Leg 6
Georgia to District of Columbia
June 18-June 26, 2012
Monday, June 18
On Friday the 15th, I walked my oldest daughter
down the aisle and placed her hand in that of a delightful young man. This is
one of the most wonderful things that a father can do. Bitter sweet of course,
as no longer are you the most important man in you girl’s life, but it must be
that way. I have never seen her happier. The sun was shining, we were surrounded
by close friends and family all there to celebrate and wish them the very best.
The ceremony took place lakeside under an archway constructed by a family
friend. It was definitely one of the highlights of my life.
Monday, they took off for a honeymoon in Portugal, and I
took off to rejoin my motorcycle.
My flight to Atlanta was a modern day travel nightmare. Not
as bad as theirs, because the airlines changed their schedule at the last
moment, resulting in an in illegal connection through Boston and United
Airlines refusing to check their bags or even give them boarding passes. After
several semi-coherent sobbing phone calls while they were at the check-in
counter, somebody with a brain at United finally checked them through, and
although they were separated from their bags for a few days, all turned out
well in the end. Meanwhile, I took the El to Midway airport to catch my Delta
flight to Atlanta in order to arrive at a time convenient for my brother-in-law
to pick me up at Hartsfield International. After a big breakfast of eggs and
corned beef at Manny’s across from the gate, I was happy to be upgraded to
business class, and was just settling down in my seat when the pilot announced
there would be a delay due to some technical difficulty. A few minutes later
they announced it would require some mechanics and we were asked to deplane.
The next announcement was that the flight would be delayed an hour and half,
but Delta was giving us all some meal vouchers for lunch. This would put me
into Atlanta past my brother in law’s window of convenience, precisely when he
was to pick up his youngest son from school, so I called him to let him know
and tell that I would keep him posted. While I was waiting I decided to
contribute to the local economy and upgrade my appearance by getting my boots
polished. The sign said shoes $6, boots $8. Now, what does that tell you? The
bottoms of shoes and boots are the same size, right, they cover your foot? The
soles are the same size, so the sole edges are the same size. The heels on the
boots might be bigger. The real difference between shoes and boots is that
boots go further up your leg, the “uppers,” so that costs $2 more, a 33%
premium. Fair enough. Well, the old black guy manning the shoe stand starts to
bitching about life right away. Ok, I can deal with that, but he starts to put
the polish away and hasn’t even touched the uppers. I ask him politely would he
mind putting some polish in the uppers, pointing out some of the scuff marks
there. This was clearly an imposition. “You really want me to put some polish
up there?” “Well, yes, if you don’t mind, I do.” Bitch bitch, grumble grumble,
but he does it. Then he commences to buff the lowers, and does a half-assed job
at buffing the uppers. No real problem. The boots are much nicer looking than
before I sat down, so I hand him a $10 bill and say “Keep it,” feeling pretty
good about giving him a 25% tip. “Is that all?” he gripes, “Is that all you
going to give me after making me do the uppers?” I wanted to say, “Dude, you don’t
want it, give me the change,” but I kept my cool, just looked at him, picked up
my bag and walked away, happy that I was an unhappy shoe shine guy. Screw you,
Jack. Last time I will use the shoe shine stand across from Manny’s in Midway
airport.
The shoe shine was a metaphor for the day. Make a long story short, I didn’t leave
Midway for 9 hours. Delta had to fly a part and some mechanics in from
Minneapolis (!) – how could Delta operate out of Midway and O’Hare in one of
the biggest cities in the United States and not be able to repair a plane
except by flying parts and people in from Minneapolis? In the end, they
couldn’t repair it, anyway, Delta cancelled the flight, and I was rebooked late
in the afternoon, coach class in the dreaded middle seat, arriving 12 hours
after I was to depart on an hour and a half flight. Hey, Delta bought me a free
hamburger, why should I complain?! And in the meantime I had plenty of time to
dine at the Golden Arches, read a book and the day’s Wall St. Journal.
Great news there. Not. Manufacturing job statistics for the
month are the worst they have been in an already bad year. The overall jobs
market is worsening. Home sales in May declined at the same time that interest
rates hit record lows. Moody’s downgraded the credit ratings of five of the
largest US banks, including Bank of America, JP Morgan and CitiGroup. Headlines
proclaimed it was still very hard for small businesses to get loans. Duhhh. I
have been saying that since being interviewed on the Mike Huckabee show in the
fall of 2010. This country is not going to get out of the economic doldrums
until the credit system is restored, until banks actually start lending again
instead of hoarding. Just about everything that the federal government has
imposed on banks to “make them sound” has made the situation worse by drying up
credit, killing not just small business, but business of all sizes and
consumers as well. In an effort to “protect” consumer borrowers, the feds have
totally screwed up the real estate markets by making it impossible to select
you appraiser, and illegal to use more than one appraiser for a loan
application, which has resulted in turning the keys to the real estate market
over to the appraisers. To protect their own asses, and not be accused of inflating
values, appraisers have gone super conservative, knowing that neither banks for
borrowers can do anything to them. If they under appraise a property, they have
no liability because the lenders are over-secured. If they over-appraise
property, they have big potential liability to consumers who allege they were
duped into buying over-valued property and by banks if they have to foreclose
and can’t get their money out. The appraiser gets paid either way. What do you think they are going to do? Their latest
practice is to use foreclosures as comparable sales. Since when is a distressed
sale under a foreclosure comparable to an arm’s length open market sale between
a willing buyer and a willing seller? Or, because the real estate market has
been so slow for years, they often can’t find any comparable sales anywhere
near the property they are appraising – so essentially they make up comparables
from other neighborhoods or guesstimate based on their own perceptions of the
market for (by definition) non-comparable properties, with all the incentives
to under-appraise. Which of course becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, as
buyers and sellers can’t get financing to make the sale they have agreed is a
fir deal unless they lower the price of the transaction, which results in
either driving down other properties in the neighborhood, or killing the sale
entirely and extending the statistic as to how long a property stays on the
market – if it stays on at all – increasing “overhang.” The real estate market
is not going to get fixed until some of the regulations that have insulated
appraisers are eliminated, and true competition and accountability is restored
to the appraisal business. Don’t hold your breath. The politicians are all
playing blame games rather than addressing the structural problems they have
created. Romney says it’s all O’Bama’s fault and claims he can do much better
without giving a clue as to how. O’Bama is still playing the “Blame Bush” deck
and trying to raise taxes but calling them something else. A pox on both their
houses.
Tuesday, June 19
After Monday’s less than auspicious beginning, it was
wonderful to get back in the saddle Tuesday morning. The BMW needed a new rear
tire, so I drove it over to Atlanta’s BMW motorcycle shop in Marietta. Marietta
is a beautiful town, full of twisty roads and tree-shaded stately homes interspersed among hills and
Civil War Battlefield Parks, and shops that scream money. It took me about 20
minutes to get to the BMW shop. I had called them weeks in advance to tell them
what I needed and they nicely agreed to service the bike as soon as I brought
it in, while I waited. They give me access to coffee, the Internet and a lounge
chair while they changed the sundries oil, tire and did a general checkup. Very
nice people. By noon, I was ready to be on my way. $410.05 lighter, after a
quick stop at Walmart for sundries and another stop to top off the tank with
gas, and yet another to wolf down whatever for lunch, I am finally…
“On the road again, just can’t wait to get on the road again…
On the road again,
goin’ places that I’ve never been
Seein’ things that I
may never see again,
I can’t wait to get on
the road again.
On the road again,
like a band of gypsies we go down the highway
We’re the best of
friends…
And I can’t wait to
get on the road again.”
Willie
Nelson
I’m anxious to get up to “Waterfall Country”, and on the way
I also want to try out some off-the-beaten-track mountain roads in the North
Georgia Mountains that I read about in the Motorcycle Adventures
guidebook series by Hawk Hagebak. I don’t mind giving him a plug as his guides
are really good, and accurate. Today my destination is Hiawassee, where my
sister and brother-in-law have a house they offered to me for the night (they
call it a cabin, but at 2500 square feet, several bedrooms, a modern kitchen,
vaulted ceilings and decks, no, it’s a house – and plenty of room for me!).
First, though, I have to get from the West side of Atlanta, so in the interest
of time I take the bypass Interstate over to I85N and then the spur up to
Gainesville. Traffic was bad, even early on a Tuesday afternoon but it cleared
out a few miles up the spur. Then up 129 to Cleveland to Alt75 and then up 348
to Duke’s Creek Falls. This is a pretty ride, with plenty of curves to keep
your attention, but I was quite disappointed when I arrived at Duke’s Creek
Falls. There is a parking lot and an overlook where you can see the falls in
the distance across a deep canyon, a 6 mile hike away. The falls looked very
nice, but I was hoping to dip my feet or face in the water to cool off. Not
here. Looks like a great place for a day trip or maybe an overnight camp but
not worth the side trip for a distant gander.
Sometime around 1968, when mining and logging had petered
out and San Francisco was in a Purple Haze, some enterprising locals decided to
capitalize on the mountains and their German heritage by building everything in
a Bavarian Village style. It’s now a bustling German tourist trap, streets
chock full of souvenir shops, and with bars, restaurants and taverns hanging
out over the river. Tubers float down the river underneath the balconies,
providing me entertainment while I drink beer and munch on bratwurst or other
German delicacies. I enjoyed myself a little too long, so decided to pass up a
possible side trip to Anna Ruby Falls and Unicoi State Park, and headed
straight for Hiawassee. Pictures I have seen indicate that the falls are really
worth visiting, a rare double waterfall of two creeks that join below the
falls. Maybe next time…
Wednesday, June 20
I have never seen so many, so large and so bright blue
hydrangeas as in Georgia in June. Is it the State flower or something?
Plenty of time for reflection on Route 76. What is the lure of the open road? From “Road
Trip” to RVs, motorcycles and sports cars, it boils down to one thing:
unstructured days of freedom. The “what road shall we take today?” the “what’s
around the next bend?” the “where shall we eat and where shall we sleep
tonight?” With bikes, it’s better: the
wind in your face (and hair if you don’t wear a helmet), the smells of dead and
blooming things, the abrupt temperature differences from sun and shade, the
sense of speed as you watch the pavement whizzing by inched below your feet,
the need to lean into turns and ride.
A sense of adventure and freedom in a country that prides itself on both - and
which is losing both, right before our eyes. Think for a moment of all the
things we used to “just do” that now we need a permit or a license to
do. Everyday things. Make a list. It’s staggering. You used to get on your
horse and ride, or hook up your buggy or wagon and go. Some of us still do. But
for most of us, it’s a driver’s license to go anywhere. And you better have a
license plate on your vehicle, too. A current one. You used to take your pole, walk down to the
river, throw in your line and fish. Now you need a fishing license. Same for
hunting. Same for getting married. For holding a parade. To open a restaurant.
To sell your home brew. To give somebody a haircut. Really, is that necessary?
Can’t get license at all to pick a leaf and smoke it, whether its marijuana or
tobacco. Used to be perfectly legal to sell and use opium or cocaine, but now
Mr. Joe Average can’t buy those things at all except illegally from the local
drug dealer – which are everywhere. The federal, state and local governments
are all involved in telling us whether and where and when we can buy and sell
alcohol, and place limits on the percentage of alcohol “permitted” in beer and
wine, as if nature’s limits aren’t enough. We can’t even buy cough syrup or
fertilizer without showing a state issued id! I remember in the late 60’s (or
was it early 70’s? Kinda fuzzy J)
I was in California and wanted to go backpacking in the wilderness in the
Sierras. I couldn’t go because I didn’t have a permit. I was blown away – a permit to go hiking in the wilderness?
Seemed incredible at the time. Today government intrusions in our private live
range from the trivial to the vital. Electric signs that tell us when we can
cross the street are commonplace, and some places even have cops that give us
tickets if we don’t slavishly obey the Electric Big Brothers. The CPSC and
local municipalities tell us what day and even what hours we can celebrate
Halloween, for God’s sake! Bloomberg famously wants to regulate what we choose
to eat and drink, from soft drinks to table salt to baby formula. There are
rules as to how steep we can build stairways inside our own homes. Other
agencies try to tell us how we must raise, educate and discipline our
children. We need a license to carry a hand gun, and that even after the
Supreme Court said yes, the Constitution really does say that we have a right
to have one to protect ourselves from wild Indians, bad guys and tyrants, a
“well regulated militia” being manifestly unnecessary for hunting Bambi.
Sure, there may be “good reasons” to justify every single
one of these licenses, and their concomitant rules and regulations, but the
fundamental premise behind all of them is that we individuals are incapable of
taking care of ourselves, we need the protection of government from each other. How’s that working for
you? That and taxes. All of these licenses represent sources of revenue to support that government.
But with each one of these licenses, we give up a little of our individual
liberty. Standing alone each one is not much, but altogether they begin to
reshape attitudes, and change culture. Ubiquitous licenses become “ok”, normal.
Government regulation of the simplest things in life becomes accepted, even
expected. We are becoming a culture where everybody sticks their noses in
everybody else’s business. The right to privacy seems to be eroding everywhere
except in the bedroom. Over the past 50 years it has become well established
that we have a right to a multitude of ways to prevent and terminate pregnancy
beyond abstinence, and that everybody has a fundamental right to stick it in
any hole with anybody just about anywhere at any time – unless, of course, she
changes her mind even at the moment of entry – but can you name an individual
liberty other than sexual freedom that is expanding?
The right to work, evidenced by more women and minorities in
the workplace? No. That is about equality, not rights. Certainly more people,
more people, women, blacks, other “people of color” and even new categories of
people like “trans-genders” may enjoy or even have access to the rights and
freedoms of our society, which is overall an excellent thing. But that is not
the same thing as the smorgasbord of rights and freedoms that are available to
share. That is shrinking. There are more people at the party, to be sure, but
fewer choices on the freedoms menu. It is a paradox that as more and more
people participate in our freedoms that the freedoms themselves are shrinking.
Even the smallest freedoms need to be jealously
guarded. No liberty should be given away casually. We can lose our freedom as
easily one unthoughtful step at a time, perhaps more easily so than by an
apocalyptic event. Every time somebody in authority tells you “you can’t
do” something without their permission, you should resist and demand to
know why - and it better be a hell of a lot better reason than to protect me,
from somebody else, or from something I can choose to avoid myself, or
especially from myself. This is why I
vehemently oppose mandatory motorcycle helmet laws. I choose to wear one
myself, I recognize it’s much more dangerous not to wear one, but who am I, who
is anybody to tell somebody else that they must wear one? And now it’s moved on
to bicycle helmets. Personally, I believe only pussies wear bicycle helmets,
but if you choose to wear one, be my
guest. Not too long ago there were even proposals to require soccer goalies to
wear helmets. Here’s a hint: choose not to be a goalie.
Where does it end? The answer, Virginia, is that it doesn’t.
Over time, all government always tends toward tyranny. The power of government
inexorably tends to grow. The Bill of Rights was fundamentally about protecting
individuals from the tyranny of government. A democracy governed by majority
rule can be just as tyrannical as an absolute monarchy or a totalitarian state,
maybe more so. As individuals, we should have the freedom to take our own
risks, the freedom to be stupid, the freedom to march to the beat of a
different drummer. Without that we are not free. “The price of freedom
is eternal vigilance.” “Live free or die.”
At Clayton, I continued West on 76 through the Chattahoochee
National Forest so I could make a token pass through South Carolina. I’ve
ridden through South Carolina before, from Greenville to Charleston and down
the coast through Beaufort and Hilton Head to Savannah. Great riding but I prefer
mountain roads, which is one reason why I took the inland route to Atlanta this
time. The ground is less fertile, more mountainous, more heavily forested, and
15 miles outside of Clayton I take a break at the Popcorn Overlook, sitting for
a while to look over miles of the foothills and the Blue Ridge Mountains.
A few miles further I cross the Chatooga River and enter
South Carolina. The river is fast and clear, unlike the turgid muddy bayou like
rivers you encounter in some of the Southern lowlands. Trusting my motorcycle
guide book, I turn North on Chatooga Ridge Road and enter Sumter National
Forest – I only know this because the sign says so, looks pretty much like the
same forest to me. There is nothing out here. No stores, few buildings and those
far between. Eventually I come to a stop sign. Why? No buildings, just fields
and two empty roads stretching into an empty landscape in four directions. It
continues to amaze me how much remote space there is in the supposedly
populated East. In this case, though, I look over my shoulder to make sure
nobody is coming up behind me, and keep my ears peeled for the sound of dueling
banjos, for this is the neighborhood where many for the scenes from the movie
“squeal like a piggy” Deliverance were filmed…
Somewhere on this route I pass my first huge magnolia tree
in full bloom, those big milky white flowers on top of those shiny leaves that
look as if somebody spent hours buffing and polishing each of them. (If anybody
knows an of those leaf polishers, tell them there is a career opportunity
waiting for them at a shoe shine stand across from Manny’s at Midway in
Chicago…)
I cross the Chatooga River again and reenter Georgia and
continue to climb all the way to Highlands, North Carolina, most amazingly all
on State Route 28. South Carolina Route 28 connects to Georgia Route 28 which
connects to North Carolina Route 28. How did the highway engineers ever
conceive of doing do something so eminently sensible? This has to be the only
place in the country where this happens. At least it’s the only place I know
of, which is really sort of one of the reasons I chose this route, I just had
to see it for myself. I think the North Carolina stretch is the prettiest of
them all, but I’m not sure because every time I took a second to take my eyes
off the road, I almost drove off a cliff. Several times I was leaned over so
far I thought I would scrape footpegs, which takes some doing on a BMW bike. By
the time I got to Highlands (proudly announcing 4,118 feet above sea level), I
was tired! And it took a damn long time to get to Highlands because for the
past ten miles or so I was stuck behind some fucking Florida flatlander
creeping along at under 20 mph in a Ford E1500 van license plate FLXHS 874.
Dumb ass never even thought to pull over to let me pass. No chance of scraping
any footpegs behind him. I did find a place to gun past him in the last few
miles before Highlands. After I parked, walked around a bit, took a few snapshots, the went into a local
establishment to borrow a pen and made some notes, filled up on gas, drank a
bottle of water, remounted with all that entails and was waiting at a traffic
light to go to my next stop when sure enough, here comes FLXHS 874 moseying up
Route 28 to the same intersection. Man, I had to get out of town before I got
stuck behind him again!
But I can’t give Highlands short shrift. It is spectacular.
It’s been a playground for the super-rich for decades, and it looks every inch
of it. Think Martha’s Vineyard in the Blue Ridge. Except it has gated
communities and golf courses, so maybe it’s more like Hilton Head. Quaint and
expensive boutique hotels, quaint and expensive shops, quaint and expensive
restaurants and bars, awesome and cheap scenery. I continue down (and I do mean
down) Route 28 to Bridal Veil Falls so I can do the touristy thing of driving
under the waterfall, and continue down the canyon past Dry Falls all the way to
Gneiss, turn around and go back up a road that clings to sheer, brooding gray
cliffs dropping forever into deep dark forests – what a cool place to ride!
Along the way there is an empty unmarked picnic area, not
parking lots or signs but a road shoulder wide enough to park my bike, that on
impulse I decide to investigate. Good decision. Just beyond the trees, screened
from the road, the river flows over and around broad expanses of flat granite,
creating ripples, mini-currents and pools of cool mountain water. The rocks are
hot from the sun. Rhododendrons hang over the water from the banks. I have it all to myself. I take off my boots
and go wading. I have to. It’s just too beautiful, too inviting not to. Had the
inclination but alas, no honey to make love to… L
And miles to go before I sleep. It’s not even lunch time
yet. Heading back up 28 to Highlands, I pass FLXHS 874, thankfully coming down
the other direction. I turn on 106 toward Cashiers. It’s now almost redundant
to say it is a beautiful ride to Cashiers. Cashiers is a lot less tony than
Highlands, but still very pretty. I stop at the Carolina Smokehouse, a rustic
barbecue joint on the edge of town, for some North Carolina pulled pork washed
down by an ice cold beer. Hmm, hmm good, Mr. Campbell. Good thing there was no
live mountain music on the bandstand today or I might still be there. (Weekends
only.)
As I’m leaving, I notice a sign on the door: “Missing dog.
Blind in one eye. Missing part of one ear. Recently castrated. Answers to
Lucky.” Old joke, but still funny!
And as I’m getting ready to get on the bike, and old guy (!)
sitting on the veranda with his honey asks, “Are you a
Gator?” I was obviously confused by his question until I realized I was
wearing my orange Vieques T-shirt with a big blue fanged fish design on it,
which he mistook for an alligator and University of Florida colors. No problem,
it was just his excuse to strike up a conversation about riding motorcycles.
Yeah, he used to ride, too, and yeah, of course it was a Harley, but you
guessed it, he secretly always wanted a BMW. He lives in Florida in a town
(sorry, I forget the name!) which has a motorcycle rally he claims is better
than Daytona. He invites me to look him up if I come down that way, which I
might do except I can’t remember the name of his town, let alone his name! Oh,
well, they say memory is the second thing to go…
On to Brevard. Not particularly impressive itself, but a
great location in the middle of the mountains. I turn west on 276 into the
Pisgah National Forest to go to Looking Glass Falls and Sliding Rock. Lovely
forest road follows the river, but even afternoon on a Wednesday Looking Glass
Falls is crawling with people. It’s a beautiful falls, right off the road and
easy to get to with a pool of water at its base, thus its popularity, of
course. But I think it would be better to schedule a stop there in the early
morning before everybody else is up and about, or else in the spring or fall. I
was looking forward to changing into my trunks and actually sliding down the
sliding rock at Sliding Rock(!), but its
gotten too civilized. There’s an admission fee so you can’t just wander in, and
there were at least 30-40 people (mostly kids, naturally) waiting in line for
their turn. Not very appetizing. I’d hate to see it on a holiday weekend! So I
kept on going to the Blue Ridge Parkway.
What a road 400 some odd miles of curvy mountain driving
with nary a stoplight. I have been on it several times, but never seemed to
time it right for the rhododendrons, and always seemed to pick times when the
views were fogged in. Not this time! So many gorgeous views of wave upon wave
of blue ridged mountains that after a while they’re just background. A wild
turkey or two every hour or so. Rhodies sometimes so thick and crowding over
the road that you feel like you are driving through a rhodie tunnel. Mostly
white, but the higher and further north I drive, more pinkish. This may be the
only road I’ve ever ridden where there were more motorcycles than cars – and no
trucks! Only one problem. More damned flatlanders. Yep, all with Florida
license plates. They drive slowly and then don’t even pull off at the numerous
overlooks to let you get by. Unconscious behind the wheel! Agggh!
I make a pitstop at a craft center (really nice stuff, by
the way!) and to see if there are any lodgings coming up along the parkway. No
lodge, only camping at Mt. Mitchell, and nothing else between here at Little
Switzerland, so I decide I had better call ahead. Good thing. I got the last
room at the inn! So I can take my time the rest of the way without having to
worry where I’m going to sleep. As I’m leaving, an old guy (1) pulls up in a
van and parks next to me in an empty parking lot. “Hey, watcha riding? I used
to own a Harley. It was always breaking down. Ride safe now!” Getting to be a
broken record!
By the time I get to Crabtree Falls, its getting late and
I’m tired so I push on to Little Switzerland, but I have this gnawing – I
really haven’t experienced the mountain waterfalls the way I want to, and I’m
getting out of waterfall country...
I passed Little Switzerland years ago while driving the Blue
Ridge, and thought I would like to stay there some day. I was not disappointed.
A big old log lodge sitting just off the highway right on top of the ridge. My
room was gigantic, in a separate building with a porch overlooking the
valley. The place was jammed with a
Triumph TR-3 club rally, red, green and white TR-3s and a few TR-4’s all over
the place, including the first TR-3 ever made. Many cocktails. A fun group of
people. I made a big drink and wandered down to the swimming pool and admired
the view from the comfort of a chaise. Later went to their tavern, a cool beyond cool Scottish
style pub called the Fowl Play decorated with guns and stuffed game. Had a
dozen oysters on the half shell and a bratwurst at the bar. Shared dinner and a
few(!) pops (what was I drinking? Oh yeah, Jack!) with Alfie and Josie
from…FLORIDA! Actually, Alfie is an immigrant Egyptian, and Josie is his new
American wife. Kinda fat and dumpy but very friendly, but hey, do I care? They
obviously liked each other a lot. Alfie use dot have a 1936 German military BMW
with a sidecar that he was trying to sell for a friend. He wanted to sell it to
me but he couldn’t seem to remember whether he still had it or not. Alfie was
constantly trying to chisel the lady behind the bar out of a free drink in a
friendly sort of way. “They promised me at the Jack Daniels distillery that if
you buy three drinks, the fourth is free,” Alfie wheedled. “Sorry, Alfie, the
Jack Daniels Distillery is in a dry county. Didn’t happen,” I said. “That’s in
Tennessee,” said the bartender, “This is North Carolina. Down here, if you buy
6, the 7th is free.” Alfie is squeezing a lime into his cocktail and
keeps accidentally hitting me with the lime juice. “Do I get a free drink if I
get squeezed by your citrus three times?” Later the bartender lady was looking
for some Jameson’s for somebody, and she got to talking about some annual
Jameson’s lottery where the grand prize is a (one way?) ticket to Ireland. I
told her Irish whiskey is proof Micks will drink anything. She immediately
asked, “What are you, Scottish?” She had my number. Maybe it was an Irish style
pub… Out on the terrace, some local 50+ year-old woman was pissed because she
came to the Fowl Play with a divorced friend who came to pick up men. Her
friend had already scored and gone off with somebody from the TR3 rally,
leaving her alone, so she was teaching other women how to belly dance. Strange!
But I did pick up some valuable scuttlebutt in the
tavern. First, I have a great new
cocktail, the Diamondback Venom. The Diamondback is the nickname for a twisty
mountain road (Route 226A) that ends at Little Switzerland, famous among bikers
and sports car drivers, similar to the better know Dragon further south. Here
it is:
·
One part coconut rum
·
One part banana rum
·
One part any citrus rum
·
One part pineapple rum
·
2 parts pineapple juice
·
2 parts cranberry juice
Shake over ice in a big mother glass! Enjoy in moderation
(NOT!)
Which led to a discussion about cocktails, and in tune, some
news about some valuable medical developments. The pharmaceutical patent expiry
fro Viagra is getting close, so the FDA has finally settled on a generic name
for the drug: Mycoxafloppin. Rumor has it that among the rejected alternatives
were Mycoxafailin, Mydixadrupin, Mydixarisin, Dixafix and Ibepokin. And Pepsi
has announced that Mycoxafloppin will soon be available in liquid form as a
power aid beverage and mixer, so soon it will literally be possible for a guy
to pour himself a stiff one! No longer can they call this a soft drink! Pepsi
has selected the name MOUNT &D) Used as a mixer it will give new meaning to
cocktails and highballs! You know, there is more money being spent on breast implants
and ED pills than on Alzheimer research. With aging of the Boomers this means
we will soon have a large elderly population with perky boobs and big erections
and absolutely no recollection of what to do with them! Ain’t America great?
Pretty funny night.
S. O. D – Florida License Plates. I saw them in my sleep.
240 miles and half the time behind a Florida license plate…
Thursday, June 21
I get up really early, way before breakfast, slug down a
couple of cups of coffee and head out determined that I am going to see and get
thoroughly drenched under a waterfall before I leave waterfall country. I back
track down the parkway to Crabtree Falls and hike past some early rising
campers a mile and a half down the steep woodland trail to the base of the falls.
I arrive there just as the sun is breaking over the crest of the trees and
shining directly on the waterfall, as if just for me as I have it all to
myself. It’s lovely. I spend quite some time there literally soaking in the
atmosphere, but the pool at the base really isn’t suitable for swimming. Too
rocky and not deep enough. The morning already provides a warning of the day
ahead: hot and humid. In no time am
slick with sweat as I clamber out of the hollow up the other side of Crabtree
Falls and along the creek that forms it. After a short while, I come to a
natural pool fed by the stream cascading over a two foot drop. Nobody around. I
strip down and hop in, savoring the cold mountain water. Eventually I must
leave but I’m reluctant to do so. Back up the hill, on the bike and up to
little Switzerland for a big lodge breakfast before resuming the ride up the
Blue Ridge Parkway. Marvelous way to start the day!
I only have time today for one such diversion, so I have to
pass by Linville Falls, which appears to be much larger. Next time.
Time. On many occasions I have tried to decide what is the
most important thin in life. It’s not money, although we al know life is a lot
easier and usually better with enough money. But the law of diminishing returns
applies. At a certain point, the expenditure of time is not worth going after
more money. Trouble is, when it comes to money, most people have a really hard
time figuring out when enough is enough. At that point, time clearly becomes
the most important ting in life. You can’t bank it, you can’t create it, you
can only use it and lose it. You can’t get it back and you can’t get more of
it. But what is time?
Time is only the present. Past time is gone. You might have
memories of the past and you can learn from the past, but the past is past, you
can’t live it or re-live it, you can’t go back and do it again, you can’t do
anything about what you did. What is done is done. You waste your time if you
just yearn for the past. If you are always looking back, you are not living,
you are focusing on what is dead. And the future isn’t here yet. Clearly it is
better to look forward, to what you can do, to what is living, the future
present - but not too far forward because you don’t know how much time you
have, and if you are always preparing for the future, scrimping, saving,
planning, you never just “do.” At some point you have to quit preparing and do.
Now, not tomorrow, for tomorrow may never come. There is really only the
present. We can only live in the present. Everything else is either a memory or
a dream.
There are very few services along the Blue Ridge Parkway,
and I am running low on gas, so when I pull into one of the overlooks to admire
the view, I ask some folks whether they know of any gas stations close by any
exit. There’s an old guy there, a local, who ahs no idea, but he wants to tell
me everything about everything we can see looking over the Surry County down in
the valley where he lives. He lived in the county all his life and only came up
here two years ago for the first time, and now he comes up here every chance he
gets. He says the view is much better if you walk half a mile up the trail.
Surry is a fox hunters’ paradise. Looks nice but I’ve seen all I want to see
here and need some gas. So I talk to some bikers who pull in, a couple, each on
their own bike. At the next exit there is a biker-friendly bar and they think
there is a gas pump there. We chat about bikes and I take a picture of her on
her trike. We wish each other good riding.
I pull off for Laurel Springs at the next exit. Sure enough,
there’s the biker bar, but the gas pump is an antique. Some folks in the
parking lot tell me to turn left at the next intersection and there is gas at a
country store a couple of miles up Route 18 toward Sparta. Along the way I pass
an intriguing large hand lettered sign with an arrow pointing down a country
lane: “Winery – Blackberry wine tasting today" Sure enough, pretty soon there is Henry’s Store, a small
concrete block outpost with a single old Purex gas pump out front. Remember
when I told you about the turkey baster? Well, the shut off on this old pump
didn’t work and I wasn’t paying attention so soon I have gasoline pouring out
the top of the tank. Tank overfill. I did out my turkey baster and start
emptying the excess gas on the ground – only this doesn’t work very long
because the squeeze bulb on the turkey baster quickly disintegrates in contact
with the gasoline. Design defect in my invention! Resourceful as ever, I throw
away the bulb and cover the top of the baster with my palm, the same way you
would lift Coke or milk out of your glass with a straw when you were a kid!
While I am doing all this, an old geezer is curiously watching. We strike up a
conversation, and I ask, “Say, do you know anything about that winery down the
road? I saw a sign bout blackberry wine tasting today, but it didn’t say how
far.” “I should smile,” he says, “I guess I know something about it. That’s my
winery. It’s about a half mile down that road. You go on over and we’ll fix you
right up!”
Which is how I came to miss the big thunderstorm because I
was drinking Horse Stomp Red, Lucky Black and Feather Bed White for lunch at
the Thistle Meadows Winery in Laurel Springs, North Carolina. I didn’t even
know it was raining outside! When I emerged it was sunny, but when I got back
on the Ridge around Grandfather Mountain I learned there had been torrential
rains, limbs down, etc. God was with me. The fruit of clean living. I spent my
time with a lovely barrista who knew everything n bout her wines except how to
make them and a young couple who imbibed as much as me. Quite good, I recommend
a stop if you are in the area (thistlemeadowwinery.com). I learn why the tooth
brush was named in Kentucky by the inventor, who had only one. And I got a
recipe for Sparta Cobbler: 1 cup flower, 1 cup milk, 1 cup sugar, 1 stick of
butter (1/2 if you’re on a diet), 1 tablespoon of baking powder; mix it all up,
put 2 cups of berries of any (or many) variety(ies) on top and bake for 45 minutes.
I haven’t tried it yet – if you do, let me know how it is!
Back on the road, I head toward Sparta before getting back
on the parkway. The flowers have changed, no predominantly orange day lilies,
in profusion and abundance. The hills are covered by tree farms and conifer
nurseries, pocked with pastures for small dairy farms. Back on the Parkway, a
doe comes bounding toward the road out of a corn field, sees me and turns back
into the cornfield (thank god) without missing a beat. The parkway passes through
more civilized territory here, more farms and houses and less untouched forest,
but beautiful all the same. I stoop at the Cumberland Knob pull out to munch on
the chicken fingers I bought in Sparta and wash it down with Lucky Black, and
learn that it is the first park built by the Civilian Conservation Corps during
the Great Depression. The way the great Recession is hanging on we may soon
have the Civilian Conservation Corps again! A trio of Canadian bikers from New
Brunswick are there, one on a BMW, heading for the Dragon. We swap road
information and they tell me aboot the tides at the Bay of Fundy, hey!
I was intending to stopover in Roanoke to visit with an old
friend. He once gave me several jars of shine which I was hoarding in my refrigerator.
My daughter decided to do a nice thing for her mother and clean out the
refrigerator, including whatever was in those nasty old jars. Oh, well!
But it happens that he went in for prostate surgery this
week and isn’t really up to seeing visitors. Another sign of getting old, your
friends start having all kinds of surgeries and repairs that you really don’t
want to think about. It’s getting late and I won’t make Roanoke anyway, so I
check the trusty B7B pocket guide and call for a room at the Sabotta Manor in
Mt. Airy. I say good bye to the Blue Ridge Parkway and drive down into the
valley.
The directions the innkeeper gives me suck, and I drive
through town three times and call him as many times before I finally hone in on
the Manor. (He forgot that they changed the highway route and he is no longer
on the numbered route, which kept detouring me around the B&B). No matter,
it’s a very nice place and he’s a very friendly guy. His wife is off in Florida
with their dogs on vacation (?) and I think he is struggling a bit to manage to
inn on his own. Although “manor” may be a little pretentious for the house, its
very nice and has a lovely deep garden in the rear where you can cool off in
the shade.
Through the detours I realized that My. Airy is the
prototype for Mayberry, and the birth pace of Andy Griffith. Ironically, he
died shortly after my visit. I stroll down Main Street past Aunt Em’s Cafe and
Opie’s Toys, and settle on Pandowdy’s restaurant for dinner. The waitress is a
little haggard and brusque, or shall we say, efficient, with mussed blonde hair
hanging to one side like she had just come from a workout at the gym, only you
know she didn’t. “What’s good?” I ask. “Honey, I’ve been working here 22 years
and its all good.” Helpful. But then she redeems herself. “Although tonight
we’ve been having a little trouble with the fish basket.” Code: stay away from
that. Specials are always a safe bet! Spaghetti with meatballs, salad and
bread, $7.95. J
After dinner, I stroll further down Main Street to new Mt. Airy, the Old North
State Winery, a hopping place. After sampling a few muscadines (Sandy Cross was
very strong, very interesting) and reislings and even a Chambourcin made in
white wine style (which gives me an idea for my own harvest this year) all
while listening to live acoustic music and watching the crowd, I pack it in and
wander back through empty streets to the Sabotta Manor.
S.O.D. – In the manor: This house is owned and operated
solely for the comfort and convenience of our dog.”
Friday, June 22
Sabotta Manor earned its keep with breakfast. The unique
architecture and furnishings, breakfasts and the interplay among strangers at
breakfast are what I love about B&B’s. But bottom line, lousy breakfast =
lousy B&B. Sabotta Manor served a
superb breakfast: deep strong coffee; orange juice; poached pear in cinnamon
syrup; tiny lemon poppy seed muffins stuffed with blackberries and dollops of
whipped cream; broccoli ham and cheddar cheese quiche; baked hash browns laced
withy melted cheese. The guests were a retired college professor and her
husband, a young couple from just over the mountain and a forgettable pair.
As I am loading up to go, the inn keeper comes out to chat
about the bike. What year is it? How long have I had it? How do I like it?
Where am I going? Wish I had one… he give me directions to Martinsville, but I
know him well enough now to double check the map!
Down off the mountain, there are no breezes to moderate the
heat, and right away I can tell today is going to be a scorcher. It starts
fairly cool but begins to heat up quickly. I follow secondary highways through
places like Flat Rock, where a horny young Angus bull struggles to mount a cow
right by side of road, obviously undeterred by her less than romantic attitude, chewing on grass, and then through
Claudville, where nothing at all is going on. Winding through foothills past
side roads with names like Turkey Hollow, Horseshoe Hollow, and Beasley Hollow
into Stuart, Virginia. Every few miles for 20 miles around there is another
road sign with directions to the birthplace shrine of Civil War “Cavalier”
J.E.B. Stuart. I might not be able to find my way to Richmond from here, but I
could sure get to Stuart’s house. In Stuart itself here isn’t a square yard of
flat ground except where somebody has graded it, even Main Street is on a
double slant. I ride past the Beasley Dry Goods and Western Wear store and turn
on to JEB Stuart Parkway. The creek I cross has a sign identifying it as the
Campbell Branch. There is no doubt as to Scottish heritage of the pioneers who
settled these hills, and strange at it may seem to day to some, it’s easy to
feel how people in this isolated backwater chose their State over the Union in
1861.
As I head west through the town of Horsepasture, the roiled
foothills begin to fall away and open up into rolling hills, and the road
becomes a 4 lane. Unlike the Blue Ridge Parkway, travelers here are people
going somewhere, so the speeds pick up, and it’s easy to do 70 and more. I’m
aiming to make Williamsburg tonight, so fewer twists and more speed are a good
thing. By the time I reach Martinsville, the highway is nothing but long lazy
curves down and down to the Smith River. I am now in the land of red brick and
white trim, which soon begins to give way to more and more white frame farm
houses, but all with front porches. Sprinkled around you see some very old
homes, evident by their tall windows, steep roofs and fireplace chimneys at
both ends, when they were actually used for heat and cooking, including even a
split rail cabin that is still being lived in. The rivers are abundant, but
they are no longer fast, clear, cascading mountain streams, they are now broad,
slow, wide and curving, and muddy. Pink flowers and black eyed Susans begin to
predominate as the wild flower of choice, taking over from the day lilies, and
magnolias reappear with their buffed shiny leaves. Even a few tobacco fields!
I stop for gas outside Martinsville and have to take a
picture of the first fast food Sushi food stop I have ever seen, in a BP
station plastered with telephone card and check cashing signs mostly in
Spanish, with a black woman behind the counter and two South Asian nurses
stopping in for their bagged lunch. In Martinsville?
America, the melting pot. And coming soon to a street corner near you! J
Somewhere along the way I ride along next to a brand new
shiny bright red Nissan 350Z, with a pizza delivery sign strapped to the roof!
Sign of the economic non-recovery. The man has to pay for the fancy wheels
somehow!
It gets hotter and hotter as the day goes on, hitting 90 by
11, 92 by noon, and 94 by 1. You can feel the difference in heat radiating up
from the different kinds of pavement, fresh black asphalt being the hottest… By
2:30 its 98 and I say to hell with safe riding. I take my jacket off and wrap
it around my waist, and drive faster and faster because there is no air
conditioning except speed or shade, and there’s precious little shade.
I pass Brunswick, “Home of Original Brunswick Stew.” What a
claim to fame. In fact, there are jealously competing claims to the origin of
this dish. The Brunswick Virginia version is that it was first concocted on a
hunting trip, and consists of tomato base, okra, various beans, chicken and
rabbit. Carolinians claim it should instead have squirrel and pork. Either
place, the main thing is it must be thick, otherwise its just vegetable soup!
I plan to turn north at Edgerton but I miss the turn. I
wouldn’t even know I was in a town, let alone Edgerton, except I spy the name Edgerton
on a sign on railroad line. It’s not
even a wide spot in road, and the only road that could be my turn off is marked
with a route number different from the one on my map. So I decide discretion is
the better part of valor and continue on to I 95, head north at 80 mph +, even 90 to pass some big rigs, just keeping
up with traffic – and a very good thing because I see thunderheads gathering
over my left shoulder, and I don’t want to be caught in that!
I pull off for a milkshake at a DQ on Route 5 heading past
the James River plantations to Williamsburg. While cooling off, I call ahead to
several hotels in Williamsburg, but what a revolting development, there are
none rooms anywhere! What a dumb ass I am, did I really think I could get a
last minute room in Williamsburg late on a Friday in June? Obviously I wasn’t
thinking. Luckily while I am brooding over where I will spend the night, the
decision is made for me. I start talking with a trucker, another fellow biker
who has been watching the storm clouds develop in his GPS. A heckuva storm
including hail is blanketing Virginia and quickly headed my way, and he informs
me there are no places to stay along Route 6 between here and Williamsburg, so
I blow out of the DQ with more than deliberate speed heading for the Richmond
airport, a few miles to the North and the opposite direction from Williamsburg,
but where there are an abundance of hotels. Luck is with me (maybe there was
something to that Lucky Black wine!) as the Homewood Suites where I first stop
has a room – and the storm hits within 5 minutes after I unload my stuff in my
room. I watch the wind shake my bike as it blows across the parking lot, the
rain coming down in sheets, the wind blowing it so hard that when the rain
comes off the hotel roof by my window the water goes up in updrafts! At least
the bike is getting clean. And besides, there is the El Patron Cantina across
the parking lot that (as I confirm later) serves very fine margaritas! Hot
water, margaritas, , a king size bed, and air conditioning – ain’t America
grand?
Oh, yeah, and thank the Good Lord for the biker fraternity!
SOD – By a barn, “Used and un-used antiques.” Yes m’am,
that’s what I want to see, one of them there unused antiques?
Saturday, June 23
Saturday dawns and the storm has passed, although it’s all
over the news. Missed a bullet on that one! I’ve been to Williamsburg several
times before, but have not spent any time on the James River Peninsula. I don’t
know if that is its proper name, but there are tons of things to see there
including the James River Plantations, Jamestown, wildlife reserves, and
practically the entire peninsula was either a Civil War or Revolutionary War
battlefield, including the one that secured our independence, Yorktown.
Early morning finds me cruising back down highway 5. The
first plantation I come to is Virginia’s first plantation, the Shirley
Plantation, founded in 1613 and still privately owned by direct descendants of
its owners since 1638. Robert E. Lee’s mother was a member of that family, born here, and he spent much of his boyhood
at Shirley Plantation. Lee’s wife was the great (step) grand-daughter of George
Washington. I knew that Lee’s father served under George Washington in the
Revolution (Light Horse Harry Lee), but I learned that Harry Lee then suffered
such severe financial losses from investments that he was thrown into debtor’s
prison, a hero of the Revolution! Robert E. Lee himself was born on the Potomac
side of the Peninsula only several tens of miles to the north, so the entire
Peninsula Campaign of 1862 was fought almost literally in Lee’s backyard.
Shirley Plantation sits quite a ways off highway 5, right on
the James River. However, when I arrived I discovered that it doesn’t open to
visitors until 9:30. I can’t wait that long, so all I can do is look down the
long carriage way to the imposing brick mansion before turning back to the
highway. Two other bikers arrive about the same time as I do and do the same
thing.
I finally meet success at Berkeley Plantation.
You approach its large brick mansion through maybe a mile
long carriage road lined by stately trees. Berkeley was the family home of
Benjamin Harrison, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, and then
President William Henry Harrison. The grounds of course are beautiful,
immaculately tended gardens with brick walks and broad lawns sloping all the
way down to the James River, but there is lots of activity here this morning. I
have stumbled on to a Civil War Union Army encampment re-enactment!. “Little Napoleon”
General George McClellan occupied the plantation in 1862 and made it his
headquarters during his Peninsula Campaign to take Richmond. “Taps” was first
composed and played there by a Union bugler during that campaign. However, it
did not work out well for McClellan. Not only did he not take Richmond, but now
Confederate General Lee beat the crap out of him with a much smaller army,
inflicting a humiliating defeat on the Army of the Potomac and driving him back
to Washington with his tail between his legs, where Lincoln promptly fired him.
Today, Union troops are drilling and firing their muskets, camped out in the
fields in period tents. Women stroll the paths in period dresses accompanied by
officers in full uniform regalia. At Berkeley, I learn something very
interesting about Thanksgiving: contrary to what we have all been taught in
elementary school, the first Thanksgiving in the United States did not occur at
the Plimouth Colony on Cape Cod, but here,
at the Berkeley Plantation, then just Harrison’s Landing, Virginia, on
December 4, 1619, over a year before the Pilgrims made their famous landing on
their rock and a full two years before their “first Thanksgiving.” There were
no Puritans present in their funny hats and square silver buckles and I have
found no reference to any Indians being invited. Some argue that the first
Thanksgiving feast in America actually occurred in St. Augustine, Florida, but
that was then a Spanish colony. Regardless, it was not held in Massachusetts – that is revisionist history, it’s what
happens when you lose a Civil War!
As I mentioned, this entire Peninsula is chock full of
battlefields from several wars, and I stop at one of them. In 1862, the Union
Army started out with an enormous numerical advantage, sometimes outnumbering
the Confederates more than 3-1. But as the campaign wore on, it gave the
Confederacy the opportunity to bring in more troops from other fronts until the
numbers were much closer to even. McClellan was initially successfully against
Confederate General Joe Johnston, but things changed when Johnston was wounded
on June 1 and Robert Lee was appointed his successor. Lee was much more
aggressive than Johnston and went on the offensive, trying to trap and destroy
the Union Army. He was almost successful – the key word being almost. I chose
to visit Malvern Hill, the last major engagement in the Peninsula Campaign and
one battle that McClellan actually won against Lee, and in so doing saved the
Union Army from annihilation. The battlefield is still much as it was in 1862,
a broad farm field flanked by heavy woods, in front a rise not deserving to be
called a hill unless you are charging up it in full battle kit on a hot and
humid July day into the mouth of artillery arrayed at the top, which is exactly
what the Confederates tried, several times. Artillery sits where the Union
lines stood so you can get a feel for the battle. It was like a prelude for
Pickett’s Charge almost exactly a year later at Gettysburg, with the same
result. McClellan escaped.
The next stop brought me back another 150 years in time to
Jamestown Landing, the site of the first English settlement in North America in
the land of Pocahontas. That was one remarkable woman. Contrary to popular
current mythology, she was not the lover of English Captain John Smith when she
saved his life. She was just 12 when she placed her head upon Smith’s when her
father raised his war club to execute him. 6 years later at the age of 18, she
married Virginia planter John Rolfe, bore him a child, converted to
Christianity, and traveled to England where she was presented to the Queen at
Whitehall Palace. She died on the return trip of unknown causes.
There is not a lot to see at Jamestown Landing but it is
interesting.
The same ticket that gets you into Colonial Williamsburg and
Yorktown can get you into Jamestown Landing, but an adjacent exhibit featuring
sailing ships and living history is run by the State of Virginia, and costs an
additional admission fee. Just like Congress, the National Park Service and the
State of Virginia can’t get their act together to do what obviously would best
serve the public, one combined ticket and shared admission charge for
everything in the Colonial National Historic Park. Pissed, but why am I not
surprised? It’s a lot like the mortgage lending debacle imposed on us by the
federally regulated real estate appraisal system. It doesn’t take a genius to
see that there is a serious structural problem, or even what that problem is if
you just pay attention. It takes leadership to solve it. That we are
desperately short on. Instead, everybody takes and defends positions. Why can’t
a few leaders get together, collect a group of experienced experts to look at
the technical aspects of the problem, go somewhere for a few days weeks or even
months, and come back with an agreed plan? I guess Simpson-Bowles tried that
with the deficit, and how’d that work out? Instead of solving the obvious
problem, our politicians concentrate on keeping their cushy jobs, on getting
re-elected. It is no wonder that the public holds so little regard for
Congress. Congress doesn’t deserve better. I guess neither does the public, us,
as we keep electing the same bozos to Congress. If you ran a business this way,
you would go bankrupt in a hurry. Hmm. Three California cities just filed for
bankruptcy. I didn’t even realize a government entity could declare bankruptcy.
I suppose it’s a good thing they can, otherwise they would be coming to the
rest of us to bail them out of their profligacy. Ultimately, they may anyway.
Meanwhile, Rome burns.
Was it Alexis de Tocqueville who observed that the
experiment of democracy will only last until the masses realize they can just
vote themselves an income? If he didn’t, he should have. He was dead on about
so much else. He did observe that equality was emerging as an unstoppable force
in civilization, but that the search for equality also “impels the weak to want
to bring the strong down to their level, and …reduces men to preferring
equality in servitude to inequality in freedom.” Brilliant. It is precisely
what is happening around us today. He also criticized the stifling intellectual
effect of the “tyranny of the majority,” blaming the omnipotence of majority
rule as a chief factor in stifling thinking. “The majority has enclosed thought
within a formidable fence. [One] is free within that area, but woe to the man
who goes beyond it, not that he stands in fear of an inquisition, but he must
face all kinds of unpleasantness in everyday persecution.” This is the censorship
of modern day “political correctness,” when for fear of public scorn and
reprisals Americans no longer speak any obvious truth that is contrary to the
accepted social doctrine of absolute equality in everything. De Tocqueville
also warned that despotism in the guise of democracy would be more dangerous
than that of a dictator, in part because it doesn’t appear as despotism. He compared a potentially despotic democratic
government that exerts “immense protective power” to a protective parent who
wants to keep its citizens (children) as “perpetual children.” Alexis De
Tocqueville should be required reading in every law school, and mandatory study
for anybody who pretends to a degree in political science, but he’s not. I
know, I know, he is just another old white guy, not “relevant” to today. Right.
Or, as more simply put at about the same time by Davy
Crockett, “Remember that a government big enough to give you everything you
want is also big enough to take away everything you have.”
After a drive through William and Mary College, I stumble on
a thronged farmer’s market in the town center, where I have a leisurely lunch
al fresco, followed by a stroll through Colonial Williamsburg, where I come
across a parade led by youngsters playing fifes and drums. But its tie to get
on the road again so that I can rendez-vous with friends in Annapolis tomorrow,
so I head out. I choose a route that goes down the center of the peninsula,
past several Indian reservations that I think have been in lace since long
before the Revolution. I marvel at how rural this peninsula remains, so close
to Richmond and Virginia Beach and not at all far from Washington DC. All goes
well until I am crossing the Potomac into Maryland on the bridge at Newburgh.
Just as I approach the crest of the bridge, high above the river, traffic comes
to a painful stop. Is it an open draw bridge? No, it’s a suspension bridge.
Besides, traffic continues to move from Maryland into Virginia, but grinds to a
dead stop heading north. Then everything stops. I sit there in the hot sun for
well over an hour, maybe two. Finally we start moving again. It turns that there
was some kind of accident in the northbound lane, and they shut down the entire
bridge while they cleared off the involved vehicles. Now it’s very late in the
day, I’m hot tired and cranky, and I still have no place to stay, so when I
reach Waldorf I call a Hilton Garden Inn. Success. They have a room. I ask for
directions, telling them I am heading North across from the Holiday inn
Express. I specifically ask twice to make sure they are further north than the
Holiday Inn Express. The nice girl at the desk gives me directions that sends
me miles further North, all the way out of Waldarf to a shopping center on the
right with a Chik Fil’a and a Target, behind which sits the Hilton Garden Inn.
Only it doesn’t. Instead there is a round about and an empty field. I call
back, removing my helmet so I can hear the telephone and my gloves so my sweaty
fingers can operate the touch pad. I reach the same nice girl. I tell her where
I am and she insists the hotel is right behind the target. I tell her it is
not. She says it is. After several minutes of this nonsense and rising
temperatures, I get her supervisor on the phone. “Oh, you are much too far
north! Get back on Route 301 and head south.” Argghh! Are you kidding me? Has
the GPS ruined everybody’s sense of
direction? Back past the Holiday Inn Express, heading south, there is a shopping center with a Chik Fil’a in front of a
Target and the hotel is behind the Target. What are the chances? In America,
not only do houses and stores now look exactly alike, but apparently we are
building entire neighborhoods in mirror images of each other. Everything the
same certainly makes for equality.
Waldarf doesn’t even have a good restaurant. Trust me on
this. I searched the web and asked for recommendations, and seeking to soothe
my feathers went to treat myself to the best. The best Waldarf has to offer
wouldn’t make a two star in an average small city. Hell, I couldn’t even find a
place that served Maryland blue crabs in
Waldarf, except for a Black joint that turned out to be take out only – but I
bet their crabs were good.
Ain’t no sign of the day – too crabby! J
Sunday, June 24 and
Monday, June 25
Rendez-vous day in Annapolis. Only it isn’t. My boys form
Indiana want to spend the day touring monuments in D.C. I may never get to
Annapolis. We rendez-vous instead at the Iwo Jima Marine Corps Memorial in
Arlington. That is one of the most powerful monuments in Washington, the famous
bronze of the flag raising on Mt. Suribachi sitting high on a hill with the
Washington Monument and the Capitol Dome across the river in the distance.
Several of the men depicted raising the flag were killed on Iwo Jima in the
days that followed. Another, Pima Indian Ira Hayes, drowned drunk face down in
a mud puddle several years after the war. Around the base of the statue are
engraved the names of all the engagements in which the Marines have served.
Semper Fi!
From there, we go over to Arlington National Cemetery to
find the gravestone of one of my friend’s uncle. The rows upon rows upon rows
of white monuments are inspiring. They demand respect. They started burying
soldiers here during the Civil War. The generals were some pissed at Robert E.
Lee, so they decided to bury Union soldiers in the front yard of Robert E.
Lee’s Custis-Lee mansion, which still sits at the top of the cemetery,
overlooking Washington. After the war, Lee sued for compensation for his
confiscated property, and won! Arlington has a large monument to the loser on
the winning side McClellan, as well as the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier (where
we watched the changing of the guard and listened to Taps), and Kennedy’s
Eternal Flame.
Then we motor to Georgetown for lunch and lots of beer
overlooking the Potomac, and then over by American University for dinner with
friends and family who feed us an absolute feast and put us up for the night.
Grandma even joins us for dinner. All the adults want to hear all about our
adventures on the road, and their young kids go ga-ga at all the motorcycles
parked in their driveway. We goof around with the kids playing Pig and Horse,
and footraces before dinner. The little girl chooses my BMW for her photo, much
to the consternation of the Harley riders!
Monday morning, we take the tube downtown and do the Mall.
We try to see Ford’s theatre, but tickets are sold out for the afternoon!
I
have extra fare left on my tube ticket and absolutely make some girl’s day when
I give her my ticket as we exit! After some more beer and late lunch at a
Mexican restaurant. I say good bye to my friends and head for my Uncle Ted’s
house in Chevy Chase. The others will leave later that afternoon for a long
ride back to Indiana.
Unknowingly, I arrive on my Uncle’s 90th
birthday! Uncle Ted worked in the Manhattan Project with my father in Oak
Ridge, Tennessee during World War II, where he met and married my mother’s
sister. After the war, he was recruited by Admiral Rickover and rose to be the
highest ranking civilian in the Navy, the chief propulsion design engineer for
our nuclear Navy. When I was younger, he took me to the launching of the
nuclear submarines Skipjack and Trident. I got to go on one with him while it
was actively commissioned. They are now making a docudrama movie about Admiral
Rickover based on a book my Uncle wrote, The Rickover Effect. Uncle Ted is
chief consultant and Executive Vice President to the production company. After
all, at 90, he’s the lonely one left around who can definitively tell them what
really happened and what Rickover was really like, right down to the kind of
coffee cup he used. I watched a segment they have filmed, and sure enough,
there is a guy paying my uncle in a major role. Pretty cool. The finished
docudrama is supposed to come out in 2013. Look out for it. If nothing else I
can guarantee you it will be accurate!
Both my Uncle and my father are (were) passionate about
nuclear power. My father spent his career bringing electricity to the world,
building hydroelectric dams and nuclear power plants in Spain, Holland, Greece,
Turkey, India, Japan, Peru, Brazil and who knows where all else – oh yeah, the
US! All over. They believe(d) in the safety of nuclear power and the enormous
contribution it brings to people’s live in peaceful applications. My Uncle is
currently debunking all the hysteria regarding the Fukushima reactor “disaster”
in interviews on Japanese television, pointing out that residents of Denver
Colorado are daily exposed to more natural background radiation than people in
the “elevated” “contaminated” area around the Fukushima reactor. He tells me
that if the responders had spent less time trying to contain a non-existent
radiation threat and more attention to following recommended procedures, the
reactor would not have melted down. The man that designed the shielding
allowing submariners to work safely feet from an active nuclear reactor is
adamant that the area around Fukushima is safe, and that the Japanese
government is inflicting far more harm and misery on their people by evacuating
them from their homes, that they should all be allowed to move back immediately.
He tells me he appears to be making progress. Technically, I am certain he is
correct, but I am not as optimistic as he that Japanese politicians will admit
their mistake by moving people back any more than American politicians would.
As a result, what should stand as a monument to the safety of the reactor,
having survived both an earthquake and a direct hit by a Tsunami and having
hurt nobody, is still depicted in the popular press as an environmental
disaster. Wikipedia still describes it as the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear
Disaster. Just this week USA Today highlighted that “Labor officials” launched
an “investigation following media reports of a cover up” of “under reporting of
radiation exposure” by subcontractors. Phooey. I suspect it’s fundamentally
little different than the great formaldehyde-in-my-RV-trailer fiasco following
Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. I’d better not get started on that one.
Remember Thanksgiving.
5 days of actual riding. 1100 miles covered. Perfect!
