January 15th, and this snake is on the move, and so were we. It was a four day weekend in Virginia. There’s something called Lee-Jackson Day here the Friday before Martin Luther King Day, so that nobody gets the idea that Virginia is over its racist past. It was spring here—all the trees budding, daffodils blooming. We rode all over town on our bikes Friday and Saturday. When friend Denny Dobbin came to town, we took him on the 10-mile loop hike around the James River, starting at Oregon Hill, crossing over at Belle Isle, up through Forest Hill Park for a Mexican lunch, then on the buttermilk trail, across the Nickel Bridge, the northbank trail below Hollywood Cemetery, and back to Oregon Hill.

Denny recovering:

The James looking toward Hollywood Cemetery from Belle Isle: