ice out was yesterday

[tjspiel]

A good 5 or 6 weeks earlier than last year. Guess I better get started on my off season list.

What was kind of funny is that there's an annual "polar plunge" hosted on that lake every year that's a fund raiser for Special Olympics.

5,000 people from across the country and even other parts of the world showed up to jump through a hole in the ice this weekend, - except that there was no ice on that part of the lake.

[Riggerdood]

I bet that water was still plenty cold though! 

[DBthal]

Polar Plunge is probably better as a spectator sport!

[RichardS]

Our neighborhood does it annually on Jan 1 jumping in the James River. Water can vary between 40 and 48, and if the wind is up and the air is cold, then yeah, its polar. I did it for 14 years, then claimed emeritus status, heh heh. We fund our local Special Olympics kids. We started out donating to the national org, but it turned out almost none of the money got to our locals.  So we went direct, and fund their entire annual recreation budget now.

[Captain Kidd]

Our neighborhood does it annually on Jan 1 jumping in the James River.

Ah, sounds like a great work! Good job. WTG!

The James River - I grew up in Richmond near the VA hospital, just a few miles from the river. (Although a few miles upstream from Richard). Obviously crossed it many times: Lee Bridge, Nickle (Boulevard) Bridge, Hull St (14th St) Bridge, I-95 bridge. Later the Powhite Bridge, the I-295 bridge, and the 288 bridge. As a child we crossed the river at Wingina on Rt 56 when we drove "to the country " to see our grandparents on their farms in Nelson County. The one lane Wingina bridge was damaged beyond repair* from the deadly flooding due to the torrential rains (several feet in a few hours) of hurricane Camille in 1969.  That led to a new two lane bridge being built. We crossed the James River twice a day during my junior year of high school going to and from school. In the fall of 1972 one of my HS football buddies lost his father to drowning in the river when he attempted to cross to an island for work when the river was in flood from hurricane Agnes. I think the whole football team went to the funeral. When I was a college student at Liberty University (Lynchburg Baptist College at that time) I literally lived on an island called Treasure Island in the middle of the James River for 4 years. My first year there I served in a church in Buena Vista every weekend. We crossed the James 4 times every week on Rt 501 just up from Big Island where the James River cuts through the Blue Ridge Mountains and into the Shenandoah Valley. In February of 1976 during my junior year, two of the dearest young people you'd ever want to meet, McCauley Rivera and his girlfriend Sharon Moore, lost their lives on the James River, just up river but within sight the island where I lived, when they carelessly ventured out onto a train trestle that crossed it and got caught by a train. So sad.

Yep, been around the James a bunch. I've jumped in some cold water, but I've never jumped in it in the winter time. Good on you.

(pic of Treasure Island as it was in the days I lived there. Thomas Road Baptist Church held youth camps there in the summer; hence, the name Treasure Island. I lived in the "dorm" that was next to the open field in the group of buildings in the foreground of the pic. They sometimes had trouble getting the old bridge insured. At such times, students had to off load the shuttle busses and walk across - rain or shine - those were the days!)

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*Edit: Oh! What do ya know? I found the pics I took of the bridges at Wingina. I guess they must have repaired the old bridge and made it passable until they could build a new one. Maybe it was only closed until an inspection could be performed?  Not sure. I was 13 and I know that I wasn't allowed to go on the first several trips up to Nelson Co. after the flood. After a search, I can't seem to find out when the new bridge was built. Now that I think about it, I believe I drove up to the country with my younger brother and stopped and took these pictures which means I would have been at least 16 (3 years after the flood).

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BTW: It was pretty cool growing up by the river that was named after my daddy. (LOL - just "kidding")