🐟 Good morning, RVA: RDC, river bacteria, and river wildlife

Good morning, RVA! It’s 56 °F, and today’s a hot one. Expect highs near 90 °F and lots of sunshine. That’s definitely hot enough for me to start my typically summertime reminders of staying cool and staying hydrated—you can’t do your best work if you’re dehydrated! Cooler temperatures will return on Saturday.
 

Water cooler

Richmond Magazine’s Ananya Chetia has a short interview with RRHA’s newish CEO Steven Nesmith in which he gets into the goals for the recently-launched Richmond Development Corp. I’m interested to see how the RDC works out, but, regardless, I’m certainly excited to see RRHA exploring different tools to build and redevelop our City’s public housing stock. The challenges faces by RRHA are enormous, like, we’re talking billions with a B enormous. Business As Usually won’t even touch the scale of the investments we need to make.
 

Erick Kolenich at the Richmond Times-Dispatch has a 4/20 update on the state of a legal marijuana market in Virginia. I’ll spoil it for you: Until Democrats regain control of both houses in the General Assembly (and maybe the Governor’s mansion, too), the Commonwealth is most likely doomed to live in this weird gray zone of marijuana quasi-legality. However, with each an every seat in the GA up for reelection this coming November, maybe there’s hope for some progress in 2024?
 

Want to help the James River Association monitor bacterial levels in the James River? I mean, who doesn’t! JRA needs a handful of folks who love science, being outside, and hanging out down by the river to collect and measure water samples between Memorial Day and Labor Day. This important work helps inform JRA’s State of The James report and, ultimately, supports their advocacy work for a cleaner, healthier river for all of us. If you’re interested in volunteering, they’ve two opportunities to get trained next week that you can go ahead and register for right now.
 

Speaking of, RVAHub’s Richard Hayes has put together a really incredible set of wildlife photos from down by the river. This kind of thing—ospreys swooping around, blue heron’s awkwardly preaching on rocks, snakes slithering over stuff—is why keeping our river healthy is so important! We’ve basically got a wildlife preserve right in the middle of our city that anyone can wander off into during their lunch break. It’s kind of amazing.
 

Via /r/rva, Stanley’s, the sandwich place that moved in to the old Robin Inn spot, is now open. I’m always interested in folks who attempt to bring regional cuisine to Richmond—and what people actually from those regions think about it. So! If you’re a Philly person, I would love to know your thoughts on Stanley’s cheesesteak and tomato pie!
 

This morning’s longread

During a pandemic, walk

Here’s a nice meditation on walking through the wilderness. It takes place during peak pandemic, which maybe needs a content warning? I definitely know so much more about Richmond’s secret spots having spent tons of time aimlessly exploring on my bike when there wasn’t much else we could safely do. I could revisit those places today (or find new ones!), but how come I don’t?
 

But I was weary and had another 8 miles to go. Instead, I removed my shoes and socks and took a nap beneath a juniper tree, which had grown next to a huge, arrow-shaped boulder. The sand made a perfect daybed, the wind a soft companion. I awoke to a green-skinned lizard with a yellow head poised nearby. It allowed me to get close enough for several photographs, then it ran beneath the arrow-shaped boulder. It was fast. I followed, barefoot, to see where it went, and found a blue water bottle partially hidden in a crack. It was a geocache. I’d stumbled on three or four of them in my desert wanderings. I’ve never looked for one, they just appear. They are filled with notes and names and dates, and with the odd flotsam and jetsam left by those with map and compass and coordinates, some sort of international hide-and-seek, whose players don’t know, and will probably never know, one another. An interesting way to learn the planet and commune with like-minded souls.
 

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Picture of the Day

While I may have a problem, I know at least one other person whose shed holds at least this many bikes.