Straight Run Home

Sept. 14-16

It’s a little more than 200 miles from Salem to Hagerstown. I drove almost straight through. 

I only had to stop a couple of times to keep my knee from seizing up.

First stop was Starbucks in Harrisonburg, Va. It’s just off the Interstate and across the road from one of the gates to the James Madison University campus.

I had been watching the signs for food and drink at each exit along I-81. I passed a lot of them and didn’t see a single reference to Starbucks.

Do the signs ever include Starbucks? I could be passing them right and left.

After a while, though, a Starbucks mermaid made the list published at the roadside. What's more, Starbucks had taken out a couple of billboards south of Harrisonburg. 

I had no cause for concern. When there's a Starbucks, it's about as hard to miss as Wall Drug.

I didn’t need coffee, though. I had to use the wifi. 

That morning, the notes on how to get to Comfort Suites in Salem were a few scribbles to myself in a notebook, and they looked funny.

Was I really supposed to leave I-81, drive six miles on I-70, and then another mile and a half on U.S. 40? Why did I put myself so far out of the way? I couldn’t remember. My handwriting is so bad that I could have been misreading my notes.

So Thursday morning, I remembered everything else, but forgot to confirm the directions with Google before checking out. That’s why God created Starbucks and put them everywhere: So fools like me won’t get too far lost.

The directions on the screen at Starbucks were the same as those in my notes. 

At the second stop of the day, also in Virginia, there was an interesting sign in a men’s room stall: Automatic Flush. Please Don’t Kick.

It must happen often enough that they have to put up signs. 

My Google directions got me where I was supposed to go. It was out in the suburban sprawl. Malls, gas stations, chain restaurants, motels, and little else on both sides of the highway. Like most of my dwelling places these days.

In the room, I checked the internet for places to drink beer and eat. There were a Texas Longhorn and a unit of a regional chain called El Ranchero within a half mile of me. 

They were both reachable on foot, a rare luxury in a neighborhood like. It was raining at the time, so that made the prospect of a walk less inviting.

Then I noticed 28 South. It was a few miles away, in the historic section of Hagerstown, at 28 South Potomac St. The address in old town gave me a kind of moral obligation to go there. 

In general, old towns anywhere will have the interesting sights. 

And 28 South had duck tacos.

U.S. 40 runs into the old town, where it divides. Westbound is on one one-way street; eastbound is on a parallel street. 

The streets are lined with brick townhouses, most of which seem to be well kept. There are strange signs on every block: No cruising 7 p.m.  - 2 a.m.

I’m not sure what that means. Did people make it a practice to drive up and down the city streets endlessly until the bars closed?

There were “no trespassing” signs on many of the doors.

It wasn’t till I parked the car in a lot and walked that at least one of the concerns was apparent. There were I don’t know how many homeless drunks lining a six-block walk.

This was hands-down the cleanest and neatest Skid Row I’ve seen.

The food and brew at 28 South made the entire detour to Salem worthwhile.

The duck tacos have chunks of duck breast, dressed with baby kale, bacon, and a plum barbecue sauce. They taste as strange as they sound, and they’re excellent.

There were no local brews at the pub, but there were some that were unfamiliar to me. 

I tried Arcadia Road Crew, an IPA out of Kalamazoo.

It was unusual in that it had neither the pine-like flavor of most IPAs, nor did it have a citra flavor, as many American IPAs do. It was mildly fragrant, but the aroma was savory rather than floral.

Unusual, for sure. I might take that one again if I run into it somewhere.

The crab cake was the real deal. 

Crab cakes can be disappointing. Even on the Maryland shore, you can get a patty that's mostly meal flavored with meat ground way too fine. The result is a starchy, unpleasant mush.

The crab cake at 28 South has large lumps of crab, barely held together by a bit of binder. They are browned top and bottom with a thin, crisp crust. There is paprika, and maybe Cayenne too, in the mix.

They came with a salad topped by a maple fig dressing. That was strange and lucky too. It was slightly sweet, working perfectly with the spicy crab.

Escutcheon Plimsoll IPA from Winchester, Va., had a touch of citra, but it wasn’t overwhelming, so that was good.

A stop at 28 South would give me incentive enough to revisit Hagerstown. 

I stopped for bottled beer at a store in town. But it is set up mainly to cater to the homeless.

There was a lady with a cart inside asking the man at the counter which quart beer was a dollar and change. 

On the way out, I almost ran into a man. We hadn’t seen each other coming. No harm done, though.

He was with a friend who was standing away on the sidewalk, almost as if he didn’t want to be seen by the storekeeper. He wore an uncut gray beard and a bushy head of gray hair under an ancient baseball cap.

He seemed friendly enough, even called me “buddy” when I nodded to him. 

I wonder what was up. Maybe he had acted up enough to get him banned from the place.

There was no local brew at the second store on the way home. The owner said the place focuses on wine.

I was able to get a six-pack of New Belgium Fat Tire, one of the outstanding ales from Colorado. 

Saturday was smooth sailing home. I was in Pennsylvania shortly after 10 a.m. and back in Montclair a little after two.

I had a date to take Joanna out to dinner and didn’t want to keep her waiting.

Be well, all, and don’t forget to check your directions.

Harry.

Stranger in the Strange Land

Sept.11-13

I’ve been checking into rooms one afternoon and out the next morning for a few days. That gets old quick, so I’ll be stopping at La Quinta in Sevierville for three nights running. 

There was no urgency, so I didn’t go out till the middle of Tuesday afternoon. Besides, I didn’t have far to go.

I could see Smoky Mountain Knife Works from the parking lot of the hotel.

The Knife Works is one of the main reasons I’m here. 

It’s like Cabela’s, in that it showcases outdoorsy stuff. It has survival gear, tents, waterproof clothes, pistols, bows, shotguns, and all manner of equipment. I have no idea what some of these things are for.

They even have stuffed trophy animals, but nowhere near so many as Cabela’s. Nor are the specimens as exotic. 

It also has more of an anti-personnel edge than Cabela’s. It sells assault rifles, for instance, and one department has signs that brag how eager the owner is to shoot trespassers, and how his posting the sign will put the law on his side. 

Lots of other messages that ring true to the people whose minds live in action-movie world.

But the Knife Works also differs from Cabela’s because, as its name implies, its emphasis is on knives. I don’t know anywhere else that has as much real estate devoted to knives as this place. 

There are long counters each for a single brand. One department sells hand-made collector’s knives.

This is my go-to place for switchblades. It also has a vast array of sheath knives, boning knives, scaling knives, skinning knives, tactical knives, even a few domestic knives that you might use in the kitchen instead of in the field. 

After a couple of hours of wandering around looking at the toys, I bought two switchblades and a German folding knife. I lose a switchblade now and then because, especially in cooler weather when I get to wear a vest, I forget there is one in my pocket and so have to surrender it to airport security.

A conventional folding knife stays in my luggage. It could be dangerous to carry an automatic knife, even in my checked bags, when I cross a border. 

You never know. Hell, something I consider harmless mischief could lead to detention and a cavity search in some jurisdictions.

I bought a Kershaw, just like the one in my pocket, and something new to me, a Smith & Wesson, which is shaped much like the Kershaw, may weigh an ounce or two more, and is all black, except of course for the shiny white cutting edge.

This area is also a monument to kitsch. Most of the places to eat are franchises of national or international chains. But there are a few locally owned joints.

I took dinner later at one called the Applewood Farmhouse. The place specializes in Confederate comfort food. I hadn’t eaten since my biscuits and gravy at breakfast, so I wanted one of everything.

I managed to confine myself to chicken and dumplings with mashed potatoes and collard greens. The dumplings were like big bow-tie pasta. The gravy was superb, with large chunks of chicken. 

The food was so comforting I didn’t even mind eating chicken next to some of its distant cousins. There was a glass enclosure with several Australian finches, sparrow-size birds with foot-long tail feathers.

When I sat down, they served complimentary apple fritters with apple butter on the side. I left that combination for dessert.

There was no beer or wine at the Applewood, so my next stop was a craft beer pub called the Casual Pint.

I casually drank three pints there. The first came from one of my top breweries, Dogfish Head in Delaware. It was a new one to me, Flesh and Blood IPA. It was good. Dogfish always is. It had plenty of flavor but not as much as the company’s 60-minute IPA.

The other two ales came from Black Abbey Brewing in Nashville. 

The cream ale was relatively mild at 4.9 percent alcohol. It was smooth, as a cream often is, but had a reasonable dose of bitterness from the hops to balance the malt sweetness. 

I used to drink Genesee cream ale sometimes and have also tried a couple of other craft creams. They generally are not my favorites. This may have been the best cream ale I have tasted.

Vegas IPA, also from Black Abbey, was stronger, at 6.5 percent. It is a workaday American IPA. That’s no dismissal. On the contrary, that means it’s damned good, just not the absolute best. 

But I noticed one strange point that gave it added interest. The finish made me think of metal—odd, but in no way bad.

Wednesday I got to do the other thing I came here to do.

I made the bizarre drive that goes from the ridiculous to the sublime and back again. 

If you’ve never come this way before, you may think you’ve seen some strange ideas for tourist entertainment after you’ve seen Sevierville. 

You see the Knife Works, Adrenaline Park, Flea Traders Paradise, and other attractions. There’s not one, but two places hawking helicopter rides for the family. 

As you go down highway 66, you may see a small sign pointing in the direction of the historic district: “Dolly Statue.”

If you don’t know anything about Nashville country music, or about Pigeon Forge, which is coming up, you might shrug and keep going.

About 30 years ago, a group of citizens sponsored a statue of the area’s patron saint, Dolly Parton. It’s an approximately life-size bronze sitting on a stone in front of the Sevierville courthouse.

Very playful. There’s even a butterfly on the neck of her guitar.

Whether or not you stopped to pay homage to Dolly in bronze, you can’t miss what’s coming next. It backs the traffic up in both directions.

Pigeon Forge is home to Dolly Parton’s theme park, Dollywood. It also manages to cram the entire Jersey shore into a couple of miles of Highway 441.

At times, it seems that the place is home to just about any idea someone ever had to amuse tourists desperate for novelty on vacation.

There’s a movie-themed wax museum, a Titanic museum (shaped like the Titanic), an upside down hotel that does something or other, kiddy rides, go-karts, carousels, a mill district that is billed as historic. 

Shows include Dolly Parton’s Stampede, Paula Deen’s Lumberjack Feud, the Hatfield and McCoy Dinner Feud. Dolly Parton has another one, but I’ve forgotten what it’s called.

Somewhere in all this, there is also a real thing, the McMahan Indian Mound, which today is a low rise of grassy ground in front of a motel. 

People ride bicycles and electric scooters up and down the boulevard. Some even walk. Everybody seems to be overwhelmed by the monumental craziness.

After that, in the interval of a breath everything gets green, because you’ve entered the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. You coast along on a smooth road under a canopy of hardwoods.

But it’s far from over. A short while later, you come to Gatlinburg. It is a bit more congested than Pigeon Forge and more people are walking on the sidewalks, past destinations like Hogg’s Tavern, which on this trip is no longer billing itself as “Home of the Hillbilly Hammer.”

The roads have been surprisingly crowded considering the timing. It’s mid-week after labor Day.

Of course, I did overhear somebody at breakfast say he was a storm refugee from South Carolina. Maybe a lot of people are saying, if we have to get out, let’s go someplace weird.

Gatlinburg ends as if someone has drawn a line with a Crayola. Then you go back into the shade. The road twists and curves gracefully through more of the park. 

There are places to pull over and park. You can walk on trails to get a close-up look at the place. 

Sometimes the road climbs half of forever and brings you to overlooks. On a humid day like this one, you see the phenomenon that gives the mountains their name, the huge billows of steam rising out of the trees.

Then you coast for miles—two, three, maybe more. I was watching the road, not the odometer, so this is just a guess.

My favorite part is a 360-degree corkscrew curve. Southbound, you go through a long curve and then through a curved tunnel. Northbound, you get to see better what’s going on.

You come to the tunnel first and see that the road you will be traveling doubles back and goes over itself.

Eventually as you go south, you come out of the park to a sign in English and Cherokee welcoming you to the reservation. 

The place is tamer than I remember. There are malls of stores selling souvenirs, moccasins, turquoise. There are a few restaurants. 

I had wanted to go see Snake Adventures, but couldn’t find it. Maybe it’s gone.

When I got back to Sevierville, Tony Gore’s BBQ seemed like a good local joint for dinner. The sign outside left me a bit uneasy: “Southern Gospel, Southern Cooking, Southern Hospitality.”

The waitress was lovely, so the hospitality part was spot on. The food was OK, although it wasn’t Ralph’s. But it probably qualifies as Southern cooking.

I gave thanks to God that nobody was preaching. The owner of the place was a professional Southern gospel singer.

The pulled pork was almost bland. The baked beans were OK. The pork in them was actually tastier than the pork on the plate. No greens available, so I ate the cole slaw that came with the platter.

I had to salt everything and dose it well with hot sauce. That made it better.

Then it was back to the Casual Pint to balance all that Gospel.

Thursday was moving day. I drove straight through to Salem, Va. The weather had changed. It was a bright day.

I made the trip non-stop except a quick  lunch of eggs and grits at Huddle House.

A Google search for craft beer turned up Mac and Bob’s on Main Street in Salem, where I found some new things. One was made by a local outfit, Parkway Brewing in Salem. It’s called Get Bent Mountain IPA. 

This is another one with character at the end. It has very little fragrance, but when it goes down, the finish tastes fragrant.

Yeah, that sounds like synesthesia. But that’s what happened.

There was Satan’s Pony red ale from South Street in Charlottesville. It was lightly hopped so the sweetness of the malt was strong, but even so it went well enough with my sirloin, which was covered in pepper.

Bask IPA from Basic City Beer in Waynesboro, Va., was the strongest of the three. At 7.6 percent, it had a good alcohol bite, but its aroma and flavor were very grapefruity, so maybe the recipe had too much citra hopping.

Life is good, gang. I expect to be back in New Jersey sometime Saturday if I don’t get arrested.

I’m finishing a pint of Sweetwater 420, so I’m feeling good and mellow.

Love to all and to all a good night. 

And remember, you never know where you’ll find shelter from the storm.

Harry

Foggy Mountain Breakdown

Sept. 9-10

It rained in varying degrees between a spit and a pour for the first hundred miles south of Winchester. Then I drove out of it, although the sky stayed low and white for the whole trip.

All the way to Radford, steam kept fuming out of the trees on the hills. On days like this you can’t tell where the fog ends and the cloud begins.

Google estimates the drive at three and a half hours. I left the hotel around 10 or so. I paused at a couple of rest stops along I-81, just for a leg stretch and didn’t linger. So I made it to John and Kim’s house around half past one.

John was in the driveway getting the charcoal ready.

John’s mother, my Aunt June, was staying with John and Kim. It was great to see everybody.

We spent time catching up. John has bought a sailboat. That’s kind of interesting. 

He’s a doctor now, and seems to really enjoy it. He also teaches medical students. In fact, Kim told his mom and me that John has received a Teacher of the Year award voted by his students.

But in the unlikely event that he considers a career change, owning a sailboat makes piracy an option.

We also swapped travel stories. John and Kim have traveled far and wide, in the States and in Europe. One of their trips was to ride the Royal Scotsman, a touring train in Scotland.

Aunt June was with them, and when they mentioned their Scottish connection, that her maiden name was Lyons, people practically bowed to them.  It’s a lords-and-ladies family name over there.

John’s not sure about that connection, but it made for a great trip.

John grilled some perfect filets mignons, juicy and tender and smoky besides. Oh my. The last time I had meat that good was when Jeff, Joanna’s brother-in-law, grilled ribs in Vermont last July.

Kim put together a salad full of all kinds of flavors and just the right amount of onion to give it the perfect bite. 

There were baked potatoes, too. And with steak, that’s comfort food to bring tears to a grown man’s eye.

John and Kim are wine fans, and keep a store of it in their cellar. We had one with dinner, a great red, very fragrant and as mouth-filling as an oath. 

I was way too far into enjoying the meal to do any research or note-taking, so I failed to get any information on the wine. 

Actually there were two bottles of red. I think we drank from the one with the black label and red lettering. The other wine went into the mushroom gravy.

Maybe John or Kim can tell me who made the drinking wine and where.

Later John and Kim’s kids came over, and their grandkids. Four generations of the family were in the house.

Still later, John and I polished off a growler of Double Blonde, a well-hopped blond ale, while we watched “Prime Minister’s Questions” on C-Span. 

Basically, the show is televised political comedy. The opposition MPs make snarky speeches and ask questions that try to put the Prime Minister on the spot. The Prime Minister gives some kind of sarcastic response intended to deflect criticism.

Members of the majority party bring up issues intended to make the PM look good.

The night’s program had to do with Brexit: Opposition against; May and the Conservative party for.

Monday was a work day. I have almost forgotten what that is like.

Everybody got out on time. Except me. I was last out of the house.

I had a straight run of just over three hours if I took the Interstate directly to Sevierville. But I had all day.

So I asked John about getting to the Blue Ridge Parkway. It’s the slow route. It’s out of the way. The place is covered with hardwoods and rhododendron.

And today it was going to be shrouded in fog. I had to go see that.

John said it’s best going south if you pick it up by going through Floyd.

I found a simple route. I-81 Exit 114 is the junction with Virginia Highway 8, which goes right through Floyd, Va., to the parkway.

Google, as it often does, wanted to complicate things, diverting me down Main Street in downtown Floyd and then to another country road, probably because it calculated the drive as a few minutes quicker. When you don’t know the territory, though, the fewer route numbers and turns, the better. 

You can’t drive and read a list of instructions at the same time. Some people try that, I know, but it’s not recommended. 

When I left there was light fog over the New River behind the house. The clouds were low, and steam was still sifting out of the trees.

By the time I had climbed up the Blue Ridge, the fog was really thick. There’s no way I could drive the 45 mph limit without outrunning my sight distance, and on a road that twists like this one, that could be disastrous.

The wet, dim weather made the pale green lichen almost shine by contrast on the rocks and tree bark.

It was great fun, taking my time. There was very little traffic. Every once in a great while a car would come up behind me. 

There is no shoulder on the parkway, where I could pull over to let it go by. And of course, passing was out of the question. 

So the car would just have to linger behind this geriatric driver until until an overlook or some other cutoff presented itself.

The overlooks were a treat. There would be a sign describing peaks or other features in the distance, when the entire view was a blank wall of fog.

I stopped at the Rocky Knob visitor information center and met an affable man dressed like an old farmer, blue coveralls, checked shirt, and a red bandana, just like the Bloods.

He pointed out the Blue Ridge Music Center, which I had thought was a concert hall or an arena. Turns out it’s a museum. Dedicated to one of my favorite types of music, “Old Timey,” as they call it here.

It’s a direct descendant of the music brought from the Old Country by the Scotch-Irish who settled in Appalachia. This is likely the way British folk music was performed about 400 years ago.

The center was within a practical distance for the day, so I decided to follow the parkway at least that far.

But first I stopped at Mabry’s Mill. A man named Ed Mabry operated a mill and blacksmith shop on the site early in the last century. They and the sluices leading to the mill wheel are still there. The National Park Service has collected a number of other artifacts from the region, including an entire log cabin and a still, which have been placed at the site.

The mill has an overshot wheel. That is, a sluice carries water to the top of the wheel.

I didn’t remember seeing the wheel working before. A blog search later reminded me that six years ago last July, the first time I saw the place, the wheel was indeed working.

It took at least an hour to reach the Music Center, maybe 40 miles down the parkway. 

I love fog. It’s very moody. It encourages contemplation. The short sight distance makes you look at things up close.

When the wind blows and the fog moves, you’re reminded why people believe in ghosts.

I think a car following me encouraged me to pull into an overlook with a short trail, which goes down to a stream and then continues back to the starting point. 

The way down has tree roots and half-buried logs to provide uneven steps. The last few feet are steep enough to require an actual set of stairs with a hand rail. 

The stream runs through a small gorge that is very steep on the far side. The road crosses it on a concrete bridge.

The Music Center was well worth the drive. When I got out of the car, I could hear music in the distance. A recording maybe?

No, it was a group called the Buck Mountain Band under a portico outside the museum. So I sat there for half an hour or so until they took a break. 

Then a ranger got up and delivered a short discussion of bird images in traditional song lyrics.

The highlights I recall:

The robin in British folk songs is a different bird entirely from the American robin. Both species, however, have the bright orange breast. Hence the transfer of the name.

The cuckoo there is a very different species from the cuckoo in the States. Ours doesn’t even sound like the cuckoo clock, but more like the calling of a crow.

The Brit cuckoo is a sign of the approaching spring because that’s when it begins calling. 

Ours calls in the middle of summer. “Oh, the cuckoo is a pretty bird; she warbles as she flies. She never sings cuckoo, till the Fourth Day of July.”

Inside the museum, there are recordings of traditional songs and fiddle music, replicas of traditional instruments, including the akonting, a West African instrument that was the inspiration for the banjo.

It was getting late and I had to get to Sevierville before all the bars closed. Once you get outside the major cities, the bars—their kitchens, at least—all close at nine or ten.

I left the parkway about 15 miles south of the Music Center. I took U.S. 21 to U.S. 58.

Parts of the highway west of I-81 may follow approximately the Transylvania Company’s old Wilderness Road that went through Cumberland Gap. I’m not sure about the stretch I was on, which is also known as J.E.B. Stuart Highway.

I entered the highway at Independence, Va., at an intersection with the town’s monument to Confederate soldiers.

There is a section between Volney and Damascus, Va., which is considered unsafe, or at least impractical, for trucks longer than 35 feet. It twists and turns, sometimes around hairpin curves, for 30 or 40 miles.

It’s a trip in every sense, and great fun. You have to take your time, of course, or you’ll fall off (or run head-on into somebody coming the other way).

At one point, I had to slow to a crawl. 

I had been admiring the strange light created by very dark clouds overhead and open sky in the distance. Then the dark clouds let go.

The rain fell faster than the wipers could clear it. There were only very brief flashes of clear glass to show the road curving immediately ahead. Most of the time, I was following the white stripe on the right and the double yellow in the middle, but they were distorted by sheets of water.

I found that 25 was about the top speed to manage that.

The heavy rain lasted only a short while and then tapered off to a light drizzle and sometimes to nothing at all.

I was doing fine until I got about 10 miles from the intersection with I-81. A warning bell and a dashboard light told me I had low tire pressure.

These are new tires, maybe three months old, so I had probably picked up a nail.

Lucky for me I got to a Wal-Mart right by the Interstate. There’s one thing about Wal-Mart: It sells everything.

It was after six, but the Hand of Providence, or my patron saint, or Kuan Yin, had interceded for me, and the auto center was open.

Nothing so simple as a nail for me. I had to pick up a sharp stone that would put an irregular hole in the tire.

They weren’t sure at first that they could plug it. 

OK, then I’ll buy a new tire.

The store doesn’t have that size in stock. It has to be ordered.

The guy went back into the garage to see the mechanic.

That left me sitting in the waiting room planning my next move. Leave the Ford, take my bags, and rent a car. Then reverse the process in three days after I leave Sevierville.

Whatever higher power was interceding, it stayed with me. It took a while, but they managed to plug the hole.

I asked the mechanic exactly how much confidence he had in the repair. Should I go to a Ford dealer and get a new tire?

He showed me the plug they used and told me about extra coatings of rubber cement. 

The whole job came to about ten bucks. 

I got to Sevierville without any other incident. I’m at La Quinta, so the room is spacious, clean, and comfortable. 

But I lost an hour and a half, so there was no place to go for dinner. Instead, Maria at the desk gave me some takeout menus. After I bought some beer at a gas station, I called Pizza Place for delivery.

What can I say? It was mock Italian. Soggy French fries, jalapeno poppers for vegetable (no kidding), and a meatball sub made by somebody who really doesn’t know meatballs or red sauce. 

I give them some props, though, because the sandwich was made with mozzarella and not American cheese.

All in all, though, an excellent day.

Stay happy, everyone. And enjoy the weather. It can’t rain forever.

Harry

Sept. 11

Harry,

The wine we had was 2012 Hawkes PYR (Pyramid Cabernet Sauvignon) from Alexander Valley in Sonoma. We are never disappointed when we have Hawkes' wine; a small family producer.

The beer was Dockside Blonde Ale from Studio Brew in Bristol, Va.

Thanks for the good review. We really enjoyed our time with you, as always. My mom told me today that it was great to see Harry!

Sorry about your tire, and stay safe traveling. We will see you the next go around.

John and Kimberly