Still No Snakes

June 13-15

We took it easy on Tuesday, our last day at Patriots’ Place. We walked down to the lake (or pond, to be more accurate). 

The main reason was to get a picture of the warning sign: Watch out for snakes.

t could be about copperheads, water moccasins, or garter snakes. Anyhow, it was fun.

Joanna, who is deathly afraid of snakes, got up the chutzpah to stand next to the sign for the photo of the day.

There is a salamander who lives by our porch steps. Joanna was grossed out by that, too, even though it has legs. 

“It’s OK, it isn’t even a reptile. It’s an amphibian.” 

“But it looks like a snake.”

Harry went to look but didn’t see a snake. Just like all those times scanning the ground for rattlesnakes in Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, and elsewhere, he has yet to see one in the wild.

Maybe people just put up those signs to tease the outlanders: Who can we get to look for the snakes this time?

Sometimes the warning is a two-for-one bonus, mixing rattlesnakes and scorpions.

Harry did see a scorpion once, a glowing silhouette under UV light, when Patrick uncovered one in his yard several years ago.

Speaking of reptiles, here’s a curious bit of business from last Friday that we forgot to include in the recap of events:

We had just stepped off the footbridge that crosses the marsh between the visitor center and the site of the original Jamestown.  

Several people were focused on the grass under a fallen limb next to the beaten path. A boy, maybe 10 or 12 years old, explained what was going on.

A turtle was using its back legs to dig in the grass. The boy said it was making a nest where it could lay its eggs. It looked like a painted turtle, the dark green kind with colorful spots as if it had been spattered by a crazed cartoonist.

This tiny creature was really working at it and making some headway. It had created quite a divot in the green.

A few steps farther on, after we passed some wildflowers, the boy stopped and exclaimed: “These are turtle eggs.”

A second and more focused glance proved him out. 

Harry had been deceived by my ancient eyes. They weren’t white flowers, at all. They were broken shells, some with a bit of the albumen (or the turtle equivalent) still evident.

Harry felt like a dope, of course, but that’s not unusual. He was glad to have his error pointed out. Gosh, turtle eggs—well, more properly, egg shells—lying by the way.

That’s unusual and happy. Like palm trees or medieval walls, it means we’re someplace else

We went back to Fat Tuna on Tuesday night so Harry could have raw oysters with dinner. They were not as briny as the best, but were still good. 

He also wanted to try the crab ravioli, served in a pink sauce. That flavor of crab with the slightly sweet gravy was an interesting combination. It’s on the “I’d have it again” list, next time we come this way. 

Joanna doesn’t eat much raw food. She takes very little salad and certainly no carpaccio, sashimi, or anything on the half shell. This time, she enjoyed grilled salmon. 

We checked out of Club Wyndham before 10 a.m. and drove about four hours to Aberdeen, Md. 

Not much happened on the way, and when you’re going 70 mph, that’s a good thing.

When we have followed I-95 to or from New Jersey, we usually stop at North East, Md. We do that often and had stopped there on the seventh, on our way to Virginia.

So let’s try something different.

Harry had been lost in Aberdeen for a while a few months earlier and knew it wasn’t the most picturesque place. It is home to the Aberdeen Proving Ground, a large military base.

As far as Harry has seen so far, it’s like most cities that host populations of enlisted personnel. There’s a sprawl made up mostly of franchises of national chains for everything from lunch to auto care.

Harry found, however, two reliable choices for dinner in the town, and so decided to stop at Aberdeen for the hell of it. After all, we weren’t going to be here long.

One choice for good food is Prost, an interesting German restaurant, but we weren’t in the mood for heavy dumplings and schnitzel. We went to the Olive Tree instead.

This is a small regional chain—just a few locations in the area—that is often confused with Olive Garden, which is a national operation owned by the same company that runs Red Lobster.

We don’t care for Red Lobster. We can’t comment on the quality of Olive Garden because we’re from New Jersey and never needed to eat there.

Anyhow, the Olive Tree is roughly on the level of the new Mario’s on Van Houten Ave. in Clifton. The old Mario’s, when the grandparents were still alive, was superb. Now with a pared-down menu and maybe a few shortcuts in the kitchen, it’s just OK. So is Olive tree.

But OK Italian is still a lot of fun.

We shared a caprese salad to start. It had balsamic instead of red wine vinegar, but even so, was terrific. Maybe made more so because we hadn’t had it for months.

The mozzarella was good, the tomatoes, even out of season, were tasty. We could have used more basil, but that’s always the case. When we make caprese at Joanna’s house, we treat basil like a salad green. We cover the plate with it.

Basil loves Joanna’s backyard. All summer long it grows in abundance. She doesn’t raise basil plants; Joanna’s basil plants grow up to be shrubs.

In the traditional Italian manner, Olive Tree serves meat balls as an appetizer in marinara sauce. We have eaten dinner in Italy from Tuscany to Sicily and never saw a menu that offered spaghetti and meatballs as a combination.

So in traditional American fashion, we shared a dish of meatballs joined by an order of spaghetti marinara.

We had that with a couple of glasses of Bolla Pinot Noir. We both enjoy most Pinot Noirs, and are especially fond of many we have tasted that come from Italy.

As much as Harry loves Chianti and we both love Montepulciano d’Abruzzo, whenever we go to one of Calandra’s restaurants back home, the house Pinot Noir, which comes from Sicily, is the top choice.

All in all, it was fun, and also the first Italian-style meal we had since leaving New Jersey. Wow, more than a week without red sauce, oregano, or pasta. That’s a stretch.

It’s a short run home from northern Maryland. Traffic was bit heavier than usual on the southern end of the New Jersey Turnpike because six miles of I-95 running past Philadelphia were closed by a bridge collapse.

At least some of that traffic was being diverted to the Turnpike, which is the I-95 alternative.

The Philadelphia bit is the roughest section of the Interstate Highway system to begin with. Potholed and patched, the road surface can rattle your teeth.

Then a gasoline tanker exploded under a bridge and burned for hours, until the supports weakened and the bridge fell.  

News photos showed one half of the bridge sunken to the ground and the other half mostly reduced to bare steel girders spanning the gap.

There were a few traffic backups so we spent a bit of time crawling bumper to bumper. Even so, the trip home took maybe three hours or so.

Be happy and stay well, everyone. And watch out for the turtles.

Love to all.

Joanna and Harry