OUTING #4: North Bank Trail & Texas Beach

“Perhaps, most importantly, if the kids are to get out, I will have to find time.  We are usually in a rush to go somewhere, from one organized activity to another.  I’ve heard many people describe their sense that time has picked up pace.  Children used to have whole stretches of time to think and wander or pick through clover.  ‘I used to spend hours in the backyard,’ writes Annie Dillard, ‘thinking God knows what, and peeling the mottled bark of a sycamore, idly, littering the grass with dried lappets and strips.’  Letting them off the achievement treadmill, ironically, leads to more creative, resilient kids.” – Rick Van Noy, A Natural Sense of Wonder

 

UP NEXT: The North Bank Trail...

Whether GORP is just another organized activity taking us in the wrong direction remains to be seen. Raising children, like climate change, is an unfolding natural disaster in which most of the consequences are revealed long after the damage has been done.  The man-made destruction of healthy child development that is occurring in much of this country – GORP headquarters being a coal-fired power plant of parent-spewing pollution – is well-documented but hopelessly complex and distressing and thus largely ignored.

In education the implications are especially tangled and fraught, reflecting the challenge of trying to reconcile a billion different ideas with a billion different kids and a billion other variables.  One idea, for example, is to embrace technology, fingers crossed that our child’s attention span and capacity for deep thought won’tbe wiped out in the process.  Another, one beautifully alluded to here by Sabot at Stony Point kindergarten teacher Mary Driebe, is to embrace Mother Nature.  These aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive propositions of course, though, crucially, there is a zero-sum component to our allocation of time and resources: time spent in front of a screen is time that is not spent outside or otherwise engaged with the actual world. 

... and Texas Beach.

Not that we know the best answer ourselves – our venture, it often seems, is one of experimenting with, and then ruling out, some of the worst – and any suggestion that there is some one-size-fits-all solution to begin with is just adding to the problem.  But here at GORP headquarters we’re grateful our youngest guinea pig will be attending Sabot next year (by the grace of God!) and not ECPI.     

In any case, we are doubling down on the logic of GORP this weekend, with excursions scheduled for both Saturday and Sunday.  First up is the Down on theFarm Party at Tricycle Gardens , Saturday afternoon from 2-5 p.m. at 9th and Bainbridge Streets in Manchester.  (GORP preview here.) 

Then on Sunday afternoon – start time is 1:30 p.m. – we will hit the North Bank Trail for an out-and-back adventure to Texas Beach (2-3 miles total), a game of “Manhunt” being the featured halftime activity.  Itinerary and other details can be found below.

If you’d like to further increase this weekend’s degree of difficulty, join us Saturday morning at the Carpenter Theatre for the Richmond Symphony’s final Lollipops concert of the season.  Performance begins at 11:00 a.m., with a pre-concert festival starting an hour earlier.

Hope you can join us at some point this weekend.  Anyone is welcome, so please don’t hesitate to spread the word. -Ben

 

G.O.R.P. outing #4

Date: Sunday, March 24, 2013

Location: North Bank Trail and Texas Beach, James River Park System

Meeting time & location: 1:30 p.m. at the southern end of Laurel Street, in Oregon Hill, overlooking Belle Isle (at the intersection of S. Laurel St. and Oregon Hill Parkway).

Directions:  From anywhere in the Fan, take Cary Street to S. Laurel St. (a block or two past VCU’s Cary Street Gym, just past the Sweet Frog frozen yogurt shop at 815 W. Cary St.).  Take a right on Laurel and follow Laurel until it ends (see map).

Rough itinerary (which no one is obligated to follow):   Meet at the end of Laurel St. in Oregon Hill, overlooking Belle Isle, at 1:30 p.m.  At 1:45, we’ll drop down to the North Bank Trail and head west, upriver, a mile or so to Texas Beach.  Once there we’ll break for “Manhunt”, Stone Pictures (anyone especially inspired can contribute to the World Beach Project), Stone Tower Challenge, and Rock Skipping – in addition to general exploring and messing about.  Then, whenever we feel like it, we’ll hike back to the cars.  Those so inclined can join us for a post-GORP treat at Sweet Frog (815 West Cary St.) on the way home.

What to bring:

n  Water

n  Hat and Gloves, plus layered clothes appropriate for the weather

n  Waterproof jacket/shell

n  Backpack, with snacks.

n  Kids will probably get dirty and possibly wet, so you might also consider packing a change of clothes in your car.

SAFETY:  We ask that parents be responsible for the safety of their own children. 

Stroller friendly?  No.

Pets:  Pets are permitted but must be on a leash.

Weather forecast: Overcast, 50% chance of rain, high of 43 degrees.

PLAN “B” for Bowling:  If the weather is too wet or too cold we will instead go bowling at Sunset Lanes on West Broad (6540 West Broad Street), meeting there at 1:30 p.m.  Rates are $17 per person (shoes included) for two hours of bowling (2-3 games).  Sunset Lanes is kid-friendly: anyone old enough to walk is old enough to bowl.

 If Plan “B” is necessary, I will alert everyone by e-mail  and post an update on this blog by no later than 11 a.m. on Sunday morning.

 

G.O.R.P.