For years now, the best ice cream spot in the area has been the Ridglea Dairy. For just about a dollar, you can get enough creamy delicious ice cream to satisfy anyone's dairy craving. This coming weekend, May 12th, that all changes. After several years of battling it out in local government meetings, developers have finally bought out the prime real estate and are preparing to replace the age old dairy store with another strip mall and the enormous farm with hundreds of suburban estates.
Suburban sprawl marches on.
Gone will be the Sunday afternoon post-ride ice cream stops. After a typically humid summer ride, there were few things more satisfying than a Ridglea single scoop. As a farewell to the store, Michelle and I stopped by yesterday afternoon in the midday heat. The shelves were already depressingly empty and the actual dairy itself had recently been levelled. Out front, a handful of locals sat on the benches and ate their final ice cream cones slowly as they commisserated with each other over the injustice of the situation.