The Council will hold it’s organizational meeting on Thursday (always on July 1 after an election).  That’s at 5:30 at City Hall.  After that, we’ll adjourn and reconvene over at Public Works to talk about the possibilities of recreation on Lake Manassas.

As I see it, it would be a good thing to have people enjoy time on Lake Manassas but the sticking points are as follows:

1.  Drinking water.  Lake Manassas is a drinking water source for many people.  We need to make sure that we control access to the lake so it does not become polluted.  Hand-wave this all you want, it’s important.

2.  Money.  In order to control access, there needs to be established a marina so that we can keep tabs on what’s going onto the lake.  The State is involved as is George Mason but nobody wants to put much money into this project – nobody has any!

We’ll see what happens tomorrow night!  I look forward to the update.

My little family has been going to skyline drive with some regularity for about 7 years now.  The great thing is that, inside of 90 minutes, you’re in a whole different world.  It’s back to basics and it allows me to recharge in a relatively short period of time.

For the last 3 years, I also take the bike and hitch myself up for a little mountainous abuse.  I pulled a 9 mile hitch in a little under an hour yesterday.  The climbs are pretty intense as they are very long.  You might find grades as steep in our area but you won’t find a climb that’s well over a mile followed by a 40mph descent followed by another very long climb.  You’ve got to be able to climb consistently in order to get much down up there.

I also love the weather up there:  It’s always cooler than down here.  Sunday morning when I went out onto the little patio outside of the room I almost needed a jacket.  It was delightful.  By way of contrast; by the time we got to Warrenton (about 11:30) we had the windows rolled up and the A/C on.  Sadly Sperryville seems a little less vibrant than in years past but it’s holding on.

On another note, the amount of smog seems to have gotten worse over the years.  Witness the photo at right.  When I visit Skyline in the early spring you can see over at least 4 rows of mountains.  You’re lucky to see the silhouette of 1 row in the summer these days….  It’s my guess that most of that smog is generated in the coal-burning electric plants of the Ohio valley but all of the cars…well, I’m a child of the age of cars and it hurts to say this but they probably don’t help much….