Blue Ridge etc. Part 5

Day 7, Roanoke to Middletown

July 6

Roanoke to Middletown started on the Blue Ridge Parkway. I have had so much of the picturesque and scenic that I can’t wait to get back to Newark.

We left the Parkway to go to Lexington Virginia. On the way south on I-81, I had seen a sign that said Lexington was the home town of Stonewall Jackson. Why, next to the shrine at Guinea Station, Jackson’s home would have to be the Sedona, Arizona, of Stonewall Jackson mysticism. I had to go there.



The man at the Lexington visitors center didn’t say Jackson was born there, but his house was a couple of blocks up the street. He lived there from 1851 until he joined the Confederate Army in 1861.

He was a professor of philosophy and of artillery at Virginia Military Institute, which is in Lexington. I guess mastering both those subjects make anyone extremely persuasive.

We discovered that Washington and Lee University is also in Lexington. After he was paroled, or pardoned, or whatever, after the Civil War, Robert E. Lee was named president of Washington University. He held that job until 1869, when he had a stroke and died of pneumonia a few days later.

He could fight the U.S. Army for four years and come out all right, but four years of college kids made his head blow up. They added Lee’s name to the university after he died.

There is a marble cenotaph in the Lee Chapel on the university campus. It reminded me of the ones we saw in St. Paul’s in London. This one showed Lee during his insurrection years, sleeping in his Confederate uniform on the battlefield next to his saber. He appears serene. Perhaps he is dreaming of carnage. Generals may do that.

I have read recently, probably on a website somewhere, a quote attributed to Lee. It was advice to the young men of the university. In those days, only men attended universities. It was about hewing to the just and the right, and also avoiding spirituous liquors. No wonder he was belligerent. Lee needed to lighten up.

I think he is buried not under the monument but in the crypt of the chapel. The Lee Chapel is on the campus of the university. There is also a Robert E. Lee Memorial Episcopal (what else?) Church next to the campus but apparently independent of the school. This is the church Lee used to attend.

We also saw the monument to Stonewall Jackson at the Stonewall Jackson Memorial Cemetery in Lexington.



We drove up U.S. Route 11, which in Virginia at least, is called the Lee-Jackson Highway. We drove through Staunton, past the Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library. Wilson was born there, and right near his house is a sign for the Stonewall Jackson Conference Center.

I think we also passed a Stonewall Motel and maybe Stonewall Motors used cars. Today’s photo is Joanna visits Stonewall.



That’s his house in Lexington behind her.

Everybody is lovely and charming down here, but just a little bit crazy when it comes to the Civil War. That and the hiking trails in the woods are the region’s main tourist attractions. Admit it now: When was the last time you said, I have to go visit the Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library.

But battlefields and bullets, acting out Daniel Boone, standing on the mountaintop and making wisecracks, getting rescued from the heat--now, that’s what travel is all about.

And the cult of Stonewall Jackson? That is funny and well worth a drive of a few hundred miles.

A little way south of Strasburg, there is a covered bridge not far from the highway. We had to be careful when we got out to explore it because it’s still in use. When we were walking inside, we had to stand by the wall from time to time to let a car go by. It’s very dark in there and, coming out of the sunlight the drivers couldn’t see us.



If I had a pumpkin for a head (well, the "if" is debatable), I could have performed some real mischief.

Another cool thing about this bridge, aside from the novelty of its being covered, is the approach. You pull off the highway onto what must have been the drive to the big house on a long-gone plantation. The road runs straight between two large fields that extend all the way from Route 11 to the bridge. They may be several acres each.The road is lined with huge hardwoods. It looks like something from “Gone With the Wind.” But that’s appropriate because, although it’s Virginia and not Georgia, the same wind blew this place away, too.

We also stopped in New Market. I'd been there before. I may have stayed in a motel near the town during one of my previous raids into Rebel territory. There was a battle of New Market. Of course, that's not a big distinction in this neighborhood.There was a battle of almost every town along Route 11 in Virginia. Confederate soldiers, a sign says, used signal flags on top of one of the buildings in the town.

There's a log house, too. I thought it was a reproduction but apparently it's original.



One thing I noticed is that the Manor Memorial United Methodist Church sits right next to the Smith Creek Regular Baptist Church. Do the United Methodists get along with the Regular Baptists? Do they even speak to each other on Sunday mornings? If I walked between the two buildings would they fall on top of me?

The Wayside Inn in Middletown was started in 1797. It serves Virginia wines, including a cabernet franc that was only available by the bottle. It’s a little bit sharp, but very tasty. Joanna finished a glass of it.

The inn claims the peanut soup is made according to a recipe that dates to the founding of the hotel. The spoonbread is like cornbread mixed with eggs. The lamb shank, as advertised, fell off the bone.

No room for dessert. I finished off the wine in the room and fell asleep.



Day 8, Middletown to Home

July 7

Went exploring the Wayside this morning. Some of the structure is original, and like all old places, more was tacked on later. If you’re tall, you’ll have to duck now and then for low beams. The inn opened in the year that Washington died, and there are prints of him and a few of Martha, too, all over the place. Also portraits of unidentified people. Some may be originals, but I really wouldn’t know.

The inn is easy to find. It sits right on the Lee-Jackson Highway, which follows Main Street in Middletown. Out front there is a historical marker that says Stonewall Jackson succeeded in some kind of maneuver that forced a Union general to divide his army.

That was in May 1862. Stonewall Jackson didn’t have long to go after that.

Got back home around 4:30 Saturday, after a drive of about 1,800 miles, but aromas and the lights and the colors were fantastic. There was also Cabela's, sitting on a bluff over Route 78, so we had to stop there and look at firearms and stuffed animals. Who the hell shoots prairie dogs? They're cute.



I was thinking about buying a .22 short, but decided to keep my life simple and bought a switchblade instead.

I am back in New Jersey, so dinner was chicken cacciatore with bread from Calandra’s bakery.

The cat is happy.

Be well, all.

Harry

Blue Ridge, Part 4

Day 5, Walking to Kentucky 

July 4

We have been really busy, gang. 

Lots of driving and seeing stuff. We met re-enactors at the Wilderness Trail State Park in Virginia, climbed the Wilderness Trail, and walked from Tennessee to Kentucky through the Cumberland Gap, got very hot on another trail with more climbing and quit, got a ride back to my car from a kind man and his wife. That was all before noon yesterday. I finished the day after picking my way through the inevitable traffic jam that followed the fireworks at Asheville, N.C.

I started the day by going to the wrong place. The Wilderness Road has been partly restored so you can walk it from a parking lot in Tennessee to another in Kentucky, and cross the Cumberland Gap in the middle. More on that later.

My search for that place took us too far. We wound up in Virginia at the Wilderness Road State Park. But that’s all right. The place contains a replica of a stockade called Martin Station and is full of re-enactors--Park Service employees dressed in 18th century costumes.

We spoke to one who was posing as the General Martin for whom the station is named. His pony tail was longer than mine. 

He had actually led a group that had spent six months one year building the station by hand. They camped here and used 18th century tools. The only compromise was that, because they couldn’t cut the trees they needed, they had logs delivered to some inconvenient place on top of a hill. They pulled the logs in with oxen. So I guess he has a right to impersonate somebody who did the same kind of thing before.

We also met Captain Titus, one of Gen. Martin’s sidekicks. Joanna snapped a photo of him and me, and I e-mailed it to him today.

Joanna had left her hat in the car, and the captain advised her that she needed a “sun bonnet.” Joanna has stopped using the word “hat.”

Gen. Martin (whose square name may be Hick) told us the real Martin Station is about seven miles away, discovered 50 year ago when a subdivision was built on the site. No one living there now remembers anything about it. 

We stayed for a program about the Declaration of Independence, in which a young man got up and pretended to have difficulty reading all the words. He was using one of the artificially aged replicas that are supposed to look like Jefferson’s original. So maybe the difficulty was real.

Gen. Martin would stop him from time to time to comment on the text. So our discussion ranged from small government and its role in regulation to the rights to bear arms and overthrow repressive authority. Not wishing to upset anyone on the solemn holiday, I didn’t get into my right to pack a spring-loaded pocket knife or to consume cannabis. 

It was a great time, but we had exploring to do. So we got directions to the place I was really looking for. It is appropriately enough in Cumberland Gap, Tenn.

I had been at the foot of the trail two years ago, but hadn’t taken that route. That time I had walked through the Gap going eastward, like someone who had been chased out by the Indians.

It was about a hundred degrees out, maybe two hundred. I believe it was much the same up north at home. I left my jacket in the trunk.

The trail is a reconstruction that follows the approximate route of the original. A highway once ran through the gap but that was pulled up in the 30s or 40s and the ground was restored to its pre-highway days. 

The trail is steep in spots and for a couple of stretches is almost vertical. I don’t know if they could bring wagons through here in the old days.

We got to the Gap in fair condition. I was soaking with sweat, but otherwise fine. So I felt like Superman. Joanna grew up in Hong Kong, which is a short walk from the Equator, so she didn’t even breathe hard. Here's proof:

Now, here’s where Harry was punished for his arrogance. There is a branch trail off the Wilderness Road, and this takes the route that the pioneers were avoiding when they went through the Gap. But the sign said “Tri-State Overlook” and, remember, I was Superman.

I made it halfway when I ran out of water, out of breath, and out of steam. Joanna was fine, but I must have looked pretty bad. We sat on a rock and the minute I stopped I was dizzy. That’s a bad sign of dehydration: the blood isn’t pumping efficiently.

A guy came by while we were sitting there and asked if we were going up or down. He said he was going to press on and would call down and let us know what the trail was like above us.

We sat on our rock. He did call once, but we couldn’t make out what he said. We both tried to hail him but got no answer. I hoped he hadn’t been eaten by a lion.

I decided to be like the pioneers and stick to the Wilderness Road, so I gave up that climb.

We walked the Wilderness Road to Object Lesson Road. There’s a sign that explains the name. The road is less than a mile long and was built more than a century ago by the Department of Agriculture to demonstrate what a country road could, indeed should, look like. It was graded and covered with gravel for drainage.

Most of the country’s roads at the time were ruts in the mud, because nobody wanted to pay taxes to improve them.

By the time we got to the parking lot at the end of Object Lesson Road, it was time to walk back to Tennessee. I had had it. Joanna, of course, was still doing fine.

As we started back, we met the man who had called to us on the overlook trail. He looked like he was doing fine, too.

Don’t know what I looked like, but it apparently it wasn’t in the doing-fine range, because the first thing the man did was offer us a ride back to the Tennessee side of the mountain. 

He introduced himself. I think his name was Dan and introduced us to his wife, Sharon, who had been waiting in the air conditioned car.

They were from Alabama and were on a road trip after visiting their daughter in Memphis.

After Dan brought us back to my car, we drove all afternoon to Asheville, which was getting ready for a big Fourth of July celebration. There are also four Holiday Inns in town. 

I learned that because when I came off the highway I saw a Holiday Inn sign and went for it, even though Google Maps said go the other way.

When I tried to check in, my reservation wasn’t in the computer. So I took out my notes and said, “Is this the Holiday Inn Asheville-Biltmore East?” 

No, it was the Holiday Inn something else. The one I wanted was easy to find, just stay on Tunnel Road till you get there. 

There is a tunnel, by the way. You go through it to get to the center of town, where the Weinhaus and the bars are.

We went to Tall Gary's Cantina and had duck and peach tacos and a flight of Highland Brewery beers. The Highland label shows a kiltie, but the highlands in question are those not of Scotland, but of North Carolina. Excellent brews: a Gaelic ale (appropriately like a Scotch Ale). a pale, an India pale, and an oatmeal porter (not stout, like Samuel Smith's, but a little lighter). Porter tends to run bitter, the Gaelic ale dry, the pale ale somewhat Belgian, and the IPA crisp and sharp.

Also had a frozen Margarita, of course.

The fireworks followed a show of live music in the city park. The rockets, red glare and all, were launched from the top of a nearby parking deck. There were some amateur additions in the distance from time to time. It was like being back in Chiang Mai on New Year’s Eve.

Because of all the traffic afterwards, I couldn't turn left and go back the way I had come, so I turned right and got lost. Made it back to the hotel eventually. It was a good day.

Day 6, Up to Roanoke

July 5

Asheville to Roanoke today, by way of the Blue Ridge Parkway. Roanoke is very difficult for Cantonese speakers to say, I have found, but not as difficult as Cantonese is for me.

One of the stops on the way was an overlook that looked up at Craggy Dome. It's so high that trees don't grow on the top, only rhododendron. This area, we learned, is something like the continent's or the world's largest concentration of wild rhododendron. the stuff hangs over the road the way it does in the Delaware Valley. Craggy Dome does its part. 

On the way here, we stopped at an overlook that was the site of the Brinegar cabin. It's an old hill farm that was bought by the government in the '30s when they were building the parkway. Mr. Brinegar was already gone at the time, and Mrs Brinegar, already at an advanced age, was entitled to live out her life there, but it got too noisy and she moved in somewhere else with her daughter. 

It's on the crest of the Blue Ridge and the wind was blowing hard for a storm when we got there. I had to hold my hat. Joanna was laughing out loud. The rain was coming. It was spectacular.

We stopped at Mabry's Mill, an actual mill built early in the 20th century and operated until 1935. It sits right next to the Blue Ridge Parkway in Virginia. We got there around five and everything was closed by then. It was still interesting, but nowhere near as cool as being able to go into the mill and see the water wheel working.

Besides the mill, the site has artifacts--wagons, plowshares, syrup-making equipment--salvaged from the area and said to represent rural life around here in the old days.

The log cabin and blacksmith shop were closed. I was here once before, and when the cabin was open, you couldn’t enter but could look into it. The blacksmith shop had a blacksmith in it who answered tourists’ questions and made a few things. 

There is something like that at Rose Hill Manor, too, with a man who does smithing demonstrations. When we were there, we saw some of the hooks and horseshoes he had made, but it wasn’t one of his demonstration days.

There is a sorghum mill near the big mill. It was turned by a mule or by Conan to grind the stalks and catch the sap. The sap was rendered into syrup in a large evaporating pan over a wood fire. The syrup replaced molasses when the sugar trade was disrupted during the Civil War.

My favorite thing sits in a hollow across a stream in the woods. 

Somebody found a still in the hills and brought it here to set it up as an exhibit.

Went to downtown Roanoke. It was a ghost town, except for an open-air concert, which was winding up, so they were no longer selling tickets. 

We had a glass each of California pinot, merlot, and cabernet sauvignon with dinner. Well, now we have an open bottle of Don & Sons Sonoma Coast pinot noir that I bought yesterday at the Weinhaus in Asheville.

So I'm signing off. There's drinking to be done.

Blue Ridge etc. cont'd

Day 3, Skyline Drive and Charlottesville

July 2

OK. Today was a walk in the park. Actually a few walks in the park and a lot of driving too.

The motel in Front Royal was a few blocks from the northern end of the Skyline Drive, which goes through the Shenandoah National Park. It’s a great place to see and, like the Cowpens battlefield, the visitors’ center even has a movie to give you an overview when you’re getting started. Hill people used to live there until they were bought out in the 30s to make a national park, which may have been the first of the big nature parks—think Yosemite or Yellowstone—on the East Coast.

I think they have big cats here, and certainly have bear. We saw deer, turkeys, birds of prey, blue birds, but no panthers or black bears. Maybe some bear poop, though.

The park is full of information about the Civilian Conservation Corps, which built much of it. And places with names like Hogwallow Flats and Bacon Gap. There is also a Thornton Gap. (Is the founder any relation of yours, Jack?)

The Skyline Drive is 105 miles long, 35 mph for much of the way. It took us nine hours to do it. That’s because of the stops.

The road twists and turns, and of course there are abundant scenic overlooks. Many of them have signs talking about points of geology, settlement, reforestation (recovery from settlement), and of course Stonewall Jackson. It’s kind of fun, too, to come up to a sharp bend, and there’s an overlook on the left. So if you want to stop, you have to get over quick because there isn’t much of a sightline.

The signs have taught me, for instance, that those bare spots you see on distant hillsides are loess, the slide-prone fields of loose rocks. “Loess” is almost an anagram for “loose,” but that may be coincidence.

We walked on the Appalachian trail for short stretches a few times, including part of a nature hike near the south end called Frazier Trail with overhanging rock formations. As it was when we walked to school, the trails are uphill both ways. Well, not always. Sometimes you get to the top and you have to slide down. I believe the purpose of all this is to humble us and remind us of the hardship of our mountain-dwelling forebears.  Also grateful for WiFi and hot showers.

We also went walking in a high meadow that, according to the information at the visitor center, was indeed not made by settlers killing trees. It is a fairly flat place full of grass and wildflowers. There is evidence, we were told, that the Indians used this site more than 10,000 years ago. It may have been a rendezvous point where different groups met to trade. There are narrow trails, which look like they were cut by small game, that criss-cross the field. So we walked some of them to channel the indians.

There are other trails that would be fun to follow if I get back here sometime when the temperature is under 90.

There is something decidedly spooky about Eastern hardwood forests. The woods grow taller by a couple of stories than the Pine Barrens. They are full of shadows, and we were looking for rattlesnakes, though we didn’t see any.

I know this all sounds uncharacteristically wholesome for me. There are no bars, strip clubs, spacecakes, or murder sites. But there is Stonewall Jackson, although it is indeed, uncharacteristic of Virginia that I should see only one reference to him in the course of more than 100 miles. According to one of the signs, overlooking the Shenandoah Valley and Massanutten Mountain to the west, some gap in the mountains visible from the Drive was instrumental in his 1862 campaign in the Shenandoah Valley. Jackson used his superior knowledge of the terrain and the mountain passes, we were informed, to outmaneuver and confuse his Union opponents. He was apparently a flexible guy. He could stand like a wall and move fast, too, as circumstances dictated.

The photo for today is of a novelty of the region, as seen from an overlook on the Skyline Drive. It called Stony Man, and has nothing to do with Stonewall Jackson. It's like the Indian face you see when you go through the Delaware Water Gap.

We got to the Hampton Inn in Charlottesville around 6:30 or 7. It’s on the edge of a huge shopping mall. The old city of Charlottesville is surrounded by that late 20th century prefab suburban sprawl. The man at the desk told me about a place called The Boat House, which is locally owned and specializes in local wines. All right, in the middle of the national franchise world there’s a local joint.

And we could walk there, so I wouldn’t even need to behave. It is decorated with sculling memorabilia, including citations to winning University of Virginia crew athletes.

I was expecting Virginia wines to be light and fruity, without too much serious flavor. Like New York and New Jersey wines I’ve tasted. Not so. Pollak merlot is really fun; it just fills your mouth up. We had two Barboursville wines, a cabernet sauvignon and a pinot grigio (Joanna was having roast chicken), that were also very good. Plenty of flavor, the change between going in and going down. Fruit and spice and everything nice.

When we got to the Boat House, the first thing the waitress asked was how we did in the storm. She said there are still a million and a half people down here with no electricity.  We actually encountered little evidence of the storm. We had met the lady with no air conditioning at Rose Hill Manor. A man packing his car at the motel in North East, Maryland, after we checked out on Sunday morning told us he was a “storm refugee.” He was from Silver Spring and had cleared out on the basis of weather reports and storm warnings.

A store near a camping ground just off the Skyline Drive was open, but had no power. The gas station near the southern end of the Drive also was without power. The store was open and running on a small generator, but the pumps weren’t operating.

Except for some fallen tree limbs, we hadn’t seen any other storm damage than that in the past 400 miles.

It’s very strange. We’re traveling through a disaster area and can’t even tell.

The disruption caused The Boat House to pull a few things off the menu, but the waitress said they still had a “couple of lobsters.”

Maybe that’s disaster in the land of plenty.

I can understand that. I'm running out of wine.

Good night, all.

Harry

July 3

Hi Harry,

You are in the best winemaking area of Virginia all around Charlottesville. Barboursville produces world class Bourdeax style wine called Octagon, Horton with award winning Voigner, Kluge now Trump and Veritas produce some very good sparkling wine and others just to name a few. They say the best varietals in Virginia are a Voigner, Petit Verdot and Cabernet Franc (Mr Jefferson's grape) and one day one or all will be Virginia's signature grapes.

John T.

Day 4, 

Monticello, just like a nickel, and a long way to Kentucky

sent July 4, a.m.

The car and the shuttle bus did all the climbing yesterday.

We started by crossing Charlottesville to reach Monticello.

When you get there, you park at the foot of the hill (maybe Thomas Jefferson invented parking lots too) and take a bus to the big house.

We took the half-hour tour [Editor’s note: Harry is believed to have deleted a lame Gilligan’s island reference here] and saw the cool stuff we’ve all heard about—the dumbwaiter for wine at the sides of the dining room fireplace, the rotating door with shelves for bringing food in, the bed that connects the bedroom and the office. 

Longhairs in profile: Harry meets the President.

Jefferson is buried in the family cemetery, where Congress put an obelisk over him. 

There is a sign that the cemetery is still the property of Jefferson’s family. I guess when the family went broke and had to sell the place, they were allowed to hang on to the graveyard.

People in the recognized bloodline are still being buried there, another sign says.

Speaking of bloodline, the photo of the day is a representation of Harriet Hemings, whose mother was Sally Hemings. 

The sign next to her image says nothing about who her father was. Appropriately enough, the effigy of Harriet has a very fair complexion and is in the cellar under the main house.

The Hemings-side offspring of the president needed DNA evidence before they could even come to the family picnic.

Besides the subtle aside to Harriet, the tunnel under the house has replicas of some of the functional rooms that were there. 

There was lots of wine lore in the cellars under Monticello. Jefferson bought the wine bottled, apparently because it was easier to adulterate and easier for people along the way to siphon some off if it was shipped in casks. The bottles were packaged in wooden barrels with straw for cushioning. They came all the way from Europe on small ships. I wonder what the breakage was. 

There is also a beer cellar. It seems Jefferson started a brewing revolution in his area by putting to work a British soldier who was captured during the War of 1812. He was a brewer by trade. He taught one of Jefferson’s slaves.

They made the beer from wheat and sweet corn—like Bud and Miller today. Then they learned to make ale, and things got really good, I guess. There are snippets from letters by Jefferson to his friends, offering to apprentice candidates to his own brewer.

And of course with a slaveholder’s expectations, he essentially told them, my guy can teach them if they are capable of learning.

The kitchen garden outside the big house has all kinds of herbs and vegetables. We saw one growing under terra cotta pots. This, the gardener told us was sea kale. Keeping it covered when it's young assures tender shoots. 

I had made reservations at what I thought were places a reasonable distance apart. I was wrong on this one. It’s about 400 miles from Monticello to Middlesboro, Ky., so we didn’t have time to stop for lunch, let alone Davy Crockett’s Birthplace State Park.

The drive through mountain country is wonderful. Grand vistas of blue hills, narrow valleys, dark stretches under the trees, Wal-Mart in the distance.

We barreled into Kentucky just before nine. Anyhow, that’s why this message is coming at an odd time.

We had to call Pizza Hut for food. I had a bottle of wine in the trunk—a Grande Reserve pinot noir Bourgogne. According to the label, it was put into bottles in the region of production by Josephine Dubois. What a job she must have, standing in the wine cellar with the spigot open, filling one bottle after another. Are her fingertips purple?

I have to sign off. We have to go climb the Cumberland Gap. And just like Thomas Jefferson, we need to get more wine. 

Happy Fourth.

Blue Ridge, etc.

Day one, Havre de Grace

June 30 2012, 9:08 p.m.

Hello, all.

Returned today to the Harbor of Grace, so named, we're told, by the Marquis de Lafayette who was hanging out here with Rochambeau helping us win the Revolution. He said it reminded him of Le Havre back home. He's a traveler of my sort, continually playing "same and different," one of my favorite games.

Sort of like feeding the very young monks in Thailand and thinking of American Halloween at the same time. Buddha will, I trust, forgive me for being so rude as to share that.

We stopped off to see my sister Jamy and my brother-in-law Bob. 

It took a bit longer to get here than I expected. For some reason, I forgot that everybody else would be taking off this weekend, too, and the Parkway was backed up. Once we got onto the Turnpike, things got better, because most of the traffic stayed on the Parkway, headed for the Jersey Shore, in the footsteps of Snooki. There were some slowdowns, but nothing like the crawl through Newark and Irvington. The two-hour drive through Jersey took about three and a half hours. The rest of the trip, about 40 miles, went fast. But not too fast, because the authorities caught me a couple of weeks ago in upstate New York. I don't want to collect too many of those kinds of souvenirs. I have better things to do with 200 bucks.

Today's picture wasn't taken today. It shows the very cool lighthouse at Havre de Grace, and I got it on my first visit here in June of 09. The lighthouse hasn't changed in more than 200 years. I confirmed today that the photo is still valid.

Bob told me when it was built and that it's one of the oldest in the state or maybe the country. I think he said it dates to the 1760s. That and the lightkeeper's house were about the only things in town that the Brits didn't burn when they came through here during the War of 1812.

Jamy drove us around town because it was a bit hot to walk, and we revisited the Decoy Museum. I had told Joanna about how unexpectedly interesting it was. And of course, that means funny.

There are lots of very detailed duck decoys—canvasbacks, bluebills, and whatnots—in addition to swans (can you imagine shooting a swan?), Canada geese, Carolina wrens (done for decoration, not for decoying to their doom), loons, and probably some of everything that flies and is big enough to shoot. There is also useful information on the origin of the term "decoy--from the Dutch "de cooi" or something like that which means "the cage." The old-time Dutchers used to put tame ducks in floating cages, apparently, to draw wild ducks close enough to catch. 

The highlights of the place for me, though, are the life casts of legendary carvers, including one that's actually scary. Imagine a guy in his workshop surrounded by drawknives and other instruments of duckmaking and dressed all in khaki with a black bow-tie. But he's not breathing. Scary enough in real life, but this is an uncanny and very detailed representation—I mean detailed even to concentration wrinkles on his face and broken fingernails. Even scarier, this guy looks like he could be one of my relatives.

A photographer named Bodine caught these guys in stills in the early 40s. One of the photos shows four guys around a stove in 1942 at one decoy carver's shop. I think the shop owner was named McGraw. He's there, along with my relative in the bow-tie again, plus two hunters and a dog. Like "Shakespeare in Love"—a bit with a dog.

You press a button and hear my great-uncle in the bow-tie —Buddha forgive me, I have forgotten his name already—narrating what happened and identifying everyone, including a geriatric on one side playing with a shotgun. 

The museum also has the actual string of decoys used by a Hall of Fame baseball player named Home Run Something or Other, who lived near here and shot ducks.

If you have a Triple A card or you're geriatric like me or the guy with the shotgun, you get in for five bucks. The lighthouse and the museum are worth a three-hour drive. Besides that, though, there is a boardwalk along the bank of the Chesapeake Bay.

We had dinner at a place called Laurrapin. I had been there before. and since then, they have added draft beer. I had an Evolution ESB at the bar. Wow. Like being back at Russell Square. I learned afterwards, thanks to the wonder of modern Google, that it is made by a craft brewery in Maryland.

I had a nice fruity California pinot noir with paella for dinner. Joanna and Jamy each had a different cabernet sauvignon, also Californian. I had sips of those and they too were very nice. Just enough sharpness to make them fun at the end.

This is Harry at the Best Western North East Inn in North East, Md., signing off for tonight.

Love to all, and to all a good night.

10:08 p.m.

You got a lot farther than we did! Flight canceled. They put us on a different airline and now we're in Charlotte finally about to board for Graceland ... Poor Emily is waiting for us at the Memphis airport.

KC

Flight canceled? That must be a nightmare with your kid waiting for you. But Emily seems to be a pretty cool-headed person.

The only time this happened to me recently, I was so high from eating hashish for a week in Amsterdam, that I found it amusing. It became a great yarn to spin. But I didn't have to meet anyone at the end of my flight.

I hope Emily finds it funny enough to make a good story later on.

When you have the chance, keep me up to date as the situation improves.

Thanks.

Harry

11:06 p.m.

My parents were married in Havre de Grace. They eloped—both underage, my mother barely in high school—giving an Atlantic City address so their marriage wouldn’t be in the Philadelphia papers.

  They’d taken a coconut cream pie and gotten on a train from Philadelphia.

  They had a big wedding five years later.

  I only learned about the Havre de Grace ceremony when my father was dying and didn’t want me to be upset when I came upon the papers in his safety deposit box.

Beatrice

July 1, 4:18 pm.

We are happy all is well. We are happy to report Alexander could not be happier you needed his help!

He is so happy that he has a pet to care for especially after losing our dear Max!

 He adores your sweet little kitty-he smiles ear to ear when he sees her and that makes me so very happy!( and smile too)!

Our love to Joanna

Much love.

Anna

July 1, 7:30 p.m.

Everybody ok. We went to Sun Records today and walked in the footsteps is Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins and Elvis somebody. Soul food at the Four Way Diner and then the afternoon at the Lorraine Motel, very moving and vivid still 44 years on.  Memphis is gritty, you'd love it!

KC

July 1, 9:28 p.m.

I've just added it to my list. Thank you.

Harry

Day two, Maryland and northern Virginia

July 1, 2012

Left North East, Md., around 9 this morning, and the next stop, Front Royal, Va., isn’t very far to go, so we knew we’d be stopping along the way. We just didn’t know where.

 

We drove down I-95 to the beltway around Baltimore and then headed west on I-70. We noticed a sign that said “Historic Downtown Frederick.” All right, I’m always game for a quick stroll through a Historic Downtown, especially with initial caps.

So first thing off the highway is a sign pointing to a visitor center. Having one of those is serious historic, so I’m really expecting something now.

But first we come to the Frederick County Public Schools Building, where this is a banner informing us that this is home to the “National Best Teacher of the Year.”

When we park in the lot by the visitor center, we say hello to a guy coming out. He looks at the car and asks, “What part of New Jersey are you from?”

I tell him North Jersey, not far from New York. Joanna says Montclair.

“My sister lives in Montclair.

Her name is Fritz, short for Frances, and her husband is Jim.

We’re talking to the man, who turns out to be a local real estate agent, who goes by the nickname O.J. He handed me his card and I learned the "O" stands for Otho, the name of a Roman emperor. He told us about some of the things to see in town, including Rose Hill Manor.

So we get local maps and directions from the lady at the visitor center and armed with that we proceed to head downtown first to see the Historic part, including the Barbara Fritchie House (of “Shoot if you must this old gray head” fame).

Of course, the first thing to do is get lost, and thinking I’m taking us the block or three to Historic Downtown, I turn us in the wrong direction. Fix that and almost get it right, but wind up at Mount Olivet Cemetery instead, but that’s actually fortunate, because it’s where the Francis Scott Key monument is.

 

Also the Barbara Fritchie monument,

and another one to Thomas Johnson, who is modestly identified as the governor of Maryland.

He served in the Continental Congress, was one of the ratifiers of the Declaration of Independence, and was the guy who nominated Washington in 1775 to take charge of the Continental Army.

By the last bit alone I think this guy won the Revolution. Without Revolutionaries like this we’d all be speaking English today.

There was also a monument, surprising enough, to the unknown Confederate dead killed in battles in the area.

Finally got to Historic Downtown, a really charming place full of colonial and federal townhouses. The Barbara Fritchie house is a replica of the place that was wiped out by a flood in the late 19^th century. The lady told us the replacement uses as much material as the restorers could salvage from the original house.

As you’d expect, of course, there is no actual proof that the 95-year-old lady actually waved a U.S. flag at invading Confederate troops, or that it was shot at. Apparently, it was a rumor that someone, who hadn’t been in Frederick at the time, passed along to John Greenleaf Whittier.

But that’s all right. It doesn’t have to be true. I have a hard time believing that John Greenleaf Whittier’s whiskers only grew out of his neck, but there you are.

Next stop was the place that O.J., the real estate agent, recommended, Rose Hill Manor. it’s five bucks to get in. If we had played the age card, it would have been four.

A docent in a long dress took us through the house, built in 17-something by some fat cat slaveholder. It was like the Dey Mansion in Totowa, which of course tell you nothing if you’re not a New Jersey history buff. there are several bed chambers upstairs, a couple of parlors down. One of the upstairs rooms is fitted as a textiles room. the docent demonstrated the use of a spinning wheel to spin yarn. We carded a little bit of wool.

She demonstrated a table loom and had kids in the group and Joanna use the shuttle (or whatever it’s called that carries the woof) and the thing that makes the warp go up and down. I hope that description isn’t too technical.

We saw the carriage museum—more than a dozen restored horse-drawn conveyances, including one-horse sleighs—that had been given to the museum years ago. Also an ice house, a log cabin, and a smithy. The grounds are covered by towering black walnut trees. So: yes, under the spreading walnut tree, the village smithy stands.

I know. That’s not how it’s supposed to go, but the chestnuts don’t tower anymore because of the blight.

The docent was magnificent. Armed only with a single thermos of water, she remained cool in hundred-degree heat, even with two very young kids vying to see who could ask the most questions. The kids and their mother had been displaced recently by storms in the area. They had some power, but no air conditioning, and that’s why they were out and about. Those three, Joanna, and I were the total party in the tour.

Yet, the lady took us through the whole thing, explaining and giving us the back story on everything. I was flat-out impressed by her stamina. The tour lasted over an hour and she sat down maybe twice.

We tried to go to a place called the Lucky Star—reputed to have a selection of craft brews—in Front Royal, but it was closed. We went to the Main Street Tavern instead, where they had a locally brewed IPA that tasted almost fruity, or maybe oaky, and a Vienna-style lager that was surprisingly good. There was also a chocolaty stout that I had only a sample of.

I switched to a California cabernet sauvignon that was almost sweet to go with the cheesecake for dessert.

We came to Front Royal, Va., on the Stonewall Jackson Memorial Highway, U.S. 340. There is also a Stonewall Drive that runs next to the Quality Inn in Front Royal. Today’s photo, taken at Rose Hill Manor, is Stonewall Joanna.

Enough for one day.

Harry