We're very fortunate here in Richmond, Virginia, to have a lot of options for fun outdoor activities! One of those activities that our family has been wanting to try for awhile is the Virginia Capital Trail. The VCT is 50 miles (80 km) long and goes all the way from Williamsburg to Richmond! It's called the Virginia "Captial" Trail because Richmond is the state capital of Virginia. Every state in the U.S. has a capital, which is where the government for that state is located.
The VCT is designed specifically for bicycles, although people can also jog and walk on it as well. It's a nice trail to use because it is safe- you don't have to worry about riding your bike on a busy road- and it's paved and has beautiful scenery as well.
Here is Moppy giving it a go on my bike. I think she's getting the hang of it!
Here are Audrey, Charlotte, Moppy, and Tyson on one of the trail's bridges. We ended up riding about 10 miles (16 km) as a family- we went about 5 miles (8 km) from where we'd parked, then turned around and did the 5 miles back to where we parked. Where we parked was about 10 miles (16 km) outside of the city of Richmond. If we wanted to, we could ride the trail all the way into the city of Richmond- or if we rode the other direction we could get all the way to the town of Williamsburg- but 40 miles (64 km) was a bit far for our little family. :-)
Here's Dad and Christine catching up with us. Christine is an excellent bike rider, but she's so much smaller than the rest of us it takes her a bit longer. She did such a great job!
After our biking adventure we had lunch and then played on the playground at the park where we'd picked up the trail, Dorey Park.
Tyson and Moppy had fun on this climbing wall.
Audrey decided to push Moppy on the swing.
It didn't go so well- Moppy kind of crashed, but she was okay. Just a little bit mulch-y.
Charlotte was kind enough to get her all cleaned up. Charlotte knows what it's like to crash- see those bandages on her fingers and elbow? She had a pretty nasty crash on her bike while we were on the trail. Fortunately, we always come prepared, and we used our first-aid kit to patch her up so we could keep going. She was very brave! (Our family rarely has a bike trip where someone doesn't crash!)
Here's Moppy checking out the pretty lake and these two lake residents- ducks!
Tyson and Christine took Moppy over to get a closer look at the ducks.
Such a pretty lake!
I think the ducks liked us.
On the way home we crossed a big bridge.
That's the James River, which is actually another way to get from Richmond to Williamsburg, because it goes the whole way! Many people go kayaking and canoeing on this river.
Moppy was having so much fun checking out all the sights that we gave her the best seat in the van!
We hope you enjoyed seeing a little bit more about Richmond.
Did you know that this week is our last week before school starts on September 5th? Yikes! Soon it will be time for Moppy and Tag to go home. We sure will miss this sweet little monster! But we'll be sure to do a few more fun things with her before she heads home.
Do you ever go biking in Japan?
Did you guys take your bicycles with your car!? :O That's a lot of bikes to carry with a car! Christine did such a good job riding with the rest of the family! When we lived in Kyoto, we used to go ride our bikes a lot, but now that we live in a man-made island, we need to cross a bridge to leave the island, so we don't ride our bikes as much anymore. We just kind of walk to go to the grocery stores, etc. within the island.
ReplyDeleteI'm just now starting to get caught up with the blog! We actually have a pickup truck that we used to get the bikes to the trail. I drove the kids in the van and Chad took the bikes in his truck. It would be very difficult to get that many bikes in our van! We use our truck whenever we go biking or kayaking/canoeing. :-)
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