and a massive community of living creatures on the other. Having learned to use what this tree stored, these creatures are invading it from the side that remained in contact with the earth.  Mostly termites, and some grub worms.

Termites: creatures of decay.

I throw the whole thing into my blaze, not sympathizing enough with those strange, white creatures gnawing through the darkness of decay to value their lives more than my evening’s warmth. They’ve so recently stolen the energy of this wood that they must be mostly wood themselves, anyway. Right? I justify the extermination, and then watch the hesitant, lethargic burning of partially decayed wood. 

What about this nicely edged and cornered piece under the treehouse? It pains me to consider this piece for the fire. A small hunk of tree trunk with such a storied past. The energy that became this tree was flung from the surface of the sun sometime around 1940 and reached the earth 8 minutes or so later.  The tree grew well, shouldered up with only others of its kind as it continued capturing newly arrived energy and converting it into mass, and form. Your 3^rd or 4^th grade teacher told you a little about how this is done, but at that age it may have been difficult to separate and appreciate the particular magic of photosynthesis in a world otherwise full of magic and play. Later, perhaps, it was taught to you as a scientific formula. Do you remember?

CO₂(carbon dioxide) + H₂O(Water) + Sunlight(really!?) = CH₂O(organic matter) + O₂(Oxygen)

Pure magic! Day in and day out during the growing season this red oak lived by this formula, using its ornate green solar panels for the hocus pocus of building and storing energy as matter. Much of the stored energy became the wood of its trunk.

But then there was the buzz saw of human progress. Somehow this tree escaped one of those feverish human plunges into the forest to find itself isolated alongside one of many neatly-lined human habitations seven miles west of downtown Richmond near Patterson and Three Chopt. Conditions worsened for the tree. The earth nearby was covered with asphalt. Each year all of the regenerative droppings and leaves were raked up and hauled away. The fertility of the soil waned.

I just happened to be the one called in 2002 to remove it from the sky. It had become old, weak, and untrustworthy as a companion for humans. I asked a friend with a portable saw mill to make me some long “4×8” sections. My father and I were building an addition on my house and I wanted to mount these rough-cut sections at intervals against the ceiling of my new fireplace room as decorative beams. My 68-year-old father and I had three of these ridiculously heavy, 14-foot hunks of tree to lift up 12 feet into the air on the short end, and 15 feet on the long end. 

I was still physically cocky in those days, but my dad was gradually giving up cockiness in the interest of longevity, and in this case was apprehensive about the beam raising. I talked him into trying and completing the first one, nearly killed him while barely completing the second one, and in a rare moment of lucid prioritization decided it was better to have two beams and one dad than it was to have three beams only. The unselected third beam became a multi-use bench near my outdoor firepit for a few years before I found uses for smaller truncations of its length. The one I’m holding in my cold hand, the one I find while rummaging through the darkness of yet another winter night of 2014, is one of the last remaining. It’s only one and a half feet long and just on the edge of succumbing to rot and decay. Being a borderline hoarder of any shape or form suggesting usefulness, the only way I convince myself to position this perfect cuboid of tree on my dissection table is by insisting to the closet hoarder within that it’s either one more winter night of heat and dancing light for us inside or it will be an all summer party of dark decay outside for another death-eating group of albino insects. The violent pop of my splitting maul is followed instantly by the tearing sounds of tree tissue. I carry the last shards of the once 14-f00t-long beam of northern red oak to the throat of the hourglass.    

Hot, bright, and dancing, the fire created when the sun’s energy is released again after being stored for many years in the form of a tree trunk is beautiful and hypnotic.  I remember something from a book I read long ago. On a tree trunk formed into the shape of a bookshelf I find the book, and on a tree trunk crushed and pressed into paper I find the energy, stored in this case as language, of a man I have never met but greatly respect:

Staring into the blaze had been a tonic for me. Even as a young boy I had been in the habit of gazing at bizarre natural phenomena, not so much observing them as surrendering to their magic, their confused, deep language…The surrender to Nature’s irrational, strangely confused formations produces in us a feeling of inner harmony with the force responsible for these phenomena.  

                                                                                    -Herman Hesse,  Demian

Hypnotized by dancing flames and white noise on a cold March 12 evening, I surrender to the realization that gazing into the fire is the nearest I can come to gazing with naked eyes into the primary source and mover of all life on earth. I am gazing at my source. In the fire I see the energy of the sun performing again as light and heat. I see my past as pure energy, I see my future as pure energy, and I can more fully appreciate the borrowed, fragile, burnable shape I assume today.

Above my head in the fireplace room are parts of a tree trunk formed into two long beams. For now, those two beams and I hold our shape as this other piece of the red oak trunk flashes brightly and returns to the formless realm of pure energy. Presto!

Ok, so how does one write an article when it’s the first one and you have no idea where to start? I suppose you make attempts at humor, Pandora-like charm and hope that your audience is as ADHD as you. But first, a word from RichmondOutside.com’s legal department.

The owners, operators and wordsmiths of RichmondOutside.com do not necessarily agree with or condone the actions, opinions or writing style of this contributor. However, you get what you pay for.

Stealth camping: As fun as it is illegal.

With a couple of days off in a row, I decided it was time to have a micro adventure and test out some outdoor gear.  After very carefully choosing the equipment to take (forgot gloves, rain pants and libation), packing up the touring bike and choosing my route (which was sort of followed) the overnight camping excursion to Pocahontas State Park began.

Living in Richmond, that meant a 14-ish mile ride to my desired location with about 50 pounds of bike and gear attached. No biggie. However, trying to make it in under an hour was probably not the wisest choice. Leaving at 4:30, so I could hit the maximum amount of traffic along Belt and Walmsley Boulevards, put me there about 5:45. Where exactly was there? It’s a secret location near the shore of a lake  (see picture).

Now to show you why this website lawyered up and I’m using a nom de plume. My dear readers, this adventure was what is known as “stealth camping.” Yes, it’s illegal. So is doing 36 mph in a 35. So judge me or not, you’re just as big a criminal as I am. (Both are misdemeanors. Look it up.) I’m not advocating this type of camping, but you should know that I’ve been camping for longer than I’ve been alive, and I take “leave no trace” very seriously. I even re-ruffled the leaves that were flattened by my tent. The “site” was pristine.

What did it get me? It got me a horrible, I mean completely miserable, and by that I really mean crap night’s sleep. Why? Was it the guilt of breaking the law? Was it the fear of being caught by the warden?

Or was it those damn geese?

Yes, geese. Did you know that they can scream? We’ve all heard that quaint “honk, honk,” but it turns out they can scream like Anthony Perkins wants a new pillow and they can do it all night long. I’m sure that the power of the interwebs can tell me if it’s mating season for geese but frankly, who cares? It doesn’t change the outcome, and is it necessary to fill up a blank brain cell with that sort of knowledge? Some mysteries are best left unsolved.

What a lovely unnamed location in Pocahontas State Park.

So, after a two-hour nap, I’m ready to impart some mind-blowing knowledge on to you fellow possible would-be stealth campers. Geese suck (but nowhere near as much as squirrels)! There, I said it, and I ain’t changin’ my mind.

Seriously, despite the screams of goose murder and/or ecstasy, it was worth it. Taking just that one day to adventure out into the unknown, challenging myself, enjoying the beautiful sunset, the stars and the moon on a crystal clear night is good for one’s being. I highly recommend you try it out even if it’s a short drive in the car.  Get away from it all and breathe.

To quote G.K. Chesterton (Who? I know, right?) – “An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered.  An inconvenience is an adventure wrongly considered.”

Honk!

Ahn Ominous