I hear you all yelling, “No fair, all you did was vent, yell and scream about some poor woman and you called her horrible things!!!”
OK, you’re right. I was really upset last night and I never got to the trip report. I was still tired and now Becca and I are both sick. She’s on chicken soup and Children’s Motrin, I’m on Ginger Brandy. We’ll see who gets better first. Anyway, last night I crashed early because I knew, come 5:30am, sick or not I still had to drag my tired ass out of bed to get to work. So thanks for putting up with my venting and now I’ll tell you all about our little trip to Pennsylvania. Because I was such a bad guy last night, I’ll add in some pictures as I go. Click on them to see the full-sized shot. I’m not too sure how well they’ll post as I have about a half of the bottle in me right about now. For medicinal purposes only you know… So, there’s not much to tell but here goes:
We started out Tuesday around noon. I loaded up the car and picked Becca up from school. It felt kind of weird, I just put all of our gear in the back of the truck (which included multiple handguns) and then pulled up right in front of her school. When I went in and asked for her, they called her classroom and had her on her way down without even asking for my ID. I had to volunteer my ID. Her teachers know me but the people in the front office don’t know me. I could have been anybody and I could have had a gun. I signed (my real name) into the book and when Becca came into the front office, the lady that was behind the desk was in the next room. Becca and I left without any notice from anyone. Kind of scary how easy it is for the bad guys.
Anyway, no problems yet. We pick up Teresa from her school and off we go. The weather was beautiful until we hit Brunswick Georgia about an hour later. It rained all the way to the Virginia/W.Virginia line. Most of the rain was HARD rain too. Coming down sideways, the wind blowing the car all over the road. Traffic was running at 20-40MPH the whole way. It lightened up for a few minutes here and there. At one point in South Carolina, Teresa looks out and says it looks like we are at the beach, everything is all sandy. As she looks closer, the sand is actually snow. We didn’t believe it at first but there were a few roofs that had a thin coating and the slush started piling up on the road. The snow was laying-in in the woods and some parts of the side of the road. I’m sure it was gone a few minutes later because the rain just kept coming down harder and harder. It’s the only snow we saw the entire trip. We did see plenty of frost and ice, but no snow.
[../photogallery/photo00000791/real_p.htm]
The rain was hard but it was cold too. Every time we stopped I wished I had my jacket on. It was right there in the back of the truck but I was already wet and didn’t bother to get it. While we were on the way up, I had another of my great ideas that turned to shit. Why don’t we stop at every state and get a picture of Becca in front of the “Welcome to …” sign? Wouldn’t that be cool? We already missed Georgia and South Carolina but we happened to stop for tacos right on the border of North and South Carolina. We got the shot of her in front of the South Carolina sign and then ran across the road to get the shot in front of the North Carolina sign. Did I mention it was raining hard and very, very cold out? Well Becca is a good sport about it all and even when we crossed the median and her shoe filled with water, she didn’t get too upset. The truck headlights weren’t on this sign so I couldn’t get a good shot of her with the sign. The flash wiped her out completely and I only got the sign. Just after I snapped the shot, a huge truck came by and threw a puddle all over Becca. We ran back to the truck and by the time we got there, Becca’s teeth were chattering. We didn’t bother waking her up for the rest of the signs on the way up. We got a couple on the way back but we decided it just wasn’t going to work. So much for good ideas.
[../photogallery/photo00032100/real_p.htm]
After the rain let up, we were in West Virginia. If you’ve never been there, it’s like they took all the roads, twisted and jumbled them together and threw them on top of some mountains. Not the worst driving conditions in the world but bad-assed enough for this city-boy. Actually, the roads themselves are in excellent condition. No potholes, no damage of any kind. At least along the highways. I took the entire W.Virginia turnpike doing 80 the whole way. Doesn’t sound very impressive until you do it. If it were raining or if there was snow on the ground, I probably would have been doing 40 or even slower.
Because of the rain, the trip took forever. 18 hours up and we only stopped for gas and potty breaks with minimal down time. The longest stop we made was 20 minutes for Teresa to get her “Jack In The Box” tacos. I’m still trying to get Becca to understand the rules to a road trip. The potty breaks are determined by the driver’s bladder, not the passengers… It wasn’t too bad, we got to the house around 6am. I was happy to be out of the truck. Between the rain and the mountains I wasn’t able to use the cruise control at all. 997 miles of constant driving pressure. I got a great picture of Teresa snoring in the passenger seat. She said she’d kill me if I put it up here. Teresa drove her fair share but even so, my right leg felt like it was run over by a cement truck. As much as it hurt, I was glad to feel anything at all. The pain in my lower back had me thinking I was paralyzed. I said hello and went straight back to the spare bed. My body had just about had it with everything and I needed sleep, NOW! After about 5 hours of hard sleep I got up and visited with Jerry. Teresa and Becca woke up about an hour later.
[../photogallery/photo00010285/real_p.htm]
The nights were cold but the days were in the 50s and 60s. We came in between two cold fronts. If we had come the week earlier or one week later, we would have had the snow and freezing cold. It was beautiful weather, just not the winter wonderland Teresa was looking for. I’ve been up there almost every year since 1990 and this was only the second year I remember that we didn’t have snow on Thanksgiving.
Oh well, Teresa will have the snow soon enough, we did a lot of talking and networking while we were up there and the plan seems to be that we are looking to be up there before the next school year starts. Still a lot of talk and no definite plans have been made yet but it looks like the time has come. I’m looking into some nice property and Teresa is still looking into dropping a trailer on Jerry’s front acreage. I agreed to live in a trailer only if we parked a new one on top of a full basement. Kim would like that, she’ll get to call me the ‘trailer trash’ now… One of my other stipulations is that I get to build a garage/shed that is bigger than the house. Big enough for my tools, room to work and a large area to build out and soundproof as my sound studio. She agreed but we’ll see how long that lasts. I’m betting that we’ll get up there and I’ll be storing my crap in boxes for years.
While we were up there, we were reminded that many of the people we know are old and when they pass, someone gets the property. Not a pleasant thought but a real enough fact. Teresa was shook up over this because it was her favorite uncle (Uncle Dick) telling her this and he never takes care of his health. I was shook up because although I don’t want to think about him dying, I REALLY don’t want to think about inheriting his animals!
He’s got chickens (dinner), goats (drum heads), cats (…) and three large dogs. The dogs are like people around his house. That’s a good thing but it also means that they get what they want. They are Springer Spaniels just like our Luna. In fact that’s where we got her. Rosebud and Jake are Luna’s parents and JC is her brother. These dogs are really cool but spoiled. They wait their turns for their food but they eat whatever Dick is eating. He’ll cook up a whole roast, eat a few bites and then feed the rest to the dogs. Mashed potatoes, carrots, whatever is on the stove. Jake eats first, then Rosebud and then the puppy. With just a word, Dick gets them to sit and wait for the other to be done. When they get treats, Rosebud will get one, take it over to Jake and drop it in front of him and then go back to get one for herself. The puppy gets his own. Cute but they tear up whatever furniture he has and the floors are completely covered in mud. Not going to happen in my house. My dogs are very much a part of the family but there are rules for every member of the family and the dogs don’t eat at the table and they don’t get to chew everything up with impunity. But he loves them and they are lovable dogs. Hopefully Dick will live forever and we won’t have to train the dogs to be dogs and not people…
[../photogallery/photo00012210/real_p.htm]
Much of the time we spent up there was driving around looking at the sites and visiting with friends and relatives. We kept teasing Teresa about getting her car dirty. Most of the roads we were on up there were not paved. Some of them were just one lane paths through the state game-lands. We tried to explain to her that if she wants to have a ‘pretend’ SUV, she has to get it off the road and dirty once in a while. Otherwise it’s a glorified soccer-mom grocery-getter. We never got it REAL dirty but there was enough mud on the doors to make her nervous. I had soooo many opportunities to have fun and spin it out, but I decided not to get her too upset. I could spend hours just driving (and we did) with no direction and enjoying the scenery. Actually, I’d rather ride through on a horse but that isn’t going to happen any time soon. My niece Lizzy is into horses. They have a miniature and a real horse. Her picture was in the paper while we were up there, she and some friends had ridden their horses into town to the Dairy Queen and someone made a story out of it. I told her if she could get me a Belgian or an English Squire I’d ride with her. If I ever get a horse, I want a big big BIG one. One that, when the truck gets stuck in the mud or snow, my horse could pull it out. When we want to move the trailer off of the foundation and build a house, we just hitch up the horse and pull the trailer down. A giant fucker of a war-horse. Cousin JR said he knows where there’s a Clydesdale for sale in Delaware.
[../photogallery/photo00028489/real_p.htm]
We didn’t get much hunting in this year. Didn’t really matter. What hunting we did get was just walking in the woods. Everything was still and quiet. We saw a grouse go out in front of us but it was too far to get a clean shot. No rabbits and no other birds. We saw plenty of deer but buck season didn’t start until the next Monday. Some of the deer we spotted at night and they were staying with 50 yards of the truck. We visited the bison ranch and the elk ranch. They cut all the antlers off of the elk just before buck season opens to keep any moron hunters from shooting an elk just because it had horns. On one of the farms we saw something that looked like a sci-fi version of a dog. They’re calling it an Australian long-hair cow. Jerry says these things are great in the snow. Icicles hanging down to the ground, they look like a miniature woolly mammoth.
[../photogallery/photo00002396/real_p.htm]
We played plenty of poker. I had a great seven or eight minutes and then the bottom dropped out. I lost around four dollars playing 3-penny poker. I just never had the cards. Over the next two nights I won back almost all of it but still wound up about 50 cents down. My biggest mistake was sitting next to Teresa when we played. We kept getting the comments like we were in the game together. “You raise, I’ll drop, honey”. The house money may be together, what’s mine is hers, what’s hers in mine and all that, but never is poker money OURS. My poker money and her poker money are strictly separate and we never dip into each other’s bags. Just my own personal house rules man. A few years ago we were playing a friendly game and when I started to get low on chips, a really nice lady we know passed me a handful of chips and said, “Here, just keep playing”. I almost had a stroke. I thanked her for the offer but I kept the chips separate and made sure they made it back to her. Poker money is sacred man. Win or lose, it’s just a few bucks but its wrong to not account for your playing.
[../photogallery/photo00000260/real_p.htm]
Before too long, it was time to drive home. This time it only took 16 hours and we still stopped at “Jack In The Box” on the way back. Teresa said she’s never eating breakfast again. That’s a really big deal up there and every morning, her father would cook eggs, sausage and potatoes or we’d go out to get breakfast. I loved it. While breakfast is never my favorite meal, Jerry cooks it up and it’s so good… We were out and about most of the day so breakfast might be the only meal you have for a long time. Teresa hates breakfast. On the weekends we wait to go out until 11am so I can get breakfast and she’ll wait for lunch. She almost screamed when she heard about another tradition we have when we go hunting. The weekend before buck season opens, the fire house has a pancake and sausage dinner. She was dreading a full day of nothing but breakfast foods. Lucky for her, the fire house didn’t have the dinner this year. Another broken tradition.
[../photogallery/photo00005943/real_p.htm]
We had a lot of fun but now it’s time to look at jobs, businesses and houses. It’s time to get real about this. Going up there for a week is fun and we have no responsibilities while we’re up there. We both moved to Florida from the north with our parents when we were still in school. A heavy snow meant we got to stay home from school. Now it will mean we have to dig the car out and still get to work! Packing the house shouldn’t be too bad if we can get rid of a lot of the stuff we don’t use. So, that’s the stage we’re at. The dreaming is over and now it’s time to drop the clutch and get it into gear. We’re going to go, and soon at that. I’ll miss a lot of my friends and family. Not all of them though, I hear Zephyr might be moving to a farm in Ohio, that’s not too far away so we’ll get to see her occasionally. That’ll be nice. And we still plan to come down her at LEAST twice a year for festivals, vacations, visiting with family… We go to Pennsylvania a few times a year, we’ll just have to make the reverse trip now back to Florida a few times a year. I’d like to stay here but I felt it in my bones while we were up there, I belong up there. Maybe not specifically THERE, but somewhere new, somewhere colder, somewhere else.
[../photogallery/photo00032079/real_p.htm]
Leave a Reply