If James was going to have a week's furlough, at least we could get a "sort of" vacation out of it. So I turned off all the alarms and we looked forward to a nice Monday morning of sleeping in.

Labels: anniversary, autumn, chores, dogs, electronics, food, health, shopping, television, vacation

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 11:14:00 PM

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I never do get a decent night's sleep anymore. My left leg hurts or I need to use the bathroom or I have a bad dream. But let me tell you, last night was a thousand percent better than the night before. It was so nice and cool in the room that even the inconsiderate goons checking out early didn't really bother me.

Breakfast was  the same as yesterday, the weather the opposite. It was bright blue day with white clouds and chilly with a breeze with a frosty edge to it. As I might have said, we didn't bring our jackets. Instead I put a sweatshirt on with a flannel shirt for a jacket, and the little Nordic blue hat I bought from the Apple Annie show. I had my pashmina and James' wool scarf in the back of the van, and we have one pair of gloves between us.

Since it was going to be chilly, we decided to do an inside thing today. Accordingly, we headed west on the Massachusetts Turnpike (I-90) out to Springfield, where the Springfield Armory is. This site is the only National Historic Site in western Massachusetts, and was where the famous Springfield rifles that supplied US soldiers from post-colonial times through the Vietnam War were made. Most of the factory, which was constructed around a traditional New England green used as a parade ground, is now a college campus, but one of the buildings has been reserved for a museum for the armory.

As you walk in the first thing you see is a tower with a stairway along the perimeter. It goes up, and up and up, I don't know how high, and hung at center at the very top is a pulley all the way down to the entryway, showing how they used to hoist crates of firearms to the top!

The museum itself begins with an enlarged black and white photograph circa 1920s (1930s?) of the workers who made the factory hum, and a long hall which leads to the main floor. The main exhibit starts with a history of firearms themselves, beginning with a long "hand cannon" that was basically a tube on a long pole, from the fifteenth century, to matchlocks to flintlocks to percussion versions, and of course from smooth barrels to rifled barrels. Following that were exhibits of colonial, pioneer, and war weapons made at the Springfield site, the Harpers Ferry armory, by other manufacturers, and also foreign weapons. There was an exhibit of machine guns, an "organ" made of stacked Springfield rifles accompanied by a Longfellow anti-war poem called "The Armory at Springfield," a history of the armory itself from water power to electrical power, an assortment of machine tools that would make the firearms, a tribute to John Garand, creator of the M1 Garand rifles used by so many of our servicemen, and the last day of an exhibit about Hollywood films that have used actual items from the museum as models for the weapons they would use in a film, like the rifle that finally brings an end to the reign of Bruce the shark in Jaws, rubber handguns for Clint Eastwood, etc.

It was a nifty little exhibit, but the most entertaining thing that happened was, as we turned on the last street toward the Armory, wet precipitation started hitting the windshield.

Not rain, snow/sleet! It was a mixture of ice crystals and hard little white pellets, and quite visible when it squalled. We laughed about it, and these little squalls continued on and off all day. As we walked into the building, a man commented about the snow to us in a rich local accent. I bet he doesn't want a repeat of last year.

I thought we'd head up to the Yankee Candle Flagship Store for a triple treat: a walk about, lunch, and more gorgeous leaves. It was only a half hour's drive and we'd already had a lovely preview: the MassPike was lined with gorgeous trees celebrating the arrival of autumn...well, most of the trees. It is very strange; there is one type of tree that is not turning. I think it's the American oak. What leaves are "turning" are turning brown. In the meantime, the maples and the other trees are celebrating with color like it's Mardi Gras. We saw an orange tree today that was nearly flourescent. There were trees with leaves as brilliant as rubies and as starry as topazes, and yellows, chartreuses, pumpkin, melon shading to saffron, red edged with orange, deep maroons and pinky reds. What white birches are left crowd around what's left of the marshes, already bare and stark white outlines. Together they all met for a glorious bouquet of color.

Walking Yankee Candle was fun. They have a new scent, New England Maple, but only had jars. I couldn't carry that home on the plane. I didn't see any of the tealights. And we went in the "Bavarian village" at one edge of the store, which looks like a German Christkindlmarkt at night and is filled with every sort of Christmas decoration, from baubles to Jim Shore to smokers and pyramids.

Lunch was good, but not as outstanding as it should have been for the price we paid. We had a turkey dinner with all the trimmings: green beans (which I gave to James), butternut squash perfectly sweetened, mashed potatoes, real cranberries, and turkey and gravy with stuffing, with an opening salvo of clam chowder. The chowder was delicious, but I must confess that West Cobb Diner makes much better dressing!

And the trees, sadly, were a bit of a bust. I remember the ones in the parking lot being absolutely spectacular last time, but they were already past peak except for a few at the edge of the road.

Still, we'd had a nice time, and we made our way home thinking we could stop at Barnes & Noble for a bit--and then we ran into a mystery jam west of Sturbridge that didn't resolve itself for seven bloody miles. By the time we got to the final service plaza James had to take over driving for me because my eyes hurt so badly. Now that "breeze with an edge" was really cold! I wrapped on the pashmina as well.

When we finally got to the bookstore, it was five minutes to closing. Sigh. Wish we'd known that before we unloaded the power chair!

Anyway, we picked up some soup at Panera and came back to eat it in the room and watch Alaska: the Last Frontier.

Labels: autumn, events, history, vacation

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 10:44:00 PM

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We really, really should have practiced this before we actually did it live for the first time.

Today was the first actual "trip" we took in the truck with the chair and the critters. Tucker was already hyper and we finally had to confine him to his crate since he was trying to get under James' feet as he rolled the suitcase down the stairs. Since the birdcage had to be wrapped in a plastic bag before we put it into the truck bed, Snowy had to go into the carry box while we loaded the bed. Everything had to be wrapped in plastic bags because there was a good chance of rain (and it did sprinkle for a while around Cumming), and the suitcase took two, the CPAP bag another, the cookies and crackers for the common room one more. The bird cage didn't fit in a bag horizontally, so we just put it on top, like a big cap. (Bad idea not tying it on the bottom; it blew out somewhere on I-285 and all the seed spilled; good thing I brought more.) Then we put a tarp on top of that. Only then did we get the chance to load the chair and put the new cover on top; it does not go all the way down to the bottom of the chair as we expected. Once that was all tied down, then I could come downstairs looking like Doctor Doolittle's wife, pash around my neck, carry box in one hand, dog leash in the other.

We had a laugh at the vet: you used to have to drag Willow away from James. Tucker was entranced by this new place: smells! Dog toys! Cookie scraps on the floor! He walked to the back with the vet tech without a backward glance! Thanks, ol' faithful hound. :-)

On the way up it was chilly and foggy and then some sprinkles and then some mist, and then it was as if someone waved a hand. The clouds never actually cleared, but it got brighter, and we could see all the trees in bloom and the grass sprouting and cows grazing peacefully on both sides of the road and the horses at the riding stable down in the valley off the road lazing in a picket line. I'd had an idea before we left home: go the Sprouts behind the vet's office and buy Italian wedding soup for lunch. Rats. They've changed it to Thursday. Friday's soup is now clam chowder. Theirs is delicious, but not what we wanted. I got some muffins for our breakfast, and very soon afterwards found a Krystal for lunch after we purchased gas.

But we made it, "childless" until Sunday. We're all gathered at the Country Inn and Suites in the conference room which is ours for the weekend, gossiping, catching up, nibbling on cookies, trading job stories, etc.

Labels: birds, dogs, food, pets, vacation

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 5:47:00 PM

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Back to the routine: up at six again (actually six fifteen, since I couldn't stand the thought of there being less than seven hours until we got up). We'd pretty much concatenated the purchases last night, and I put up the Nooks. This morning it was actually very simple to get everything together and in its place, and James even managed to snag a luggage cart (as far as we can tell, the hotel has only one) so we could get out to the car in one trip. By dint of turning luggage and souvenirs into puzzle pieces, we did get everything in, although closing the hatchback was problematic for about ten minutes.

It was already cloudy out, with layers of pewter-grey clouds overhead. The spookiest thing was that there were no birds singing at all, as if they were hiding out from Hurricane Sandy.

We picked up breakfast at Chik-Fil-A, and were officially on the road about 7:30. We got some spatters of rain, but by the time we passed Williamsburg, that had stopped. We had quite a good show from the trees west of our location, with nice color all the way to Richmond and then south; they only dulled once we got to the endless highway of North Carolina. We took several "potty breaks," had lunch at a rest area in North Carolina, where I had Schuyler's cage on the picnic table before I found an ant on it—aieeee! I hope it was only one ant!—and listened to some Gaelic Storm, two editions of "The Splendid Table," the conclusion of Paul Temple and the Conrad Case, and the first four parts of The Nine Tailors. We were seriously tired by the time we reached Georgia and even more exhausted when we got home, where we just dragged stuff in. I only washed a load of clothes because after being on the picnic table, I wanted all of Schuyler's cage covers cleaned. We arrived about seven and I emerged from the car to find it chilly, with a brisk wind blowing. It was 70s for most of the route, and then we reached Gwinnett County and the temperature dropped like a rock. Supposed to be in the 40s tonight...where was this earlier this week when we were 500 miles further north?

First thing we did after dragging everything in? We both took a shower! Had oatmeal for supper with an ice-cream bar chaser, read my Images of America Williamsburg book. Television on in the background: PBS and then How the States Got Their Shapes.

And that's it, we're home and back to being landlubbers again. :-)

Labels: food, television, vacation, weather

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 11:12:00 PM

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Surprise! Fog!

Of course when you've designated one day for a boat ride, and it's foggy on that morning, you are naturally taken aback. Except when we checked the weather report, the fog appeared to only be over our area. Very odd, but good news. And of course we were paying particular attention to the weather this morning, because of the reports on Hurricane Sandy. It looks like we are lucky to be leaving when we are, as the forecast for early next week is primarily "wet."

We were awake fifteen minutes early so we would be certain to get to Hampton on time, and indeed we did, fifty minutes early. We should have parked in the free lot, but we didn't know when boarding time was, so we just parked in the hotel garage next door. Turns out we still had over a half hour until they would let us embark, so we made a "pit stop," then walked to the park between the cruise center and the Air and Space Museum, where there was a monument to the founding of Hampton and four panels chronicling the history of the city.

We almost had to immediately turn around to return to the dock to board the "Miss Hampton II" (I never did ask what happened to "Miss Hampton I," but it was in the souvenir book we bought after the cruise. They only used her a year and then she was sold to someone in Panama.). This was set up just like "Victory Rover" yesterday, with an enclosed compartment below and open decking on top with a partial cover, except that the pilot's cabin is up front on the top, and the tour guide, Dave, conducted the tour on the top deck.

This was a super cruise! The only overlap in material we had with "Victory Rover" yesterday was touring the piers at the Naval Base. This tour started with an overlook of the berthing area, which included the beautiful old buildings and clock tower of Hampton University and also the spot where the head of Blackbeard the Pirate was spitted after his capture on the Outer Banks. Dave also pointed out Strawberry Banks, where the Jamestown expedition first landed after their Atlantic crossing. They found strawberries there, which helped with the scurvy aboard, but found no fresh water. So they went on up the James River, ending up...well, you know. :-)

Next we passed the Hampton Roads Bridge/Tunnel and the Chamberlin, which was once a hotel on the grounds of Fort Monroe, but is now a retirement home. The original Chamberlin was the first hotel in the United States that had electric lighting throughout. Fort Monroe was closed last year, but originally was the place where the Army manuals were written. It's the only fort in the United States with a moat around it! At various times both Robert E. Lee and Edgar Allan Poe were stationed at Fort Monroe.

Also in the area is the Old Point Comfort lighthouse, which was dedicated by Thomas Jefferson in 1803. It looks so tiny from shore!

After entering Chesapeake Bay, the tour stops for a half hour at Fort Wool, originally named Fort Calhoun until the Civil War. (It's "Wool" after a general, not in reference to sheep.) As we approached it, cormorants dotting the piles around the dock area took wing, leaving only one of the long-necked birds to check us out It was begun in 1819 and Andrew Jackson once had a summer home there (this later used by John Tyler, after which it burned down). It was used during the Civil War, enlarged during the Spanish-American War, once again occupied during World War I. Its last hurrah was during the second World War, and the island is a strange conglomeration of 1898, 1917 and 1941 fortifications. Most of the crannies and storage rooms are chained up, and you can no longer climb the WWII-era tower, but there is one wall you can scale via wide granite steps, and it was there Dave told us some of the history of the fort after giving an introduction on the parade ground.

Then we wandered about the tiny island, checking out the 1898 old battlements, with uneven stone and stains, and the more regular concrete put up during WWII. We even saw the grave of Lady, a German Shepherd who was the camp mascot during the war. She died in 1945 and was buried with military honors.

Once back on "Miss Hampton II," we went on to the piers at the Norfolk Naval Base. We headed into the area from the opposite direction from yesterday, starting with the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln, and went down the line. Dave had taken care to familiarize himself with the ships and named them all off as we went by. However, we saw something cool before we even reached the piers: as we turned away from Fort Wool, we saw a submarine (Los Angeles class, like in Hunt for Red October, heading for us). At first Dave thought it was heading for one of the piers, then he spied one of the tugboats zipping in the direction of the sub with some Naval midshipmen aboard, and military police boats shooing civilian craft out of the way of both the tug and the sub. It turns out the submarine was probably from Annapolis, and it would "trade" middies out in the harbor, the sailors aboard the tug going on the sub and the ones from the sub transferring to the tug!

We had an even better view of the ships than yesterday (this boat went in closer) and aircraft were doing maneuvers overhead, so we were kept busy taking pictures. I stood at the rail for most of this portion of the trip, enjoying the cool breeze and the briny scent. We didn't see any dolphins this time, but at one point "Victory Rover" came steaming toward us and the boats traded horn beeps. We passed her going back as well.

Dave said Jen's ship, Truxton, had probably been berthed at Piers 5, 6 or 7, so I waved at them. Too bad they couldn't make it back in time from Jacksonville. (I wonder if the tropical storm will just keep them in port down there.)

The last "sight" we didn't actually visit, but it was pointed out to us, and that was the encounter between the Monitor and the Virginia (or the Merrimac, as it's still referred to in some history books). The ships were actually evenly matched, and Virginia lost the battle because she did not have the specially-designed metal-piercing shells designed for her guns, since they only expected to encounter a regular wooden warship, not the Monitor.

And then it was just a nice cruise back, with Dave telling us funny stories about silly questions he'd been asked, like "Why is that fence around the ships?" and the dumbest one, "How is that so many significant battles have happened at National Parks?" (This is akin to the lady who called up the talk show saying they should move deer crossing signs from the freeway where they are getting hit to safer places so the deer won't think they can cross there.) We also saw the little tug heading back with her fresh "middies," and the submarine was nowhere to be seen.

We were as hungry as bears from all that sea air once we were back at the dock, so we followed several other passengers who had asked Dave what was a good place to eat. Just across from the Air and Space complex, there was a street lined with little eating places and boutiques, and one of the places he recommended, "Marker 20," after one of the buoys in the harbor, was located there. It's just a little sports bar/eating place, but we enjoyed it. We both had crab cakes, and I was really wary about this because every other time I've had a crab cake it's been highly peppered. Well, this one wasn't and was quite delicious. There were also nicely done French fries and cole slaw so good that I finished all of it.

Dave was having his lunch here and walked by our table asking if we were enjoying the food. We nodded and then I asked curiously, since he said the boat's last tour would be on Wednesday and then they close until April, what he did on the off season. Well, he's a student and he'll wait tables until it's time for the tours to start up again. He makes a good tourguide, that's for sure: he has the tour facts down pat, he enjoys talking to people, and his gags are amusing. We learned a lot and it was well presented.

After lunch we headed east on I-64 to something called the Military Aviation Museum James had read about before we left, and the gentleman we talked about at Air Power Park recommended it as well. This is a collection of World War I and II aircraft: the WWII units are all authentic craft from the war and the WWI aircraft are reproductions. But they all can fly (well, one can't anymore because it's Russian and they can't find parts; it would fly if it could); they aren't just exhibit shells in a building as in most aviation museums. Twice a year they have air shows and at one time or the other all the aircraft in the building have flown.

We had to wind our way quite a distance in the Virginia Beach countryside to get there, but it was quite neat. The Navy planes are in one hangar and the Army ones in another, and they are all in beautiful condition, even if some of them are less than beautiful: there are at least three Russian aircraft, vintage 1930s, that are pretty ugly, painted mud brown as they would have been at that time. They also had a vintage MG, an old Jaguar that had lines like something out of a 1940s cartoon, some small tanks, an authentic British telephone box, a Wright "Vin Fiz," a 1940s motorcycle with sidecar and trailer, a Nazi staff car, a tiny car that looked as if it would hold only one passenger (made by Messerschmidt; yes, the Messerschmidt—there was a Messerschmidt sewing machine upstairs as well), and an amphibious car.

We had come on a day when one of the hangars was being used for an event, so several of the Navy planes had been rolled out back. There was a big band gearing up to play and the scent of delicious food was everywhere. What a neat idea: much better than going somewhere for the rubber chicken!

We also wandered about upstairs, where there were cases of memorabilia, including service uniforms, reconnaissance cameras, and an Enigma machine. At the back there was a gallery of aviation art. Of particular interest were paintings by Henri Ferre, who fought in World War I. Some of these were of night raids, and had a distinctive impressionist look. Some of his charcoal sketches were also included.

We finally checked out the gift shop (it's a state law...LOL) and then headed back toward the hotel via a detour: we drove past NAS Oceana, where James was stationed for a year when he was in the Navy. You can't see a lot of the base from the road, but we did see the control tower and James was able to pick out the building he used to work in. After that we headed west as guided by the GPS.

Now, I appreciated the GPS's directions tonight. There was a six-mile backup at the Hampton Roads Bridge/Tunnel and we pretty much skirted most of it by avoiding I-64 westbound. But...why? We didn't ask the GPS to avoid the traffic, it just took us on a different route...in fact the same route it brought us through  yesterday, in both directions. Is this GPS getting kickback from Tidewater Road? Does it just like the street?  LOL!

You can see the piers at the Norfolk base from the bridge part of the bridge/tunnel, so we had a last, final surprise: we could see that another aircraft carrier had pulled into her berth since we had passed there on the tour, and another ship was on its way out, plus a cruise ship was heading for one of the docks at Hampton. But finally all was obscured by the lowering sun before we descended into the tunnel.

We had food back at the hotel, so we just ate in tonight, watched two older Big Bang Theory episodes and the newest episode (Raggedy Ann and Raggedy C-3PO indeed!), plus Ask This Old House and Mysteries at the Museum.

Labels: history, humor, television, vacation, weather

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 10:11:00 PM

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The usual ablutions this morning along with breakfast, and just in case, I ate cheese. I hate cheese, but some things just have to be done.

Schuyler kept kissing as we left the room. I always feel guilty when she does that. Since the television in the "living room" shuts itself off once an hour for no reason (I checked it the first time it happened, since it acts like a sleep timer, but the sleep timer is off), I have been leaving her in our bedroom where the television stays on. I guess she is lonesome for Willow.

This morning we were off to Norfolk to visit Nauticus, which is where the USS Wisconsin, Iowa-class battleship, is berthed. (It is mostly an inside display, and this was supposed to be the warmest day this week, so we figured it would be a good day for it.) It is a neat combination of history museum (part of it is the Hampton Roads Military Museum) and display devoted to the history, commerce, and ecology of the area, three stories, with the downstairs devoted to a gift shop and a cafe. Parking, we learned only once we drove on the grounds, is across the street, but we soon had that sorted out and were back inside.

You take a moving ramp upward past newsreel footage of Norfolk to begin the tour on the third floor and work your way down through numerous displays. One is about the port of Norfolk itself and how much cargo goes through the area each year, another is a salute to the unsung hero of the port, the tugboat. Another exhibit showed you the daily life of a sailor over the years, and essential parts of a ship.  My favorite part of the display was about the Jamestown Exposition in 1907, celebrating the 300th anniversary of the landing in Virginia. The display opens with a beautiful wooden figurehead that was eventually to be a ships' tradition no more with the arrival of "the Steel Navy." After some exhibits about sailing life in 1907, the displays segues into memorabilia from the exposition, a World's Fair type exhibition with fair rides, contributions from other countries, daredevil stunts and animal acts, and more. It was after this event that "the Great White Fleet" made its world tour, and memorabilia given to the fleet from Australia, Japan, and other countries is also shown, including a huge moose head resulting from one of Theodore Roosevelt's hunting expeditions. The animal weighed nearly a ton!

Other exhibits had to do with the Wisconsin and ships in general, with some nifty World War I and II posters, plus exhibits having to do with NOAA and undersea exploration.

There is also a small exhibit about the sea itself, with small aquarium tanks of fish. One holds a huge green moray eel. Another had mixed tropical fish, and we found Nemo several times. An attendant pointed out a tiny eel and also a puffer fish that didn't look well. A second puffer fish looked like a puffy pickle, up to the point of being pale green. They had horseshoe crabs in a shallow pool, and also some small sharks in a tank, not much bigger than catfish. We said no to petting them, though. :-)

By the time we finished the third floor, it was lunchtime, so we went down to the cafe and had a sandwich each. At that time I reminded James there was a boat tour here as well as the one we wanted to take out of Hampton. We had not bought our tickets earlier, so we went back to the lobby and did so, discovering we would have to go down to the boarding area almost immediately. This meant we would probably not be able to explore Wisconsin, but then we could only take a "topside" tour anyway, since the tour of the interior was additional. However, the second floor area was smaller and we could finish that after the tour.

The dock where the ship "Victory Rover" sits is of particular interest. It is a memorial for those who have served and died in the military, represented by letters written home by soldiers just before they were killed, starting with Revolutionary War correspondence all the way through Desert Storm. The words written have been engraved onto thin metal plates which have been then "scattered" over the dock as if they were blown by the wind and then fastened in place. We walked from letter to letter reading most of them, including one from a young woman during the Revolutionary War who was posing as a man.

Soon it was boarding time and we went to the upper deck, under the sailcloth to have a modicum of shade. There was an enclosed cabin down below, but on a beautiful day like today, who would want to be inside?

The tour at first makes a circle around the area near the ship's berth. There are several Navy ships in drydock nearby (waves at General Dynamics), and also a paddle-wheel boat which acts as a ferry between Norfolk and Portsmouth across the river. We are technically on the Elizabeth River, which is part of the Intracoastal Waterway which runs down the Atlantic coast all the way down to Florida and beyond. The guide pointed out notable buildings, including the original Norfolk Naval Hospital, the piers for cruise ships, and new construction.

Then we headed toward the Naval base. On the way we passed container ship loading areas, one the largest in the world. One container ship came downriver as we chugged up, filled with multicolor containers so that it looked like a giant storage box of Lego bricks! There is a coal stoking station with two big tipples of coal that can service one huge ship or one tipple for one ship. One of the ships being coaled was called "d'Amico" and I wondered if it is Italian. A flock of little sailboats proved to be the sailing club at Old Dominion University. Little tugboats and cabin cruisers skittered about. One cabin cruiser crew took photos of us, so I took a picture of them.

Finally we were at the Norfolk Naval Base, cruising past the warships in dock, including the huge Abraham Lincoln, in port to get her nuclear fuel renewed, and several ships of the "Arleigh Burke" class, trim new vessels with clean lines. Of note were the San Antonio-class LPDs, which can be recognized by the big six-sided "pyramid" structures on their decks. There were also civilian ships that are painted in red-white-and-blue markings on their stacks signifying that they are doing work for the government. There was one ship called the "Cape May" that I noticed because of Emma. This was a cargo carrier.

We cruised to the end of the Naval Base property then turned around and returned to port. The entire Navy pier complex was then on our left and I made a nice film of our cruise by it. And then, just as we passed the warships, some dark shapes began leaping out of the water at the port side of the boat. Dolphins! It was a pod of at least five dolphins! I never got any photos, but we did see them frolicking in front of the boat!

When we got back we had just enough time to circle the second floor quickly to see the history of the Hampton Roads area, from before the Revolutionary War—ah, there's Lord Dunmore again!—to modern day. There were more pieces of memorabilia from the Jamestown Exposition; wish there was a book about that!

We even had about eight minutes to go out to the deck of Wisconsin, just to say we'd been aboard. Peeked into the wardroom, and it looks a lot like USS Salem anyway. :-) A much larger ship, however, and this one, since it was used at the beginning of the Iraq War, has a cell phone tower at the top of its tallest mast! We chatted a bit with the docents, then walked through the Wisconsin exhibit. Finally took the elevator down to the gift shop, bought a few magnets for the fridge and a T-shirt for James and two postcards (only of the Wisconsin, none of the museum!).

This morning the GPS had routed us through, despite the fact the freeway was clear, side roads once we got across the bridge to the Virginia Beach/Norfolk area. We had passed through some very nice, but inexplicably on our route neighborhoods. Well, it routed us back that way as well, even though the freeway was pretty much clear. (What passes for rush hour around here, as far as I can see, would just be regular traffic in Atlanta.) Soon we were back at Staybridge, and since the "Sundowner" meal tonight was hamburgers, we just ate here.

I hoped we could go out a little tonight, so we weren't stuck in the room again, but James was sneezing and changed his clothes immediately. Instead we watched Big Bang Theory and "The Magic of Snowy Owls" on Nature.

Labels: birds, history, museums, television, vacation

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 11:03:00 PM

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Well, snellfrocky. It looks like my Saturday Yorktown narrative has vanished. I don't know how or why. But that's for later.

Today we had breakfast, then headed for the Virginia Air and Space Center, which was only a few miles south of our hotel, in Hampton. We found the museum easily and public parking in a garage catty corner from it. Wow, Atlanta would do well to remember this...free parking, instead of soaking people.

This is a small, but very solid museum. I would recommend it especially for parents who have children just getting interested in either aircraft or spacecraft. There are tons of hands-on items for both children and adults, and it's small enough—you can see all of it in about three hours—that younger children won't be overtired.

For adults like us there are some great items of interest: my favorite was the Apollo 12 space capsule ("Yankee Clipper") which took Pete Conrad, Alan Bean, and Dick Gordon to the moon and back. While there were several common airplanes there, like a Stearman, a Pitts Special, and an F104, James said there were many rare planes as well, including one called "Silk Purse" because it has been gutted by NASA and really was a sow's ear at one time. It was used to test thrust vector. Another plane investigated lightning. Most of the unique planes were from NASA Langley, which is nearby. (James is disappointed because when he was assigned here in his Navy days, Langley used to have a welcome center, but it has been incorporated into the Air and Space Center.) There was also a nice exhibit on the Ploesti raid during World War II, and a tribute to the Tuskegee Airmen. (I saw something quite nice as I looked at the latter: an African American man came by with what looked like his daughter and granddaughter. He very reverently wiped the fingerprints and streaks off the display front.)

The space gallery had a bunch of hands-on items for the kids, plus a test model of the new Orion spacecraft that may one day take men to Mars. In a prominent stand was a piece of moonrock. There's also a fragment of a meteor that they are certain came from Mars due to its composition. One of the old lunar module trainers is there, and there is a full-size mockup of the Mars rover "Curiosity."

We took the opportunity to see the 3D IMAX film Air Racers. This intersperses the history of aviation with a young man trying to beat his father's record in the Reno Air Races. His father was the youngest person to win, and he was trying to outdo him. There is an opening bit with two World War II pilots in a dogfight that looks really cool in 3D. Nice soundtrack, too.

We had lunch at the cafe there, too, and were done about two o'clock. In the lobby we had seen a flyer for something called Air Power Park, which was only a few miles from our location, so we went. This is a geodosic dome with chiefly models, but also some memorabilia like aircraft equipment and pilot memorabilia, but the draw is outside, a collection of military aircraft and rockets and missiles. One of the rockets is a "Little Joe" which launched test Mercury capsules. There are only two of them left, including this one.

The back of the park is bordered by a bit of river and marsh with a dock to access the water, and I took a few snaps of the quiet water as well.

Just as we were about to leave, the attendant started talking with us. Well, you know what happens when two airplane fans start talking! He started out telling us how he had painted the "Grumpy" nose art for the aircraft in the Ploesti tribute. It turned out he could not use the original nose art because it was no longer politically correct. He finally did some research and discovered that the Ploesti flight group had used Disney cartoon characters as nose art, and decided to do the "Grumpy" on the aircraft instead. It turned out the actual airplane he based the original nose art on also had a "Grumpy" on it after the raid! He is the head of the Tidewater IPMS group and they have won the right to hold the Nationals in 2014. He was telling us about the money crunch that has the Air and Space Center in a bind, and how the Air Power Park was actually closed down for nine years because there were no funds for it, and just reopened last year. He recommended several museums in the area, too.

We were going to the hobby shop we tracked down the other day, but detoured to a very small needlework shop on the way. The store was pocket-sized but the proprietors welcoming, and they had a nice stock of things, including specialty threads. I bought a small remnant of brown cloth, a kit of a Thanksgiving turkey, and a band sampler that is apparently one of a series of states; it attracted me simply by being a pattern of autumn leaves and sailboats. There is only one minor reference to Connecticut that can actually be changed by fixing one letter.

We arrived at the hobby shop ten minutes before closing. The owner didn't even greet us as we came in, and James didn't like the organization of the store much. He didn't see anything unique there and we left, picked up some Chinese food next door and came back to the hotel.

And now we're watching Big Bang Theory because it's the best thing that's on television.

Labels: food, history, space, television, vacation

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 8:42:00 PM

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Okay. Seven hours sleep. Maybe. Nature was a pain in the...well, you get the gist, and then Willow barked, although we got her to go back to sleep. A leisurely breakfast...and then, oh....Jamestown opens at nine, not ten. Needless to say we were late by about 40 minutes. :-)

We were, however, just in time for today's one artillery demonstration, if we walked really quickly from the long, long visitor's center, through a thicket of woods, out to the dock! So we bypassed the entire inner exhibit to walk quickly past the Powhatan village and the English fort to the dock where the three ships lay. Forget the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria. These are the other three ships that figure in American history, the Susan Constant, the Godspeed, and the Discovery.

Directly at the end of the dock two able-bodied seamen (well, one was a sea-woman...LOL) demonstrated the different types of cannon shot. There is the regular cannon ball, plus bar shot (two hemispheres connected by a rod, for tangling the lines and the sails, looks like a bar bell), chain shot (a chain between two hemispheres, also for tangling line), and a canister, which had nails in it: when fired from a cannon, the wooden casing split and spit nails into any living thing in its path. For that reason, John Smith called the swivel cannon we saw demonstrated "a murder gun," since it fired these deadly projectiles. Then the swivel gun itself was demonstrated. They advised us to cover our ears, but really, I didn't think it was any worse than at Yorktown.

Then we went on to examine the ships. Godspeed was closed,  but we went aboard Discovery, the smallest of the ships, a pinnace (like Fritz and Ernest use to explore the island in the novel of Swiss Family Robinson). If she had no cargo, I heard someone say, she would probably be the quickest of the three, but the Susan Constant has actually gotten up to 10 knots (about eleven miles an hour). Two seamen (again, one was a young woman) were raising a sail as we came aboard. They had clambered up the ropes to loose the sail, but as they were raising it it stuck. The young woman scrambled back upward like a squirrel—I would have been terrified up that high!—to check what was stuck and discovered wasps in the cloth. She did free the sail, but she wasn't happy about it! Good show, though.

Finally we went aboard Susan Constant. This was the largest of the ships and you got to go below. Okay, this is what puzzles me about myself: For years I have gone on ships from old oaken warships to modern battleships. I have climbed up and down steep ships' ladders. But I'm scared to go up the ladder that leads to our attic, which is steep, but not that bad. Is that not weird?

Anyway, we went astern to the officers' cabin and deck, which included the captain's cabin (he had room enough for his armor and a sea chest), then forward to more officers' cabins, and below to where the passengers and cargo stayed. (We did not see the crew quarters even further below.) Forward also was a rope cabinet and the cook's quarters/galley, which wasn't much bigger than a powder room. My favorite part: a holder for ropes with four wheels on it, with a man's head at the top. The "rope guard," of course.

From there we walked back to the James Fort via the Riverwalk Experience, which is a small exhibit about boat building by both the native tribes and the English boat builders. Most of it seemed to be different weights of nets! The fort has several buildings inside the palisades, including a standard home of the time with dirt floors (this had an attached chicken coop): a large church; a large barracks that was closed to the public; a forge; a tiny house that was nevertheless opulent for that time and place, with a well-appointed bed in a separate room, wooden floors, a carved cabinet, Dutch tiles around the fireplace, glass windows, and a beautiful table, since it was where the Governor lived until his larger house was built; and an armory, filled, like the magazine at Williamsburg, with armor, firearms, pikes, and bandoleros. where the questions were thick and plentiful; and also a combination kitchen/bunkhouse for more soldiers. We sat for a while talking with the "soldiers" there, about divers things like where you'd go in a time machine just to see things, the bread that was about to be baked in the Dutch oven warming over the fire, and facts about the fort. There was a nice breeze coming in the barred windows and I hated to leave!

From the fort we walked on to the Powhatan Indian village. This is a representation of only a portion of what a village would look like, with several wigwams made of woven panels, and then work areas outside, one for basket weaving and one for netting being made, plus a log canoe in the process of being hollowed out from a log. There were also "hides" being tanned on frames.. (Wigwams! Eastern tribes did not live in tepees!) The wigwams look like elongated woven bowls turned over, with a door or doors in the side covered with a protective skin. The occupants mainly worked outside; the wigwams were for storage and for sleeping. The ones we saw had baskets, stored "food," arrows and other implements, and furs hanging from the supports, while we sat on sleeping benches covered with fur. We walked into the first wigwam to find a docent answering questions from a family from Canada and sat joining in the chat until another tour made its way in.

Finished outside, we returned to the main building to have some lunch at the cafe. James had a meatloaf sandwich, and I had a grilled cheese with the very first peanut soup I have ever eaten. It is peanuts on some meat broth base, possibly chicken soup as it is very light, and also very tasty!

Eventually we got back to where we would have been this morning, and walked through the museum display. This is basically a timeline of the area around Jamestown, the land and the tribes that inhabited it, and then a portrait of Jacobean England and of West Africa at the time of the colonization, which begins with early settlers, segues to small farms, and finally to plantations, at first small and then opulent. Each phase is illustrated with dioramas and artifacts from that era., from Clovis point spears and clay jugs to portraits of the prominent investors in the Virginia company to clothing, adornment, working tools, books, jewelry, spectacles, and more. This covers the region from prehistoric times through 1699, when the first of the wealthy planters decorated large homes with imported goods. One of the special exhibits cover Pocahontas and how she has been portrayed over the years.

I was rudely interrupted about two-thirds of the way through the exhibit by a problem that has not occurred lately and had to make a quick trip to the rest room. This turned into four or five visits, which meant my hopeful schedule, which had us completing the exhibits by 3:30 so we could drive down to the Historic Jamestown site, where the actual town and archaeological dig is, until it closed at five. Instead, we left at 4:30, with me extremely uncomfortable, the road to Historic Jamestown already closed for the evening, but at least the museum exhibit completed.

I do recommend this tour. This is a new, well-designed exhibit building. There is also a film we didn't see, and other audio-visual support. (The gift shop, alas, is no way as good as Yorktown's or Williamsburg's. Lots of mass-produced souvenir stuff, and not a lot of good postcards of the Jamestown area.)

The cramps eased as we drove back toward the freeway. Now, we had come to Jamestown via the Colonial Parkway. This is a lovely, two-lane road that cuts through woods to join Jamestown, Williamsburg, and Yorktown; if you love countryside drives, this one is for you. When you leave from Jamestown, you travel through a marshy area with the James River shimmering on your right. There are several scenic stops you can enjoy, and even with the heat of the day it was cool now, with sweet-smelling air around you. Since there was almost no traffic on the road, when we reached the route we had taken this morning, we kept going on the Parkway, past Williamsburg and under each of the trim red-brick overpasses that line the road. Most of the route has woods to either side, and it is a pleasant drive of a little over a half hour. The road leaves you off on Ballard Street, which takes you around to the colonial area of Yorktown.

We had an idea we might have supper at the Carrot Tree, but they only serve dinner Thursday-Sunday. :-( So we came back by the same route we had taken on Saturday, making a detour to see if the hobby shop James had looked up was open. Alas, closed on Monday, but it looked likely. Perhaps later in the week. Then we decided to investigate something we had passed twice: an area that was supposed to be "shops, restaurants, market." We thought perhaps there might be a novel restaurant there. Well, perhaps during lunch! When we found it, it was pretty much deserted except for a sushi place. It looks, with its conglomeration of condo and apartment buildings, small mall area, and trendy restaurant glimpses, like Atlantic Station in Atlanta, except with no movie and a lot fewer restaurants.

Anyway, after this odyssey we just ended up at Golden Corral. I ate very little: just some dark meat turkey with minimal gravy, a slice of pork roast, some applesauce, and three oven fries. It was dark and almost seven when we emerged, to return to our happy fids and watch Big Bang Theory until the specter of the Presidential debate drove us to the rest of Antiques Roadshow and a new show about men who deliver planes overseas on The Weather Channel. It's much more fun listening to stuff on the BBC!

Labels: food, history, television, vacation

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 10:33:00 PM

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Once we decided to ditch the Busch Gardens plan, we had originally switched Jamestown to today. But since we were up way before the alarm at 7:30, and today was going to be the coolest day, we decided to transfer the Colonial Williamsburg trip to today.

But first, breakfast. Ah, now the oatmeal is the consistence of library paste. That, however, is more easily corrected.

What with breakfast and cosseting the fids, and the drive down the freeway, we didn't get to the visitor's center and on into the area until a bit after ten o'clock. We could have used the extra hour, although I don't think James' legs would have stood it! (His bone spur is paining him again and making him limp, which hurts his knees.)

Now, the last time I was here, the visitor's center was a lot smaller, but this was in 1976! I don't remember a lot about the old visitor's center. The new one is huge, with two big gift shops on either side of the entrance, one with books, cards and videos, the other with dolls, tchochkes, and decorations. These stay open until eight, so you don't have to rush out of the colonial area, plus they have activities at night. Then there are ticketing lines. Once you are ticketed, you go downstairs and catch the bus, which makes a big circuit of the Colonial Williamsburg area, plus some of the shopping areas outside the borders.

It drops you off at the Governor's Palace, which is by far the finest of the reconstructed buildings. When I came the first time, the tickets you bought were for so many attractions, depending on how much you spent. My dad could only afford the lowest-priced ticket, for seven buildings, so we didn't see a lot, and the Governor's Palace was an extra charge. Now all is included.

Seriously, there are now "McMansions" in Atlanta larger than the Governor's Palace, but for its day it was opulent and expensive, a solid brick edifice with white-trimmed windows and a white cupula. We waited on benches in the courtyard with the smokehouse and kitchens for our tourguide, where great gusts of wind kept shaking acorns loose from the oak trees above. One struck a woman in the head, so we started making jokes about killer acorns.

The tourguide did something unusual. Outside the building, she spoke as a tourguide, but once inside, she apologized for showing us into the servants' quarters, and fell into character as one of Lord Dunmore's (royal governor at the time of the rebellion) servants. Lady Dunmore and the children have been sent away due to a threatening mob earlier in the year and the fresh news of Lexington and Concord. We are shown the beautiful entry hall, full of swords and rifles, most of the rifles used by Lord Dunmore during his battles in the French and Indian War. The swords are interwoven and in patterns and look quite artistic. We also see the housekeeper's room and the parlor, then climb upstairs to see the bedroom of the Governor's teenage daughters, Lady Dunmore's dressing room with her newfangled pianoforte (the tourguide prefers the harpsichord), Lord and Lady Dunmore's bedroom, and then downstairs to the hall and finally out to the blue-painted ballroom with its "Dutch heating device" (a huge iron stove) and the bright green supper room.

This leads out to a long formal garden that ends in impressive iron gates opening the brick wall surrounding the Palace. A big group of tourists were gathered outside, waiting for someone: it was the Marquis de Lafayette, enthused about the arrival of General George Washington in Yorktown to fight Lord Cornwallis and his troops! The actor portraying Lafayette gave a joyful speech, then introduced the General, who was properly sober. He took questions from the crowd.

We left before the questions were finished, and walked back to see the kitchens. An exhibit of typical colonial dishes were shown, including curried rabbit, beef tongue, a shredded meat and vegetable salad, and some dainties. The garden, with huge cabbages, was right outside the door!

We walked down a little ways, attracted by a small bakery, which sold chocolate chip and sugar cookies, and ginger cookies. We got two of the latter and some water and sat in the shade for a few minutes, nibbling half a cookie each. They are tremendously gingery and delicious.

I was confused when we walked on, as there were cars ahead of us. Cars aren't allowed on the grounds. Ah, but it was Sunday morning, and the historical Bruton Parish Church is still a working Episcopal parish. So during services cars are permitted. But so much for stopping in the church right now.

Instead we turned down Duke of Gloucester Street, which is Colonial Williamsburg's "main drag." Most of the open buildings are off this street. We walked down the road slowly, savoring the trees which are slowly turning colors, some dull, and some bright to the point of flaming, including the one near the courthouse, and stopped at the round magazine. Downstairs the powder was stored (our tourguide at the Palace had mentioned the theft of some of this powder) and up a spiral flight of stairs was the armory: rifles, short and long swords, pikes, halberds, powder horns, and other military supplies. A costumed soldier answered questions here.

Next we stopped at the blacksmith shop, which they are expanding to include an armorer. Charcoal-burning equipment was outside and inside we are surprised to see that the smith is a young woman. That certainly would not have been common in colonial times as well as when I first came here! Another smith answered questions about what was made there, and what she was making: tools to be used in making other tools!

Several of the taverns that usually serve food were not open today, so there was a big long line at the King's Arms Tavern, which was serving lunch. We were told it was a forty-minute wait, so we figured we would wait until the lunch crowd lessened and went on to the Capitol building, where the House of Burgesses used to meet to take the tour. You are taken through both chambers of the building, one for the representatives of the people and the other for the representatives for the King (two big portraits of King George III and Queen Charlotte are in both rooms), and also a conference room. The guide here was very sincere, but rather slow-spoken. We were both getting a bit drowsy and very hungry!

So we worked our way back to the King's Arms, and amazingly a line was still outside. We got in it this time, watching people line the street around the Raleigh Tavern across the street. They were waiting for one of the scheduled bits of street theatre that take place intermittently through the day. For this one, two women just meeting on the street are interrupted by a customer of a storekeeper accused of hoarding salt. There is quite an argument in the street and the crowd boos the merchant as a hoarder. Then a townsperson runs into the crowd: the British are heading toward Williamsburg! Later Benedict Arnold and an aide ride through town.

We're just about to collapse from hunger when they have space for two in the tavern. After all that, the service is very quick and we have an enjoyable meal. James has some fried chicken and I have slow-cooked beef. It is rather pricey, but it is a dinner portion rather than a small lunch, so we decide to "nosh" later rather than have a big meal. There is even some bread to "zoop" in the delicious sauce.

Instead of having dessert, we went across the street to the bakery and bought some cookies to eat later.

It's three o'clock by this time, so we start moving back to the Governor's Palace. James is limping pretty badly by now, so we really only stop at two shops. The wigmaker was a fun stop. She is stringing human hair to make a reddish wig, and speaks to us about powdering wigs (where the "powder room" came from) and the different colors used. Grey wigs, for instance, made a man look distinguished, so many judges and prominent men had them made. Human hair was used along with animal hair.

We had to skip several shops then because there were lines waiting to go inside. We figured on a Sunday we'd have less of a chance of running into school groups. Not here! There must have been four or five big groups of teenagers in school groups going from building to building. That was the reason the Tavern had been so crowded, because at least two of the groups had been inside.

Our other stop was at the bookbinder. This was a fascinating stop! The bookbinder was a gentleman somewhat older than ourselves who had been apprenticed as a bookbinder in 1957 and has worked that field ever since. He was using a trimming machine when we arrived, and another couple were in the shop, the woman asking all sorts of questions about how the books were bound, how they were sewn, etc. Several blank books were on the display table, including an old one with soft, soft paper, and I kept rubbing the pages...old books feel so good! He still binds blank books using 100 percent rag paper, and the paper looks and feels so lovely. One of the things he was showing was how the books were printed on one big sheet of paper with the pages out of order, and half upside down, and how he knew to fold the paper so all the pages were in order. He said he had worked with pages like this up to 36, and then went to Italy where they printed a 96-page magazine on one big sheet of paper and he had to figure out how to fold it!

We climbed from the bookbindery up a staircase as steep as a ship's ladder to continue down the street. The low sun cast a golden glow over everything. Colonial-garbed men were playing ring toss on the green with visitors. The little stalls selling women's bonnets and tricorn hats were closing. The magazine was already closed.

James found a bench while I checked out the Bruton Parish Church. Sadly, there was scaffolding about the belfry, so I couldn't get a nice photo of the front, and there was a service starting shortly, so I couldn't stay long. But I did have five minutes to look about the pretty interior, especially the beautiful pulpit and sounding board in dark wood, the throne-like seat where the Royal Governor sat during services, and the lectern, which is an angel with upraised arms which faces the congregation, the board for the Bible being supported by the angels arms and wings.

Walked out through the churchyard, where squirrels scampered and a beautiful maple tree bid me farewell, and then James and I walked back up to the bus stop to catch the shuttle to the visitor's center, part of the path which goes past a sheepfold and through a bit of woods. He was hurting too much to do more than a short search of the books, but I bought some postcards, an official guidebook, some Christmas photos, and a fridge magnet. I wanted the book Williamsburg, Before and After, but we still had a Barnes and Noble coupon and I hoped I might find a copy there, as it was rather expensive. They also had a lovely Schiffer book, Christmas at Historic Houses, but that one was out of my reach.

We came home by Barnes and Noble and I did find the Before and After book, as well as an Arcadia Publishing book about Williamsburg. James got two books, one about Langley Air Force Base and one about aviation in Hampton. Finally we stopped at Kroger to get something for supper, and have spent the rest of the night watching Law & Order: the Creepy One, a.k.a. SVU.

Labels: autumn, books, exercise, food, history, shopping, television, vacation

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 11:20:00 PM

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Didn't sleep eight hours, but I think I may have managed seven. Must see what happened to the feather pillows they usually offer. (They just weren't left in the closet. I got some after breakfast. Yay!)

On the other hand, I really wanted oatmeal, not gruel. Had to add nuts to it just to thicken it a little.

We gave the critters their morning care, then set out for Yorktown. Because I was unsure of the name of the destination, we just picked out "Yorktown Battlefield Monument" from the dropdown list on the GPS. This should not have been our first destination, but in fact it was a nice piece of serendipity. Had we not done this, we probably would have checked out the Victory Center first, then had to walk outside in the hottest part of the day. As it was, we had blue sky and sun, but cool breezes as well, on our walk.

The route we chose took us up Interstate 64, and then through surface streets to a pretty area of homes and trees, directly to the monument. This is set on the bluff above the York River, and the tall beautiful white spire of the monument against the blue of the water and the green banks opposite and the brilliant blue of the sky made a lovely photograph. The Yorktown Victory Monument was actually proposed several years after the battle, but not built until a century later, so that it is in typical Victorian style: it simply screams "Victorian" when you look at it: white marble with "Liberty" perched atop, and exquisite bas relief figures on all four sides.

Despite its beauty, I was drawn to the water first, drinking up the sight of the estuary and enjoying the brine scent in the air from the nearby Atlantic. I've been homesick for the ocean! It was only until I had drunk it all in that I turned around and walked back to read all sides of the monument, which included an endorsement from the DAR and a plaque from the French.

The plan should have, at this point, to go back to either the National Park Service Yorktown Battlefield visitor's center, which is free, or the Yorktown Victory Center, which is run by the state and charges admission. However, I noticed that there were colonial-looking buildings down the street from the monument. James was worried that we might be bothering the locals, but as we walked down the street we saw that they were blocked off from through traffic so visitors could walk freely. Basically these are buildings that have been restored to their look at the time of the siege of Yorktown, but some are private homes and some have been converted into shops.

So, in the cool brightness, we walked down the street checking out each of the buildings. One of the homes has been turned into a restaurant, the Carrot Tree. Another sells prim gifts, one has books and Yorktown souvenirs, another sells silver and more costly gifts. We walked down all the way to a building called York Hall, which has a substantial gift shop full of unique crafts made by local artists, from quilts to birdhouses, home decor to cards, and some books, including some cookbooks James picked up, and CDs. I was completely lost when I found some beautiful cards that used a kaliedoscope technnique with photographs which are then embellished., and also two different Christmas music albums done with colonial-era instruments including dulcimers and harpsichords. We had a nice chat with the clerk, had a drink, and went outside to explore further. There was a plinth on the front lawn that commemorated Yorktown dead in conflicts that go all the way back to Bacon's Rebellion. I've never seen a memorial monument that commemorates Bacon's Rebellion before!

We walked down to the church around the corner, enjoying the sight of three little girls who were riding about the street on their bicycles. With the street shut down, they were perfectly safe riding up and down the pavement, and were having a great time.

We turned about there and retraced our steps, stopping at the "general store" which carried postcards, books, and souvenirs. I bought several postcards and then had to go back and pick up a novel that was about a Rhode Island colonial physician. The proprietor was originally from Massachusetts. We also stopped at the prim store, where I bought a little cross-stitch kit of a pineapple Christmas tree. Finally we stopped at the Nelson House, which, some years ago, was York Hall. The Nelson House is particularly notable because it survived that siege of Yorktown with several battle scars. Yes, there are still cannonballs embedded in one wall and divots taken out of the brick! James could actually reach up and touch a cannonball fired from a British ship in 1781! How cool is that?

We were hungry, so we decided to go to the Yorktown Victory Center to see about getting tickets and possibly tracking down something to eat. This route takes you by the Yorktown "Riverwalk," a combination of beach, riverfront restaurants and motels, a snazzy shopping area, and embarcation for schooner rides. A clerk helped us decide which ticket to get, and told us the best restaurant in the area was the one we had just walked past, the Carrot Tree. So we went outside, waited a few minutes for the free shuttle, and hopped on to go back to the colonial area.

Well, it was a delicious meal! This is a tiny place, in a cottage space, but the food is wonderful. Both James and I had the "Powhatan Platter," an open-face turkey sandwich that comes with a salad. This was fresh turkey breast, not that dreadful turkey loaf, on homemade sandwich bread, with ample gravy, and the salad was of baby greens with chopped cucumbers/tomatoes/onions. James had a honey cider vinegar dressing that was just outstanding, but I went out on a limb and tried the mint melon yogurt dressing. It was wonderful, with a mild mint taste with a mild vinegar on the back end, and no taste of yogurt at all. Really, really delicious.

After lunch we took the trolley back to the Victory Center to check out the outside and inside exhibits. This is the anniversary weekend of the surrender at Yorktown, so they had several demonstrations and a small encampment. We talked to a young woman who hand-made her own period clothing, a re-enactor with a truly dangerous looking halberd (which, at that point in time, was only for ceremonial use in his role as a sergeant; he used it mainly to keep order in the ranks), and two other re-enactors manning a campaign tent. We peeked in several other of the tents, including the General's, and inspected the camp kitchen (lots of pots over the fire).

Next we looked over the farmstead, where two women were exhibiting spinning and weaving, checked out the turkeys, ducks, and chickens in the farmyard, and finally joined the crowd for an exhibition of militia marksmanship. Several "volunteers" were extracted from the crowd and "drilled" before the minutemen gave a musket-firing exhibition, and then two Redcoats did the same.

The indoor exhibit building was excellent. It includes a timeline of the Revolution, profiles of some of the people affected by the war, including Mary Jemison, who I read of years ago in Lois Lenski's Indian Captive, a Seneca tribesman, two slaves, a Loyalist, farmers, and others, and finally a gallery which concentrates on the battle itself, with memorabilia including maps, charts, objects belonging to both British and American sides, paintings, and items from everyday life, like pipes, snuffboxes, Bibles, manuals, farm implements, and more. One of the most interesting exhibits was about "the Betsy," one of many ships that the British scuttled in Yorktown Harbor in order to blockade the port. An archaeological expedition has dived into the harbor and recovered items from the wreck, ships' parts and personal items.

(I overheard something a bit sad while checking out the farmstead kitchen. The Victory Center is a bit of a wreck, surrounded by fencing while they build an extension on to the building. Eventually it will not just be a museum devoted to the battle of Yorktown, but one covering the entire Revolutionary War. Unfortunately this means some exhibits may not be included, and the people at the kitchen believed that the "Betsy" exhibit would not survive.)

We also checked out another militia encampment behind the building and got to see two artillery pieces being fired off, a small cannon and a mortar. Here one of the artillery officers was a woman, something you wouldn't have seen here back in 1976 when I first visited.

At this point it was closing time. We wandered back through the farm and checked out the gift shop. I bought both the Yorktown and Jamestown visitors' guides and—surprise!—yet another CD of Christmas music. For a tiny gift shop, this had an outstanding selection of Revolutionary War books for both adults and children.

We went back to the hotel via a different route, which ended up with us driving past the Kroger we got dinner from last night. I asked James if we could stop at A.C. Moore, which always has things that Michaels and JoAnn do not. While, sadly, they have quit selling sweatshirts, the little decorative wood pieces, and real pheasant feathers, they did have something I never see in other craft stores, the little metal-look plastic frames for cross-stitch ornaments. I bought a variety for ten dollars. Plus I found a nice pattern book. Alas, they had mailbox covers, but I had no sooner decided that I would buy yet another Christmas one, even though the last two have been stolen off our mailbox, than I noticed they didn't have any Christmas-themed ones yet. I was hoping they had some Christmas banners, but none of those yet either.

And then back to our temporary hearth. Television is still a fright tonight!

Labels: food, history, music, shopping, vacation

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 10:44:00 PM

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The alarm rang at six and we got up, but not to go to work. Instead, we stuffed one more suitcase into the car, added one dog on a leash and one budgie in a cage, and were off. (Okay, I'm lying. It involved more than that, but let's not go into it. LOL.)

Since it was now 7 a.m. and traffic was getting bigger than an elephant's eye, we just grabbed an apple from the bag in the back seat and a bag of trail mix apiece and waited for breakfast until we got out of Atlanta. (Traffic was so bad on I-285 eastbound we just went down I-75 and back up I-85 and onward.) An oatmeal and fruit, and a burrito and tater tots at Chik-Fil-A later, we just headed our way up I-85. Just took our sweet time, stopped at rest areas to use the facilities and "air" the dog. We listened to Gaelic Storm, six episodes of Paul Temple and the Conrad Case, and...oh, just a pointer. Do not listen to "The Splendid Table" when you're tired, it's near to dinnertime, and you're stuck in traffic. LOL. The guy who had the side of beef was bad enough, but when Lynn Rossetto Casper started talking to the lady who wanted something else to do with apple butter....oh, my! Got lunch at Wendy's and then ate it at the very next rest area.

Not much fall color up here at all, save for the odd maple between the pines, and some golden trees. We stopped at one rest area in North Carolina and the breeze kept shaking golden, pointed leaves all around. All I could think of was Miss Emily Baldwin and Ashley Longworth!

We did see an awful accident in Virginia. Two cars were in a ditch, simply covered in the mud from the ditch, and people coming out of the cars were covered in dirt as well.

Otherwise an uneventful (thank God) ride. Schuyler was as good as gold and Willow only whined a bit until we got onto the freeway. The last two hours were pretty long.

A big surprise when we got to our hotel. I had booked Staybridge, and, since with extended stay, the one room suite was only ten dollars a day more than the studio suite, I got that. This would keep Willow's dander out of our bedroom. Well, the only one-bedroom suite they had had some problems, so they gave us a two-room suite for no extra charge. Neato!

Willow, having kept herself awake for the whole trip, was a bit freaked out when we got to the room. When we left her in her crate in the room to unpack the rest of the car, she started to bark. I was frantic because I didn't want any complaints. We were starving, but I let her out of the crate and let her sniff all through the room, both bedrooms and the living/kitchenette. Finally she did settle down and we went out to find something to eat. We were still nervous, and I didn't want to take forever to get served, so we stopped at Kroger and bought some ribs and chicken soup, plus a few little extras for snacks to supplant the apples and trail mix we bought: cheese, melba toast, jerky, etc.

Television sucks tonight. Best thing on is about crazy and elaborate homes, on HGTV. History has Swamp People, Travel is hunting ghosts, Syfy has wrestling...gah. We don't get DIY here, so we can't even watch Mike Holmes.

Oh, I never did mention where we are: Yorktown, VA. For visiting the aforementioned battlefield, Jamestown, Williamsburg, the USS Wisconsin, etc.

Labels: food, pets, television, travel, vacation

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 9:33:00 PM

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...a small gallery of last year's vacation:

2011 Vacation

The captions can be better read at full screen.

Labels: vacation

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 9:35:00 AM

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It was a momentous day in more ways than one.

We still had vegetables left over, so we scrapped the Farmer's Market visit and slept late. At least as late as a barking dog would allow, even after James took her out before we went to bed. Had breakfast and puttered about until it was time to start getting dressed for Amy Rutledge's memorial service. The address of the church had sounded familiar and when I looked it up, I knew why: it was the church right near our veterinarian's office.

I pressed my clothes, patted a bit of makeup on, and we were off, leaving early so James could drop off two models at the hobby shop before we headed out to Dunwoody. The local IPMS club is taking a "club project" down to the Nationals next weekend in Orlando: a Lego aircraft carrier with its deck covered in little egg planes. These are popular small Japanese model kits that portray aircraft...well, in egg shapes. They're cute and fun. James had done one previously and finished two more for delivery today.

We wanted to make sure we arrived at the church on time, especially since the freeway had road construction on it, although at the moment it had to have been stopped because it was raining quite steadily. We stopped on the way at Jersey Mike's for a small sandwich each and shared a bag of kettle chips and a cookie since we didn't know how long the service would be, and went surface roads only and arrived about a half hour early, so we stopped at Kroger and I bought my buns for lunch there. (The buns at the Smyrna Kroger are always covered with bits of cornmeal that keeps the bread from sticking to the baking pans. Ugh.) Then we circled back to the church and drove through the parking lot until we saw familiar faces and parked the truck.

As it always is at funerals, we saw folks we hadn't seen in some months, and those we pretty much only talk to online. One by one everyone arrived and we waited under the overhang outside one of the church halls.

By the time the service started at two, it was pouring rain. I'd carried my umbrella, but James hadn't, and it turned out the short service was being carried out outside. So James had to run back to the truck for his own brolly.

It was a nice service, held in a little outside garden with a statue of the Virgin Mary amongst flowers at one end and a little alcove with a fountain and plinths near which there were small memorial plaques. We were in the rear and the pounding of the rain against the umbrellas made it hard to hear, but we said the Lord's Prayer and did the responses.

After the service we repaired to Allison's Restaurant a mile or so away where Amy's husband and her family had planned a small "collation" and we sat and talked. A guest book was passed about and we enjoyed each other's company and some delicious food: salmon and cream cheese on wheat bread with dill, coconut shrimp, chicken fingers, a few other meats, "tea" sandwiches (cucumber, egg salad—thinking of you, George Hall!—shrimp salad), and two desserts, tiramisu and strawberries and cream. We got to see Mike Rogers and John Cochrane and Stephanie Gould, and met some of Amy's friends from dog shows.

One of the things James and I were talking to Phyllis about was our need for new dress clothing for Juanita's wedding. I'm going to have to put off that ordeal until after the present ordeal, a.k.a. end of fiscal year., is over. He's going to wear his new kilt, in the U.S. Navy tartan, at the wedding and has all the accessories for it, but needed a new jacket. His old suit goes back to our wedding, almost 22 years ago, and doesn't fit around the shoulders anymore.

So since we were right across the parking lot from Jos. A. Banks, the menswear store, after the reception was over, we went there looking for a suit jacket. Wow. They had jackets almost up to $1000. The average price was about $450! We had to wander about for about fifteen minutes just for anyone to talk to us, and then were told they'd have to special order a jacket for him. Well, we were only shopping.

On the way home we stopped at Cumberland Mall, or across from Cumberland, anyway, at the Men's Wearhouse. We were greeted promptly here, by a salesman who let James try on three jackets in navy blue, and we found a nice looking one that fit perfectly. Well, they were having a sale, and he was able to get another jacket, a blue-grey in a pale houndstooth pattern, for just a little bit more, and then he bought a white shirt for the wedding and a blue shirt to wear with the houndstooth jacket. It was a lot more than we usually pay for clothes, but if the new clothes last as long as the old ones, it will be a good deal. So now he's kitted out for Juanita's wedding. My mom would be proud! :-)

This was a great salesman, by the way...we were only supposed to be looking today. He did look a bit nonplussed when James said he would be wearing it with a kilt!

God, I don't want to think about buying a good dress or a blouse and skirt. Half the stuff for women with my tubby figure are big flowered prints. It's bad enough being stout without looking like Hyacinth Bucket!

Stopped at Bed, Bath & Beyond for a bottle of syrup for James' Soda Stream, and then finally home.

We needed a little amusement after the gravity of today, and had a big marathon of Big Bang Theory episodes this evening, watching the rest of season two (about eight episodes) and the only two episodes of season three we hadn't seen, plus the extras on both DVD sets. At last! Enough blooper scenes to make a gag reel on a DVD set worthwhile; most DVDs that do blooper reels have about two minutes of gags and that's it.

And then we got sad news on chat: we'd decided to go to Virginia this year because of Jen being stationed near Norfolk and her ship not scheduled to deploy until next year. Well, wouldn't you know they're going to go on a short mission just when we're due to go on vacation? Typical: Uncle Sam giveth and Uncle Sam taketh away. Phooey!




This is a picture I found of Amy running her basenji, Widget, in an agility trial, on her friend Sharon's Facebook page. Hope Sharon doesn't mind that I have reposted it. We had known Amy for a long time, from when we would drive up to Atlanta from Warner Robins for the Terminus TARDIS meetings at White Hall at Emory University back in the mid-1980s. We danced at her wedding, and she and her husband Charles made it possible for us to have our wedding and reception at the clubhouse at their apartment complex. We watched Amy run her dogs, first Brucie and then Delenn and Vir, and finally Widget, in a couple of agility contests. We hadn't seen much of her of late, but we kept up with her dog show awards on Facebook. We'll miss her.

Labels: clothing, food, friends, shopping, vacation

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 1:23:00 AM

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Sigh. Alarm set for eight, awake at 6:30. This means I was awake a few minutes later when it started to thunder.

Ah, well. It was raining pretty well when James took Willow outside, but it had stopped by the time we had finished breakfast and had loaded up the luggage cart (Willow jumped upon it before we had it full; we weren't going to leave her behind!). I stopped at the desk to tell them that the sink was not emptying properly and also that we had not been able to get hot water out of it. So they credited my card with one night's stay! That was nice of them.

We got gasoline at the station catty-corner from the hotel and were off; Schuyler wrapped against the chill: it was 50°F out and heavily overcast. We drove through a band of rain, and then it slowly began to clear, lower clouds to higher, lighter grey clouds, to fluffy clouds, to cloudless and fluffy clouds again. It was always breezy, and by the time we reached Michigan it was snapping the flags out.

Ohio was farm fields from Dayton until we approached the outskirts of Toledo, broken by groves of trees sometimes filled, sometimes dotted, with chrome-yellow brilliant trees mixed in with bits of orange. We crossed the Lincoln Highway (U.S. 30; see our adventures on the Lincoln in November 2009), emblazoned with the Lincoln logo, and also I-80, which I was last on in 1978. We stopped at a rest area in Ohio next to a windswept farm whose fields lay bare in the sharp breeze (some miles down the road we had passed a farm that was going to be sold at auction; very sad). We picked up some Wendyburgers before we left Ohio and ate in the car at the Michigan welcome center, where the breeze off Lake Erie made it too chilly to eat at the picnic table.

Then we drove through Detroit, past the Ambassador Bridge, and up a long, long freeway to our hotel in Troy. I remember way back when when all you needed to visit Canada was a driver's license and they inspected your car. I would have liked to have gone...but we didn't have time to get passports.

This is an odd neighborhood: a mixture of hotels, a few restaurants, and many high-rise office buildings. Down the street there are some shopping centers and stores; we hung around for a while after moving into the room (this one a full one-bedroom suite, with a full living room rather than a sitting room), and then went out to the TGIFriday attached to the hotel. We did the "2 for $10" thing, with me getting an appetizer (potstickers) and chicken bruschetta, and James getting dynamite chicken and the dessert (peanut butter cup pie), and then we shared. Afterwards we stopped at Petsmart to get something for Willow, and then went to Barnes & Noble just to walk off dinner. Did buy two cross-stitch magazines.

Nothing much on television again...were watching House Hunters on HGTV until Castle started. Schuyler has been singing her little head off tonight. Almost couldn't hear the dialog over her voice! We have her on the desk in the living room rather than on the tray like she was at the other hotel, and she seems pleased by it.

Wow! They are saying the aurora is visible in some towns outside of Detroit! They even had photographs sent by viewers of the shimmering curtain.

Oh, we watched Castle on WXYZ, the television station that derived from the original Detroit radio station of the same call letters. This is where the radio series The Lone Ranger and The Green Hornet were created. Almost as good as passing by KDKA. :-)

Labels: food, television, travel, vacation, weather

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 10:06:00 PM

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Will you tell me why I am so blankety-blank hard to unwind? I have never been a "type A" personality, yet the only time I seem to relax any more is when I am reading; otherwise I'm strung tighter than a bow. Last night we had a comfy bed and comfy pillows in a nice cool room after a great shower. The blackout curtains really worked (and a good thing, too, because there's a spotlight that shines right toward our window). We went to bed and had eight solid hours of nice sleep ahead of us, from 11:30 to 7:30.

I woke up at 6 and never could get back to sleep. My mind was racing about the glass of milk I stupidly left in the refrigerator; I was supposed to drink it yesterday before we left. Now it's going to sour in there. Left a cup of yogurt behind, too. I can't sleep because I am thinking about having to clean the refrigerator. Is this idiotic or what?

So we were up at 7:30 to dress. I got a rude surprise: the last pair of GV jeans I bought at Costco didn't fit. Although they were marked my size, they were at least one size too small. Phooey! James walked the dog and then we went down to breakfast. I hate to be disloyal to Drury, but I think I like the Staybridge breakfasts better. Their oatmeal was in packets and didn't have a metallic taste. They also had mixed fruit instead of just apples and bananas. And there was toast.

So this morning we were headed to the Air Force Museum. We were here eleven years ago, having stopped in Dayton a day early before going on to Columbus for the "WENNvention" [gathering of Remember WENN fans] [that account is here]. There was a new hangar of experimental planes James wanted to see, and some of the planes formerly on the flightline were now inside. Plus we had had to rush through the post-World War II galleries very quickly last time. So since we were heading for "points north," it made sense one of the points was here.

The first thing we did was spend a half hour in line to get registered for the bus to the hangars where the Presidential planes and the experimental Air Force planes were. Both of us skipped out of line to take a couple of pics. After that we started walking through the galleries we had examined in detail last time: early aviation (starting with balloon ascents and the efforts of non-Americans—there's an actual Bleriot, which will mean something to anyone who loved the British seies Flambards) through World War II. The exhibits segue logically one into the next along a curved pathway that makes the experience more interesting, as you turn a corner and see a new vista of aircraft, or come upon a little alcove where you might have a small exhibit about spying or prisoners of war. You walk out from the World War II gallery into a short, but very effective display about the Holocaust. There is also a display for Bob Hope's involvement with entertaining the troops, a small exhibit about service flags, and a huge, beautiful hanging quilt paying tribute to Air Force installations, as well as a mosaic reproduction of the famous photo of the Wright brothers' flight.

At this point we decided to break for lunch, so went upstairs to the cafè, where they have hot dogs, hamburgers, some ham and cheese sandwiches, fruit, drinks, milk, chips, and desserts. It has been busy here all day, and we shared company with what sounded back down on the exhibit floor like veterans visiting for the day, plus a plethora of Boy Scouts. After lunch there wasn't much time before we needed to be on the bus, so we just wandered around the gift shop until it was time to gather in the auditorium.

For reasons that I'd rather not go into, I ended up not going to the experimental hangar. James enjoyed the excursion very much and took about a gajillion pictures, to the point where he ran down my spare battery down on his camara. He had already run down his own in the first gallery! By that time I was slightly better and wandered after him through the remaining two galleries: Vietnam and Korea, and the Cold War, which also included the missile gallery and the few spacecraft exhibits (including the Apollo 15 capsules, Gemini and Mercury capsules, and a moonrock). All those names from Vietnam bring back such bad memories. We watched it night after night on television. My cousin Jimmy went to Vietnam and came home so changed and emotionally fragile. My friend Penny's dad went as well. I remember going to her house one night to watch her Dad appear on the news. And we never saw the actual carnage...just indistinct bodies and wounded men wrapped in bandages.

Vietnam was part of my childhood, but it's funny how the World War II gallery also always resonates with me, as it was my parents' war. But then it was as alive in our house when I was a kid as it had been to them twenty years earlier. I would ask my mother to tell me the story about what happened to her the day of Pearl Harbor, and even today I can't hear John Charles Daly's Pearl Harbor announcement or FDR's "Day of Infamy" speech without getting gooseflesh.

While waiting for James to finish taking pictures in the last gallery, I sat down near a young mom discreetly nursing a baby under an afghan; she had another tiny little girl with her. Very soon dad and slightly older brother turned up. I'd say she was three and he was about five. She was sitting in the stroller and would push him away and he would pretend to get pushed backward, then come back for more. Then she slipped out of the stroller and they were trotting around the stroller. So cute!

So, very close to closing time, we ended up back in the gift shop. They have a great selection of military and aviation books, and I could have bought a lot more than I did, including a illustrated book of World War II memorabilia (games, ration cards, greeting cards, etc.), several space books, and others I can't recall. I did get a book called A Ball, a Monkey and a Dog, about the early days of the space program, and a book chronicling girls' serial/series stories about aviation (The Girl Aviators, The Aeroplane Girls, etc.), plus the souvenir booklet. By the time we walked out it was 4:55 and they closed at five.

We had supper mostly at the Drury evening meal setup. This time they had hot dogs, mac and cheese, baked potatoes, salad greens, pretzels and chips, and chili. I had to have some mac and cheese (if you get my drift) and also had a baked potato with cheese sauce, and some bread. It was terribly noisy in the dining area; apparently there was a little girls' soccer competition in the area. This explains the three little girls on the elevator yesterday, as we ran into one of them on the elevator again tonight—she said, "I remember you; you're the ones with the parrot." Schuyler gladly accepts the compliment!

We finally fled from the tumult and walked across the parking lot to the Panera Bread to buy some of their chicken soup, and two cookies, and brought it back to the room. Willow fixed her eyes on the bowls for the entire time we ate, those big liquid brown eyes that try to persuade you that she's starving to death with a bowl of kibble not a foot away. We finally mixed her dog food with two spoonfuls of the broth and she scarfed it down.

Wandered about the television dial tonight, ending up finally watching the second half of The Fugitive on "Spike," and most of an America's Funniest Home Videos. Did some checking; the Neil Armstrong museum doesn't open tomorrow until noon, so we have a quiet morning tomorrow.

Labels: museums, travel, vacation

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 10:44:00 PM

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