Bring a Towel

Last Saturday was Gary's birthday. He's 49 now. The good part is that he's not 50. There's just something about reaching that number which I'm sure will make him feel old. The best part about this birthday though was that I tried to plan something special and it worked out nicely. Now, I'm not usually very good at birthdays. Parties usually freak me out, I'm a wreck if there's more than 2 or 3 extra people for dinner. A busy season at work and the final six credits of my MA don't help either.

This time, I ordered his present (no surprise because he asked me specifically for a particular woodworking tool) as requested and planned ahead for it to be at the store on Saturday. In a last minute stroke of genius, I decided that the best present would really be to have some of his favorite people around. He recently had remarked that he missed his friend Chris from New York and that inspired me to call and invite the Youngs to come and visit. I was pleased with myself because I knew that we'd have a great time with Chris and also that they were the most likely friends who would be able to travel at the last minute. Chris is a contractor who makes his own hours and his wife Joanne is in school right now...taking a break from the working world.

On Friday, I arranged my day so I could leave the office early and try to get some cleaning done at home. Of course everyone saw right through me there, because its a well known fact that I only clean when people are coming over. I was able to keep the identity of the mystery guests secret though and Gary was suitably surprised. He thought it might be his sister Roz who was coming to visit. Roz often travels through Washington and manages to arrange to stop here, even if it's not a complete day. It was late though and other than a rather late trip to Wegmans, we didn't do anything Friday night. We were even too tired to play cards.

The big day, Saturday, arrived nice and sunny and not too hot. I planned a day on the boat since Chris also likes boats and Joanne and I go along for the ride easily. We got a reasonable start, and even got to have Jenny along with us but on the way to the marina traffic for one of the bridges over the Potomac is all backed up. [Alex was working at his new job...a story for another day...] In an effort to avoid the traffic, we ended up wandering through old town Alexandria , going the long way around to James Creek (and having to stop at CVS for tylenol). Oh, almost forgot - we had breakfast at Bob Evan's...something we hadn't done for quite a while!

Finally, we're at the marina, we unbutton the boat and head to the gas pumps. The price of filling up the boat is always shocking, but its a little better this week than last. I know that won't last though....but there's not much more time left to the boating season anyway. We leave the gas dock and start out toward the river. We're about 3/4 of the way to the main part of the Potomac, when a coast guard boat decides to power down a little past the appropriate buoy which means....you guessed it....big wave over the bow of our little boat. Jenny and Chris are soaked, Gary's standing behind the wheel, so he escapes except for wet feet, Joanne is protected by a seat, and I was looking for something near the glove box area and was able to minimize the amount of area which got completely drenched. Now would be a great time for towels wouldn't it? But of course, I have forgotten the towels for the boat. The reason for the oversight? They were getting washed at home. Why? Because the last time we were out here the same thing happened. Different boat made the big wave, but the result was the same. Somehow though when stuff goes home from the boat it has trouble making it back. Usually it takes at least twice before I remember everything.

Well, even though everyone was wet we all had a good time. We cruised down to the Occoquan, debated over ice cream or french fries and decided to try to get home in time to pick up Alex from work. We did, made supper (thanks Joanne for the help!), had birthday cake and played cards and drank till it was way past our bedtimes.

The best part was as Gary was falling asleep. He says to me, "best birthday in a really long time."

Too bad though that he had to go to Salt Lake City the next morning and Chris and Joanne had to go back to New York. We made plans to get together in January. My attic needs more insulation, and Gary needs a poker buddy.

Next time I'll be sure to remember the towels...I think.

It's All Hollow, You Know

For this Labor Day, Gary and I took advantage of the “adult” age of our children and went on a day trip all by ourselves. Since we moved here, I’ve been scoping out various historic sites and other notable attractions in Virginia. One of the places on my list (for a long time) has been Natural Bridge. It is just what it sounds like it is. It’s a large geologic demonstration of the power of erosive water flow. I’ve seen pictures of it, as have many people, since it is a very popular thing to photograph and artists love to paint it as well. In this case, I wasn’t satisfied with pictures; I wanted to see it in person. Frankly, it would also function as a destination point for a very long cruise in the car. Everyone knows that I love an excuse for a car ride, and the area of Virginia where Natural Bridge lies is near the Blue Ridge Parkway – one of the more beautiful parts of the state.

We got started as early as could be expected, given that this was the last weekend of the summer…and Gary was not as enthusiastic as I would like. He sometimes has to be prodded into motion for activities that are highly likely to turn into a boondoggle to a tourist trap. I say that tourist traps can be fun and educational if you head in with the right attitude. If it’s likely to be cheesy, embrace that, tease it, revel in the absurdity, and laugh at it. We can also learn from its mistakes and by recognizing those shortcomings, appreciate the value of our own education and remember how we can help to correct or fill in missing information when we bring someone with us to one of these places. So, after a quick stop to buy some necessary car care items (you can never have enough terry cloth rags- and they were ON SALE!) we headed southwest through the Manassas Battlefield toward the Blue Ridge.

Around Washington, Virginia, we were hungry for a late breakfast and decided to stop in this little sleepy town. It’s very sleepy, especially on a Sunday morning. Washington, Va., is the home of the Inn at Little Washington and is a highly regarded Inn and gourmet restaurant. Now, we weren’t really in the mood for something that fancy, and certainly not dressed for it. However, our wonderful GPS machine informed us that there was “country kitchen” type of diner in the same area and the historic sort of flavor to the town made it seem like an ideal spot to stop. It’s a beautiful little town, and the Inn looks beautiful. Remember though, the famous Inn is not our destination of choice at this point. Ultimately we were disappointed, because the small diner that was advertised as the “place where the locals eat,” was not open at 11am on Sunday morning. One lost sale for Washington, Virginia then. Back to the car.

GPS identifies Diana’s Country Diner in Luray. We’ve decided to take the turn southward at Luray since Gary’s former employer has a farm in Luray. No, we won’t see the famous caverns today – mostly because we’ve seen them about three times before and would love to show them to you if you visit us, but we don’t need to see them again today. As we enter Luray, we have a fun moment remembering all the trips there during the Grand Challenge years. Many, many weekends were spent in Luray while Gary was developing and testing David and Dexter for the DARPA challenges. It turns out that Diana’s is now the Southern Station Diner. It looks just right from the outside and we were not disappointed. Excellent breakfast…the home fries were particularly yummy. Now, hunger satisfied, we’re on our way to make a quick stop at Paul’s farm. I think Gary momentarily forgot about the rough driveway to the farmhouse, because certain sports cars just don’t belong on rutted gravel roads. After we gingerly made our way as close to the house as possible, we saw through the fence that there weren’t any cars in the yard, and this was a sure sign that no one was home. On to Natural Bridge!

Note here: I had thrown a small bag with toothbrush, toothpaste, and change of essential clothing items – so that if we got too tired, we could find a place to stop. It will take at least 4 hours to reach Natural Bridge, which means at least 4 hours to get home. GPS tells us that we could arrive in Natural Bridge by 2:30 or so, but we will have to take the highway to do that. The entrance to route 81 was nearby and we were quickly on our way south.

Here’s where the title of today’s post gets its meaning. We’ve already spent time in Luray, which is home to some famous caverns. These underground caverns are the result of underground water features wearing away softer parts of the limestone, leaving caves and eventually the interesting stalactites and stalagmites which make them attractive places to visit. Just down the road from Luray on state route 340 there are the Skyline Caverns, and as we drive toward Natural Bridge we pass at least 2 more caverns advertised on those highway signs that say “attractions at this exit.” Even Natural Bridge has caverns! As we are driving, Gary makes a very astute observation: Virginia seems to be full of caverns! That means that the whole place must be hollow – liable to cave in at any moment. We find this very funny and dissolve into childlike giggles. This is the sort of moment that I used to have with my mom – and hope that some readers will identify with this and others yet to come.

We pass though a small rain shower, which elicits a promise to help wash the car later, and arrive at the exit for Natural Bridge. The road is lined every so often with signs for other attractions, which have likely sprung up as a result of the popularity of the Bridge. There’s the dinosaur park, safari park, and “foamhenge.” The safari park is the only one of value in my opinion, because there are real animals there. You can get buckets of food and the giraffes and somewhat friendly animals will eat out of your car. Information from our friend Pindar though warns us that said animals might dent your car, so we stay away. The dinosaur park is basically prehistoric animals carved out of Styrofoam, painted a la movie sets. Since there are mandatory charges for all these things, we decide our money might be better spent at something a little more “real.” Foamhenge is a scale model of Stonehenge, made out of; you guessed it, stiff foam – like the dinosaurs. Who thinks up this stuff? Why does this need to be here? No way am I going to pay to see that. I have trouble imagining how they can possibly convince people to pay for this. Can you really make a living by creating stuff out of Styrofoam for people to look at? Well, the ride is beautiful anyway.

We see lots of signs for Natural Bridge and get to the turn where we are supposed to enter the parking lot, but miss it while we are trying to discern exactly where you are supposed to turn. Oh well, we’ll just go up the road a bit and turn around. OK! We’re here! There’s a very obvious building where you go in to buy tickets. Uh oh, the ticket counter is in the middle of a very tacky gift shop. I have never seen so much stuff which has nothing to do with the attraction you are actually there to visit. Gary heads in to check how much we are about to get soaked for. I need the restroom. Now, we have noticed big tour busses in the parking lot and this means that there are the potential for substantial numbers of people at this place. Do you think they could make a ladies room with more than two stalls? While there is a sign that there are more restrooms down one level – near the entrance to the path to the Bridge, I find that I would rather take my chances closer to the entrance, because it’s not clear when exactly you have to present your ticket to show you have paid. I’m in line for the bathroom so long that Gary looses track of me. He then asks, “Do you know how much this costs?” I do, but emphasize that this is not a national or state park, that it is private. He also wants to consider the other available sights. It seems that as well as the Bridge, you can also see the Caverns, the Wax Museum and Factory, or the Toy Museum. They have combination tickets. For $36, two adults can see two attractions. Ok, which two? Well, of course we are there to see the Natural Bridge and the nature walk is included with that. Caverns? Gary isn’t real excited by them, and I don’t relish the climb back up the advertised 34 stories. Sounds like too many steps to me. If Gary was more enthusiastic, I would have done that, but his lack of interest only fed my laziness. Toy Museum? Nah, nothing they have posted makes it look very interesting. Wax Museum and Factory? Ok, let’s do that. I have a special place in my heart for hokey wax museums, namely one in Harper’s Ferry. So we whip out the debit card and plunk down $36 to view Natural Bridge (the nature walk, Indian village, lost river, and waterfall), the Wax Museum and Factory…and the possibility of staying for the evening light show and “story of creation” presentation.

It is now around 3pm and the Indian Village on the nature walk closes at 5 while the Wax Museum stays open until 6. We decide that we will see the Bridge first along with the nature walk and Indian village and then return to see the Wax Museum. We are prepared for quite a climb down to see the Bridge since they tell you at every

corner how many steps there will be. There is a shuttle bus, but going downhill isn’t my problem – it’s the uphill part. I suggest that we walk down and return by bus. I’m really thinking that there’s going to be a lot of walking here…my imagination is remembering past experiences like Neuschwanstein in Germany. Well I’m glad I didn’t worry too much, because the trip down the stairs is relatively short. A nice gentleman who takes our first set of tickets meets us at the bottom. We see a sign ahead with some information and just pass that when…THERE IT IS! It sort of jumps out at you. Gee, I thought we would walk a little longer…

We take our required pictures and then start down the nature trail. It is a very easy walk. It was a little humid though, but it’s very nice. There are lots of tourists around but since it’s late in the day I’m sure it’s not as crowded as it could be. The distances to the remaining features of the nature trail are measured in feet, so nothing is very strenuous here. I highly recommend that if you are going to pay to see the Bridge, please go all the way to the end of the trail where the falls are. However, be warned that signage and accuracy are suspect here. The first stop after the bridge is at the Monocan Indian Village. Almost no signs indicating what you are seeing and only a very few re-enactors are present. The woman making baskets is doing authentic work, but she’s about as far from a Native American as you can get. Casting is not a priority here. There’s a younger woman telling about the rounded huts called Ati, but she seems unsure of herself and doesn’t give out very interesting information. There’s one more guy near the entrance/exit making tools out of bone (source of bone???) and he fits the bill as an Indian even less than the older woman weaving baskets. Dr. Stewart from my Museum Studies class would have a coronary instantly.

Ok, let’s move on to the Saltpeter Cave. This has a nice sign explaining how saltpeter is obtained by boiling bat guano and bird – well, you know – in water and then eventually ending up with a crystallized substance which gets mixed with – oh I can’t remember and could look it up – some stuff so you can make gunpowder. This is interesting, because the confederates used this source of saltpeter to make what they claim to be a significant amount of gunpowder to support the cause. Of note though is that the condition of the little bridge passing over the stream to get to the cave is less than up to date. If this were a publicly funded place, there would be more warning signs and things would be in better shape. But…how is my money being spent here to improve this experience…hmmm…never mind.

Next we see the little hidden spring (called lost river), which is just off to the side of the brook that eventually flows under the Natural Bridge. Now they call this a lost river because they can’t find the source of it. It’s obvious that it’s related to the stream

nearby and I’m not really sure why it would be important to know where the source is…but what is funny is that they call it a river. It’s a little spring, that’s it. It flows underground and looks and smells very clean and clear but you just can’t call it a river. It would be positively absurd to call it a river. Unless you were telling someone to “cry me a river.” Then maybe the descriptive volume would fit. It makes me wonder how big Spit Brook is in New Hampshire. If Spit Brook is bigger than this, I’ll never believe another tourist flier. Ok, yes I will, but what a lesson in exaggeration. I’m having lots of fun picking on this stuff and wishing I had my sisters to laugh with about this. We would be insufferable as a group here.

Ok, now we follow the path beside the stream/brook/creek (whatever) to the falls. Very pretty. Combined with the Bridge – it’s ok. Still, it’s a lot of money for something that really should be free. I wish that I had a better feeling about how they’re spending the money…not a non-profit I guess. Walking along side the water we see some fish and some tiny snakes in the water. The water is quite clear and probably pretty clean. It’s not very deep, but it flows over a lot of rocks that make it so there isn’t a lot of suspended sediment like you see in the rivers up near Fairfax. We took time to look at trees and try to identify them and really enjoyed being outside together. All in all, I guess it wasn’t too much to pay after all.

We arrive back to the base of the many steps just as the shuttle bus is getting ready to leave. Gary nicely agrees to ride back up to the top…humidity you know…and we head over to the Wax Museum. I’ve just realized that capitalizing that makes it sound like it’s a museum of wax, but no, it’s a museum with wax figures in it. Why is there a Wax Museum here? Well, they have a factory to make the figures here, so I guess they decided they needed to have some of the figures on display. They also let you see part of the factory. We go down to the factory level first and learn that wax museums don’t use wax anymore. They use some sort of plasticene. Well, there’s one mystery blown out of the water. Apparently this a fairly good factory for “wax” figures, because they have lots of pictures of places they have sent their figures. The factory tour takes about 15 minutes tops. It has some buttons you push so you can listen to a description of how they make the figures, but not much else. There are basically two rooms with lots of heads. Most of the faces are just generic male or female. This place does do a few “personalities” but mostly seems to provide stock figures for amusement parks and such. Fancy mannequins if you ask me. Ok, lets go see the “museum.”

Last time I checked, a museum is supposed to have some sort of basis to the information it provides you. Boy this one is taking liberties. Let’s start with the first major display. Adam and Eve are depicted in the remnants of the Garden of Eden (I say remnants because they are both wearing leaves and are covered up). I think we are supposed to gather that the snake/serpent has done his dirty work already. He’s there hanging from a branch along with a mountain lion type of thing and a stuffed deer. Apparently Eden was somewhere in Appalachia, because that’s what it looks like. Eve has long blonde perfectly coiffed hair. Adam looks like an Adonis, with perfect wavy light brown hair and a killer body. Scandinavians apparently populated the cradle of civilization in the Middle East.

The next few scenes are equally unbelievable, but harmless. We go to the Indians and Native legends about the Natural Bridge next, then to George Washington carving his initials in the wall of the bridge (can’t figure out how he did that by the way…it looks like it would be so hard to do – in the place they say he did it – why would he bother? I suspect a fake, but there’s no way to get close enough to the actual thing to tell) and finally we visit with Jefferson writing the Declaration of Independence. They nicely give credit to the other contributors (Adams, et. al), but Jefferson’s complexion bothers Gary. He thought they made TJ too dark. There’s a freedman’s cabin with not enough signage and a story about how he freed a woman who came to him as a slave, lived with her as her husband (or rather she was the wife), and then when he freed her she took off. No evidence to back up the story, but believable. No way to know whether the wax figures resemble the people or not. A mountain still is next. They could have spent a lot more time on this. An educational goldmine squandered. Oh my, we see a famous bear hunter now…who killed somewhere between 99 and 350+ bear. That’s a big difference. I’d like to see a more reliable

number or none at all. It’s like saying someone might be between 8 and 80 years old. More accuracy or facts, or something please! Now it’s time to get called up for the Confederacy. After a recruiting scene with one measly poster…no information of substance, we are lead into a parlor scene where Gen’l Lee is consulting with Jeff Davis and Stonewall Jackson. We are told what a statesman Lee was, but we aren’t provided with any biographical information or history at all. Since this place caters to foreign tourists, wouldn’t it be a good idea to at least pretend to teach them something? I’m not even suggesting that they include, say a Union soldier or something, but could they at least tell us when Lee lived? Which brings us to the next scene. A generic Civil War life size diorama with not a single sign or voice over to tell us why we are looking at it. There’s snow on the ground. Why? Is it winter? Why – please just tell us when and where we are! As you can see I’m quite worked up by now. We finish with the Civil War and head straight to the 20^th century to see lots of Presidents. I no longer care. Bill Clinton looks almost a little larger than life, but this may be accurate since people did get bigger over time. It was nice to see that FDR was in a chair…that was nicely accurate. Not enough signs though, some had either their birth/death, or the years they served, but not everybody. But what’s this?! A door ahead at which we must wait until the sign says we can go in.

We are instructed that we will see a depiction of the Last Supper and that if we do not want to see it we can leave through the exit before it begins. Now last time I thought about it, there wasn’t a lot of action at the Last Supper. Lots of talking I’m sure, but what are they going to show us that we need to sit in what appears to be pews? Well…I’ll tell ya. The spotlight focused on a figure that is supposed to be Leonardo DaVinci. I’ll take their word for it since I’m not sure what he looked like. We get a voiced description of DaVinci and the great man he was which leads to a reveal of Jesus and the disciples having the famous supper. They tell us about the mood of the disciples at the Last Supper when Jesus told them what was going to happen. Spotlights on each one as they describe the reaction they believe Leonardo was trying to portray. Amazingly this part is less offensive to me because the whole thing is wildly speculative to as far as how someone might be feeling or reacting. Of course there are the biblical accounts to use as a guideline, but since it’s mostly about faith, there’s no need to get all worked up about accuracy or authenticness. We get a bit of crucifixion legend accompanied by wind (from fans) and the sounds of thunder. I’m thinking here that small children might find this frightening. Kind of like the fire coming out of the guy’s head my nephew drew for Sunday school. While I got the whole power of the Holy Spirit thing, I thought it a rather violent and distasteful way to depict the Holy Spirit. Power doesn’t always have to mean fire. And even if you say “fiery spirit” I don’t think that necessarily means it should be drawn as actual fire. Maybe lightning bolts or something. But I digress. Fire coming out of the head of some guy in a drawing by a child is not like going to a MUSEUM that should have a higher standard of presentation. My biggest problem with the Last Supper was that it didn’t fit. It wasn’t historically relevant to the area, and really didn’t have anything to do with Natural Bridge. I couldn’t figure out why they needed any museum there at all. I would have been happy if they had better signs on the trail, less junk in the gift shop, and a better Indian exhibit. The Indians and the Civil War facts at least had ties to the area. Please though, it could be done so much better.

Now after all my complaining you might think I didn’t have a good time. Wrong. I had a great time. Gary and I spent the whole day together, rode in the sports car, didn’t have to take care of anyone but ourselves – and essentially had a mini vacation.

We decided against staying for the “Miracle of Creation” lightshow at 9pm and headed north in search of a nice restaurant to have dinner. Once on our way, Lexington seemed like the best place to look, and we did find something very nice. The GPS helped us find the Sheridan Livery Inn. Secretly I was hoping that we might decide to see if they had a room, but it still seemed early. The food was great and we met some interesting local characters. They were very talkative. We finished dinner rather late…it was dark by then but decided that we would try to make it home and save the money that a hotel/motel would cost. We consider that there will be the lodges on Skyline Drive, and at the entrances and exits to the Blue Ridge Parkway or Skyline Drive, there are usually places like Day’s Inn, etc…

Up into the mountains we go, in the dark, keeping very alert for deer or bear (oh my…). We don’t see any bear. One deer, a possum, and something that looks like it belongs to the cat family are all we saw. By the time we exit at route 211 east, I am exhausted and start to fall asleep but don’t stay that way for long. The hard style seats (good for racing, not good for fat butts), and the stiff suspension have ceased to be comfortable. I’m glad when we finally get home. We are pleased to see that the children made their own dinners and didn’t order out. All was quiet and off to sleep we go.

Monday (Labor Day) started with Gary and Alex going to the Clifton Car Show and looking at all the local guys’ cool cars…sorry no pictures of that…and then heading out for the boat. We brought some sandwiches but not many snacks, and drinks. Since we started late (due to the Car Show), our “lunch” was at about 4:30. No matter, we’re having a holiday here! We threw out the anchor just south of Fort Washington and ate and when we were done we moved on down the river towards Occoquan. After stopping at the Occoquan State Park we moseyed on over to the town dock for Occoquan and found an open ice cream parlor. My grandfather used to make a joke about the $100 hamburger you get when you take a plane ride just so you can go out and you stop at another little municipal airport and get a junk hamburger which in itself isn’t too badly priced, but when you add the cost of the fuel to get to the little airport you’ve racked up a big bill. Well getting ice cream in the boat is like that. Hey, what fun is it if you can’t get ice cream? It’s our last day of summer, and we’re going to enjoy it, yes siree!

We get back onto the boat and start back to Washington, knowing that

a good portion of the trip will be in the dark. I’ve brought food for Zach with me and we are feeding him in what we thought was a slow zone, when the slow zone changes to an ok to go fast zone and a big boat comes by and makes a big wave and then the wave splashes over the bow of the boat…. and well, yes, Jenny and I got soaked. Not just a little wet. Jenny’s pants were so wet she just gave up and took them off since her colored underwear looked just like bikini bottoms anyway and sat under a blanket for the rest of the ride. I had on shorts and wrapped myself in a towel and it wasn’t bad at all. In fact we all laughed about it. Gary kept teasing that if we had a bigger boat then no one would be wet. But what fun would that be? It certainly wouldn’t make as good a story.

We arrived back at our slip at James Creek well after dark, hence the pictures of lights and everyone – especially Zach – had to use the facilities (well Zach just likes a tree), but you get the picture. In the dark, Alex’s sunglasses got dropped in the water, but that was our only real casualty. Nobody fell in, those who got wet had a good attitude about it, nobody was hurt, the dog didn’t get loose or poop on the dock, and the boat ran as well as it usually does. No dead batteries. All in all a successful day if you ask me.

Perfect end to the day was that since we had sandwiches at 4:30 and ice cream significantly later than that, and it was almost 10 o’clock, no one asked me to cook. Too bad Gary had to go to Colorado the next morning.

I can’t believe summer is over. Well, that means that fall is here and I’m one step closer to finishing my master’s degree. Always emphasize the positive.