A Professional Dilettante

The first thing I did this morning was get my hair cut for the second time since I left home, at a Great Clips (where I’ve been getting my hair cut for years) in Quakertown, Pennsylvania. The second thing I did was drive to Allentown, Pennsylvania, where I went to JCPenneys in the Lehigh Valley Mall to replace the khakis that did not survive yesterday’s laundering (no, it wasn’t the washing machine – I knew they were on their last legs when I left home, and Quakertown is where they died [g]).

I also saw some interesting signs as I passed through town, too.

Then I wound north and east on Route 57 to the New Jersey state line, where I was confounded by how pretty and bucolic the countryside was. The last time I was in New Jersey, I only drove the turnpike from Philadelphia to New York City and back, and it was ugly and urban. Apparently not all of New Jersey looks like that. Who’d a thunk it?

Around 1 pm I stopped just south of the town of Washington, New Jersey (and didn’t those road signs confuse me!), where I ate some of the best pizza I’ve ever had in my life for lunch. If you’re ever in that neighborhood, I highly recommend the pizza by the slice at Desiderio’s Brick Oven Pizza. My gosh, was it good.

I also stopped in Hackettstown,  when I saw a sign for the town’s historical society museum.  It was a classic small-town historical museum, full of all sorts of stuff, including something I’d always wondered about — a melodeon.  In one of my favorite children’s book series (the Melendy books by Elizabeth Enright), one of the characters plays a melodeon, and I’ve always wondered what one looked like (sorta like a small piano with about half as many keys).  Today I finally had my curiosity on that subject satisfied.

I drove on up through the northwest corner of New Jersey this afternoon, and now I’m just south of the New York state line, in a motel on a hilltop just a mile or two north of a ski area, believe it or not. It’s actually pretty darned hilly. And so pretty. It’s cooler and less humid here, too! Yay! I mean, 90dF is cooler, right? It sure feels like it is.

Tomorrow I think I’m going to visit Sleepy Hollow, and Washington Irving’s house. I haven’t been there since 1981, when I was visiting my parents while they were living in Connecticut.

Then it’s on to New England. At last.

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This morning’s wake-up was interesting, in the Chinese sense. We were awakened fairly early this Sunday morning by a lot of yelling down in the parking lot, and the sound of glass shattering. When I looked out of my window, a woman was pounding her fist on the hood of a car whose driver looked like he was considering running her over. All of this was happening in the parking space right next to Merlin. It looked scary, but by the time we were up and dressed and ready to go to breakfast, the parking lot was empty, and Merlin was fine. But when we left, there were seven, count ‘em seven police cars along the street and in the motel’s driveway. They were still there by the time we came back from breakfast, but were gone by the time we got back this afternoon.

I will be really glad to leave this motel tomorrow, believe me.

Anybody want two tickets to the National Aquarium in Baltimore? We were pretty much still recovering from yesterday’s fiasco this morning, and decided that you know, yes, it was $35 a ticket, and we’d already paid for them, but it was just more than we could handle to get up there and back, so well, that’s just the way it was.

Instead we made a short day of going back to the National Mall, taking a very short walk from the Smithsonian Metro Station to the Museum of American History, spending the morning there in the AC and eating lunch there, then walking the short walk back, poking our heads into the Smithsonian Castle, and calling it a day. For one thing, I am taking Loralee to the airport first thing in the morning, then heading north, and after six nights in one place I’ve got a lot of packing and reorganizing to do. So does she. But for another, yesterday was hard on both of us, and we just needed to take it easy.

I’m glad we got to go back to the American History Museum. I loved that museum with a passion seventeen years ago, and I still love it just as much. I adore the fact that it’s not just political or official or whatever history museum, but that it chronicles popular culture as well. We went through the room with Dorothy’s ruby slippers and Archie Bunker’s chair (as well as a lot of other interesting stuff), then we went through another exhibit chronicling American wars from the French and Indian War up through Desert Storm.

After lunch we headed over to the Smithsonian Castle, which I’d never been inside of before. It’s basically just the visitor center for the Smithsonian in general, but it’s a pretty building, with a nice garden out back. Oh, and James Smithson’s crypt.

Then, as we were headed back to the Metro, Loralee said there was supposed to be an exhibit put on by something called Turquoise Mountain here (in a building next to the Castle) that she’d heard of, about Afghanistan, and would I mind if we stuck our heads in the door for a few minutes.

Wow, am I glad we did. Turquoise Mountain is a non-profit helping the people of Afghanistan recover their indigenous crafts and industries after so much was destroyed there, and the exhibit turned out to be one of the biggest highlights of our visit to DC. I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves here, but it was gobsmacking. Beautiful, beautiful work.

So now I’m procrastinating about packing up, and well, I need to get my act together here. It’s been a weird visit, in a lot of ways. Saw a lot of good things, had some seriously strange things happen, and I was really happy to have Loralee here.

But I have to say I’m seriously happy to be hitting the road again tomorrow, and to get the heck out of this motel.

Mirrored from M.M. Justus -- adventures in the supernatural Old West.

Today is my mother’s 92nd birthday. Yes, I sent her flowers, and I called her. I’m a good daughter [g].

This morning, after one false start when Loralee discovered that her wallet was missing (I found it on the back of the commode in her bathroom), we went to a special temporary exhibit at the National Geographic Museum, called from Agamemnon to Alexander. All about the Greeks, and chockful of fascinating artifacts, most of which were thousands of years old. The story was really well told, too, and the exhibit was much bigger than we thought it would be. Counting the extra travel time, it took most of the day and was worth every minute.

The only bad thing was that photography was prohibited, so I can’t show it to you. Here’s the website, though:  http://www.nationalgeographic.com/thegreeks/

After a lunch of crab cakes we went back to the National Mall, where we hit basically one exhibit at the National Museum of American History before we decided we’d pretty much had it for the day. The one exhibit we did look at was a history of transportation from early days till the modern era, and it was fun. It very much reminded me of the Henry Ford Museum when I was there on my last Long Trip seventeen years ago.  We also briefly stuck our heads into a history of food from the 1950s to the present.

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The 18th and the 19th, with only a couple of exceptions, were mostly logistics, and I have no photos from those days, sorry [g]. The first exception was the Bujold listee dinner, which was wonderful. I thoroughly enjoyed meeting Karen, Nicholas, and Kenton, and the six of us (me, Katrina, and Teri, too) ate at an Indian restaurant. Given that this was only the second time I’d ever eaten Indian food in my life (the first time was at a James Bryant curry party at the Denver WorldCon in 2008), and the first time I’d ever ordered Indian food in a restaurant, which basically meant I was doing the equivalent of closing my eyes and poking a finger at the menu, then asking please no cilantro or coriander (same thing, different names), it was quite amazing how good my meal was. I had a very herby tomato soup, then a stew based on chickpeas that tasted basically like a really great beef stew. With the stew came what I can only label as a sopapilla (sans honey) on steroids. It covered three quarters of the plate, puffed up a good six inches, and when I tore it open a huge cloud of steam emerged. But it was all delicious. Thank you so much, Nicholas, for pulling this all together, and for paying for my meal, and to everyone else for coming. I had a marvelous time.

The next morning I said good-bye to Katrina and Teri, packed up, and headed out to run a few errands, then south to DC to the motel where Loralee and I had reservations. It’s an – interesting, yes, that’s the word – motel just over the line into Maryland from DC, and its main attraction is that it’s close to a metro station. But it’ll do. I kicked back until about three, then drove back up to the Baltimore airport to pick Loralee up.

It’s good to see her again (we live just a few miles from each other). She and I have been friends for almost a quarter century (hard to believe that!), and I’ve been looking forward to her trip here to spend time with me in DC since before I hit the road almost two months ago (you’ll note I’m not calling it Washington – it’s too confusing in my backbrain because to me Washington is on the other side of the country – so DC it is).

We made it back down to the motel (without traffic a half-hour drive – during rush hour, more like an hour and a half), went out to dinner, got her registered at the motel, and crashed.

This morning, we made something of an adventure of finding the Metro station (why not a single map in our possession marked the Metro stations I do not know), but we did, thanks to an incredibly nice lady we met in the drug store where we stopped to ask directions, who had us follow her car to it. I don’t think we’d ever have found it otherwise. Then, when we were trying to figure out the electronic ticket kiosk, a gentleman who works there helped us poor, befuddled tourists buy our pass. People have been much, much nicer here than I had been led to believe.

And at last we were on our way to the National Mall!

We ended up spending most of the day in the Museum of the American Indian, which was fascinating. That one’s been on my list since I first heard about it. It didn’t exist the last time I was here. I learned a lot about both North and South American Indians, as well as Native Hawaiians, and thoroughly enjoyed myself. I also got to eat frybread with my lunch [g].

Then, for something completely different, we ducked into the Air and Space Museum, which was extremely crowded, so we didn’t stay long.

Loralee moves a bit more slowly than Katrina and Teri (she’s 15 years older than I am and had back surgery last year), and I have to say that was not a bad thing. We both have a few must-sees on our lists, and if we get to see most of them I’ll be happy. I’m just so glad she’s here that that’s more than enough, frankly.

Mirrored from M.M. Justus -- adventures in the supernatural Old West.

Today was a four-part day.

We got up early and went to a farmers’ market under a freeway in downtown Baltimore, where Teri picked up her weekly CSA allotment of veggies, then, after we dropped them back off at the house and ate a breakfast of big, gooey cinnamon rolls also purchased there, we headed to Fort McHenry, a national historic site on a point of land in Baltimore’s harbor, where the battle that inspired Francis Scott Key to write our national anthem took place. It’s a classic star fort (the shape of the embankments and buildings), with re-enactors marching around wearing wool in this ungodly heat, and playing the fife and drums. In a way, it kind of reminded me of Fort Larned in Kansas, only instead of being surrounded by prairie, it was surrounded by water.

I learned a lot about the battle, and the War of 1812, and that Key was actually in the custody of the British when he wrote the lyrics, and lots of good bits of information to fit into my mind as steel trap for useless trivia (well, not useless, but you know what I mean).

We were going to take the water taxi over to the Inner Harbor area to eat lunch, but it turns out you can only buy tickets on the Inner Harbor side, so we got back in the car and Teri drove us through downtown Baltimore again [wry g] to a place to eat lunch, and then parked near the Inner Harbor where we explored around. This was the place that reminded me of Victoria, although it’s more just the geography (the harbor surrounded by the city thing) than anything else.

The highlights were McCormick Spices’ flagship store, the USS Constellation, and one of the more unusual lighthouses I’ve ever seen. But it was ungodly hot again, and we were all fading fast by the time we got back to the car. I really enjoyed it, though.

Then, that evening, we drove to the other side of Baltimore, to a drive-in theater which claims to have the biggest screen in the United States. It’s gigantic, I’ll give you that. The whole place, though, is a serious throwback to the 1950s, including some of the most un-PC concession advertisements I’ve ever seen in my life. They’ve also got rules out the ying-yang and are apparently control freaks about them. But it was fun. Oh, and I enjoyed Finding Dory, and, to a lesser extent, The BFG (double feature and a short to begin with – the short was a Pixar thing about sandpipers). But we didn’t get back to Teri’s house until almost two a.m. It was worth it, though.

Today we’re just sitting around – we were going to go to the Great Falls of the Potomac and hike around a bit, but it was 95dF when I went outside this morning, so that got nixed. After three days of pretty much solid sightseeing in this heat, we’re taking it easy (and I’m doing laundry) until this evening when we’ll be driving down towards DC for the listee dinner. I’m really looking forward to that. Then tomorrow I shall be picking Loralee up at the airport!

Which reminds me, I really need to clear off Merlin’s passenger seat and make space in the back for her suitcase before then.

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Today was the day I finally got to go see Longwood. Katrina’s been posting photos of the huge estate garden originally owned and developed by Pierre DuPont back around the turn of the last century for a long, long time, and I have been drooling over same about that long. At any rate, I’ve been wanting to see Longwood for years, and it was the one thing I wanted to be sure and do while I was visiting here.

It’s a two-hour drive up across the Pennsylvania border to Longwood, and on the way we stopped at a place where Katrina knew of eagles. We saw several, and this is the best photo I got (cropped and enlarged to a faretheewell) of a baby eagle.

Then it was on to Longwood, where we spent the rest of the day walking around in the 90dF humidity looking at everything. We ate lunch there, and got ice cream, and stayed until almost dark. I was absolutely exhausted by the time we left (according to Teri’s phone, we walked over five miles), but it was so worth it. What a gorgeous, gorgeous place. I think I’ll let some of the almost 300 photos I took speak for themselves.

And on the way back to Teri’s house we drove over the Susquehanna River at sunset. It was a great ending for the day.

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But first I crossed a bridge. Although calling this thing a bridge is like calling what Crocodile Dundee had a knife [wry g]. Twenty-three miles long, with two, count ‘em two tunnels. The Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel is an amazing feat of engineering, IMHO. It was so cool.

I liked Virginia’s Eastern Shore, too, although it was more bucolic than photogenic. I did make a “that looks interesting” stop at a place called Almshouse Farm, just off U.S. 13, which runs up the backbone of the Eastern Shore. Turns out it was a museum in an old poorhouse, first built in 1804 (although the existing building is newer than that). Part of the exhibits were about the almshouse, but most of them were about the people who lived along the shore of the bay and the islands. It was definitely worth a stop.

The main reason I’d wanted to come to the Eastern Shore (besides an excuse to drive the bridge-tunnel) was Chincoteague Island. Like every kid of my generation, I’d read the books about Misty of Chincoteague, and I’ve always sorta wanted to see it ever since. Plus it looked like a good place to find a beach. And it has a lighthouse.

I didn’t see any ponies, alas, but I did get to walk on the beach (with a few hundred of my new best friends – there were a lot of people out sunbathing and swimming, but I’ve never been a big fan of swimming in the ocean), and to visit the lighthouse. Assateague Lighthouse was built just before the Civil War, and it’s taller than Gray’s Harbor Lighthouse, which is the tallest one in Washington. Anyway, it was about 100 degrees inside (it was in the 80sF outside and incredibly humid) and there were a lot of stairs and I didn’t make it all the way to the top. I was getting dizzy from the circular staircase, and my bifocals didn’t like it at all, but I think I’d have persisted if it weren’t for the stifling heat. I did get a picture from one of the windows that was at the highest level I reached.

On the way back from Chincoteague Island (which is divided into three parts – a Seaside-like tourist town (Seaside’s on the Oregon coast), Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge, and Assateague National Seashore), I drove over a causeway to get back to the mainland, and watched the really ominous clouds come closer and closer.

It rained on me once I got back on the highway, but fortunately the thunderstorm didn’t start until after I found a motel here in Salisbury, Maryland. Which was a real trick because they’re having some sort of national sporting event here in town this week. If it hadn’t been for the nice couple at the tourist center, I’m not sure what I’d have done. It’s still booming and crashing and flashing out there. Fortunately, so far there’s been at least seven alligators between flash and boom.

Tomorrow I’m going to duck up into Delaware briefly (so that I can knock it off of my states-I-haven’t-been-to-yet list), then back over to Chesapeake Bay, where I will make my way up to the Bay Bridge and across to Annapolis and Baltimore, where I will be spending a few days with my friend Katrina and her sister Teri, then picking my best friend Loralee up at the Baltimore airport. She and I are going to explore DC together for a few days before I head north again.

So if my blogging is a bit thin on the ground for the next week or so, that’s why. I will catch it all up once I’m on my own again – or I may have time to blog after all. Who knows?

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Today was sorta surreal. Jamestown is one of the places I have the strongest memories of from being here in 1991 with my ex. I remember wandering around, looking at the foundations of the buildings of the town, some statuary, and that was about all that was there.

Things changed in Jamestown when an archaeology professor came to visit in the early 90s and asked where the fort was. When he was told that the fort site had been lost to erosion and was out in the river, he said, I bet I can prove you were wrong. They gave him permission to dig and told him he had ten years. He found the foundation of the fort in less than one, and they’ve been excavating it ever since.

The result is that there’s so much more to Jamestown than there was when I was here last time, and the scale of things (they’ve literally found thousands of artifacts) and the knowledge they’ve gained is just amazing. I took a tour led by a young woman who works for Preservation Virginia (the non-profit that is in charge of the excavations, which are adjacent to the NPS land, but not on it), who told the story, and about the excavations, and what they’ve found and how they found it, and was spellbinding in spite of the heat, and in spite of the fact that the supposed 45-minute tour ended up lasting almost an hour and a half. I would not have missed this for the world.

Then, after a very pleasant lunch in the café on site, I went to the museum, where I saw some of the artifacts she told us about. It made it all so real.

I think even Emerson would have approved.

There was another museum in the NPS visitor center, but my brain was on overload by then, so I decided to take the little drive around the island, which let it rest a bit (and let me sit in the AC), then I decided to come on back to the motel, since it was getting late in the afternoon already.

Tomorrow I’m going back out to see the museum I missed, then go to the living history museum across the road, and I think I’m going to end up spending a fourth night here, and head for the eastern shore on Tuesday after a morning at Yorktown. I don’t have to be in Baltimore till Thursday, so there’s plenty of time. It’s just that there’s so much to do here!

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I’ve been on the road for six weeks as of today.  That is so hard to believe.  It’s going fast.

I was only about fifty miles from Williamsburg when I woke up this morning. I did, however, get a late start, and then I made a wrong turn that added about ten miles to the trip, but it was a pretty drive, so I wasn’t complaining. Also, I got to ride a ferry! A free car ferry across the James River, which at this tidal point is more of a bay than anything else. Also, I drove right onto the ferry, and it left right away. No waiting in the heat at all.

The ferry ride was fun. I could see the Jamestown NHS from the water, and some tall ships that are part of a living history museum next door (that I’m going to tour while I’m here). It was also about ten degrees cooler on the water, with the breeze (mind, that was ten degrees cooler than ninety-something with air thick enough to drink, but still).

After I got here, I found my motel so I wouldn’t have to worry about it (I’d made reservations last night – I was a bit concerned about arriving in such a tourist destination on a Friday night in the summertime), then I got seriously lost trying to find the Colonial Parkway to Yorktown NHS. I didn’t get there till about four, and most of the site closes at 4:30, but I did get to go through the visitor center. Yorktown will be on my way out of town when I head towards the Chesapeake Bay Bridge/Tunnel in a couple of days (I may spend three nights here, I may stay four – there’s a lot to do and see here, especially for a history buff who eats up living history with a spoon like I do), so I’ll make sure to leave early enough to take the auto tour of the battlefield and see the rest of it then.

Tomorrow I am going to visit Colonial Williamsburg. Finally. I’m sorta doing things backwards, from a historical point of view. Yorktown is the newest site (it’s where Cornwallis surrendered to Washington at the end of the Revolution), Colonial Williamsburg is from an older time period, and Jamestown, of course, is the earliest settlement in Virginia (I’m thinking in what became the U.S., but I think St. Augustine, Florida, or Santa Fe, New Mexico, might be older). But that’s okay.

Anyway, tomorrow expect lots of photos of people doing antique trades and stuff, and fancy old buildings and their insides, and pretty gardens (the last time I was here was in April, 1999, and the place was full of tulips – I’m looking forward to seeing what the gardens look like in midsummer).

Oh, and I had an idea for another book today.  I’m kind of afraid it’s a mouthful that’s way more than I can chew, but then that’s what I thought about what later became Repeating History, too, seventeen years ago, so maybe not.  I hope.

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So.  I made it to see Morgan and Kaz in Fayetteville, North Carolina, yesterday, where we had a good visit and shot off fireworks, and today I drove from there to Germanton, North Carolina, where I’m staying with my friend Mary (the Bujold listees know her as CatMtn).

Anyway, I suspect blog posts will be sparse on the ground until I leave here.  I’m not sure exactly how long I’ll be here yet.  But we will resume our regularly scheduled blog posts soon, I promise!

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