Belle Isle Trip 2016 - Groundhogs 19-Rabbits 12
/Guy's knee has been healing so well that we decided we could pack up the camper for our first trip out of 2016 and headed to our favorite, Belle Isle State Park for Memorial Day weekend. We always seem to head here for our break-in weekend because it is close by, a very small, quiet park along the shores of the Rappahanock where all there is to do is relax.[gallery type="rectangular" size="full" ids="10020,10022,10024,10065,10066,10067,10068,10069,10070,10071,10072,10073"]We arrived early on Thursday and were set-up completely in just under an hour. We headed over to reserve a boat to take out the next day and were disappointed to learn you had to now have a VA boaters license to take out the Jon boats which meant an 8 hour online class which Guy was not possible over the weekend so no boating for us sadly. it actually messed up our mind set for the weekend as we had planned to boat both days. Instead we found ourselves with more time on our hands than we needed and so we did a few short hikes (the knee wasn't up to more than that), sat along the waterside and relaxed around the site more than we usually would. Can't say this was a bad thing, it was actually nice to be able to sit and just talk more and reconnect with no interruptions.Belle Isle must have more Groundhogs than any other state park around, last year as a joke we started counting how many saw and the number was around 32 vs. 15 rabbits, this year we continued our counting and saw 19 vs. 12 rabbits. This is one of the guys we saw, teaching his little one how to avoid humans by hiding in the high soy fields.
We headed out Sunday afternoon to see what was down the main road outside the park(something we hadn't done before) and came across a boat ramp along the Rappahannock River where we were able to watch a sailing regetta/race of some sort. That I had never seen before and we spent about 40 minutes just watching them race on by.[gallery type="rectangular" columns="2" size="large" ids="10036,10035,10034"] Later Sunday evening I decided to grab my camera and head over to the water to see if I could catch any birds in flight (which was a no go) but out of the corner of my eye I saw a movement and this deer was feeding along the shore of the river. Not a site I have seen there before. Usually the deer stay far away from the water during the day due to the amount of boats and people around.
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Overall it was a great way to kickoff the summer season and remind us to always take time for us time and to enjoy the big world we live in.
