{"id":526,"date":"2010-04-13T09:54:29","date_gmt":"2010-04-13T17:54:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mikevarley.com\/?p=526"},"modified":"2010-04-13T20:56:41","modified_gmt":"2010-04-14T04:56:41","slug":"travel-log-tour-of-the-near-south-easter-2010","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mikevarley.com\/?p=526","title":{"rendered":"Travelogue: Tour of the near-South, Easter 2010"},"content":{"rendered":"

Easter Road Trip 2010<\/strong><\/p>\n

Who: Erin Welch and Mike Varley<\/p>\n

When: March, 31 – April 7, 2010<\/p>\n

Where: Washington, DC, Maryland, West Virginia, Shenandoah Valley, Richmond and Gettysburg.<\/p>\n

Why: To see the road and visit friends.<\/p>\n

Day 1<\/p>\n

March 31st was a work and travel day.\u00a0 I left Long Island at 8pm after working 11 hours at Carillon, picked up Erin at my apartment and drove straight through to Washington, DC.\u00a0 Those first late night Cherry Blossoms driving through a quiet capital were a sign of things to come the following day.\u00a0 We made it to Kristine\u2019s house in Cleveland Park at 1:30 AM and went almost immediately to sleep on her pullout couch.<\/p>\n

<\/object><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Day 2<\/p>\n

Erin and I got a late start to the next day, not leaving the house until 1 or so.\u00a0 We decided to walk to the Mall instead of taking the Metro because of the lovely weather.\u00a0 The city has its charms, with its fine row houses, impressive architecture and political flavor.\u00a0 Erin and I took to stopping along the walk to take pictures of various embassies hidden on side streets.\u00a0 In naturally comparing it to my home city, I found the greater portion of it distinct from New York \u2013 too squat to resemble Manhattan, too broad to approximate Brooklyn.\u00a0 Erin likened it more to Paris in its wide, ungridded streets and set-back buildings.<\/p>\n

Crossing over K Street, I spotted the first of my two souvenir items of the trip: A glitter-glazed, iron-on tee-shirt depicting the Capitol building wreathed in pink Cherry Blossoms.\u00a0 I took five steps past the shirt vendor and was unable to move further, trapped in irony\u2019s orbit.\u00a0 Erin and I had 9 dollars between us.\u00a0 The shirts were one for $5, two for $9.\u00a0 We bought them and posed in front of the White House.<\/p>\n

After our White House photo op, we took advantage of the Smithsonian\u2019s open door policy and stopped into the craft museum.\u00a0 I was expecting quilts and painted furniture, but there was a wide variety of work with no discernible theme.\u00a0 We were walking around the second floor when Erin told me my phone was ringing. \u00a0 I had heard the ring to which she was referring, but it was a foreign tone so I told her it wasn\u2019t mine.\u00a0 She replied the noise was coming from my pants.\u00a0 I took out my phone to find it had completely released its bowels: no settings, no service and no contacts.\u00a0 I hadn\u2019t walked through a metal detector or anything like that and it was only three weeks old.\u00a0 It did not work for the rest of the trip.<\/p>\n

After the museum we went down to the Mall to see the tourist sites: the Washington Monument, the Reflecting Pool and the Lincoln Memorial.\u00a0 Lincoln looked burdened and bothered by his visitors.\u00a0 We stood on the spot where MLK gave his \u201cI Have a Dream\u201d speech, then hung out under the Cherry Blossoms, which had just reached peak bloom the day before.<\/p>\n

I observed all the cameras as we took in these sites, capturing private Washington\u2019s. \u00a0 It all seemed so mortal, wanting to stretch the present moment into the future, beyond its means.\u00a0 As you can tell from my videos I\u2019m just another culprit, but it speaks to our culture\u2019s craving of framing experience rather than experiencing it directly \u2013 LCD screens as security blankets.\u00a0 I daydreamed what it would look like if each recording device had a red cone extending out thirty feet from its viewfinder, making us cognizant of the soul-stealing crossfire.<\/p>\n

That evening, we had a mini-Geneseo reunion for dinner company.\u00a0 Kristine, Brian Sweeting and Russell Lake joined us at Mama Ayesha\u2019s in Woodley Park, with Kristine\u2019s friend Wendy filling out the table.\u00a0 We had wonderful discussion,continued at Dan\u2019s Caf\u00e9 in Adam\u2019s Morgan over DIY Jack and Cokes, where you get a few glasses, a can of soda, a bucket of ice and a pint of whiskey.\u00a0 We debated the artistic merits of Lady Gaga (my opinion: talented musician and master pop culture manipulator whose artistic contributions are all flash and no fuel) and the hypnotic power stickers have over small children.\u00a0 The night was beautiful and perfumed with flowers.\u00a0 Before sleep, Erin and I sat under the blossoms in front of Kristine\u2019s for a spell, staring up and admiring the golden back glow the streetlight provided.<\/p>\n

<\/object><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Day 3<\/p>\n

We made a point of going to the zoo before we left for West Virginia, as it was two blocks away from Kristine\u2019s house.\u00a0 It was a bit of a let down, as most animals were either sleeping or MIA, but we did see the pandas which were Erin\u2019s main concern.\u00a0 After an hour of animals, we made our way to Morgantown.<\/p>\n

Most of the day\u2019s drive took us through the width of Maryland. \u00a0 I\u2019d never been beyond the Maryland seaboard and was surprised by the hilliness and rural nature of the state. \u00a0 We scaled mountains with names like \u201cBig Savage\u201d and \u201cNegro Mountain\u201d before making it through to Morgantown, where Erin\u2019s friend Gretchen awaited us.\u00a0 Driving through the hills near her home we were struck by the wanton growth of the area.\u00a0 Hundreds of condos stood propped up on hills, seemingly vulnerable to every natural disaster imaginable.\u00a0 Gretchen told us there were no zoning laws, so buildings went up without regard to reason or landscape in order to match the town\u2019s robust housing demands.\u00a0 To see that many homes stacked and tiered, their porches on stilts of unpainted lumber, with the knowledge that eighteen months ago the hillsides were untouched was a surreal experience.<\/p>\n

We spent the afternoon with Gretchen taking in the local sites and local color.\u00a0 At the local state park we hiked to Henry Clay\u2019s furnace and saw a shirtless man in bib overalls.\u00a0 We went on a quest for Johnny Walker Green Label to buy for a friend, as it\u2019s only sold by tradition south of the Mason-Dixon line.\u00a0 We saw West Virginia University\u2019s basketball stadium, nicknamed \u201cThe Spaceship,\u201d a 100% concrete structure that looks like a UFO crossed with an oyster. \u00a0 We also went to dinner and spotted a car with homemade detailing painted to look like a Bengal tiger.<\/p>\n

Then there was Sheetz, which is not unique to West Virginia but was first introduced to me there and would recur throughout the trip.\u00a0 Sheetz is part gas station, part food court and destined to rule the world like Wal-Mart before it.\u00a0 It is the first gas station I\u2019ve seen that can legitimately call itself a destination, and with Main Street ever evaporating a chain of clean gas stations with decent food would fill an important community niche.\u00a0 Plus there\u2019s the name, which gave me endless joy throughout the trip. \u00a0 One day, Erin got some coffee from there and I asked her if it tasted like Sheetz.\u00a0 Another time, we were in a parking lot that appeared connected to Sheetz but wasn\u2019t and we were Sheetz out of luck.\u00a0 And while we couldn’t find one anywhere near the dairy farms of northern Virginia, Erin and I were in agreement that the surrounding pastures smelled like Sheetz.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Day 4<\/p>\n

We left Gretchen\u2019s at 9:30 AM for what would be the longest part of our trip, a seven-hour drive to Richmond, VA by way of Shenandoah Valley\u2019s Skyline Drive, the main feature of Shenandoah National Park.\u00a0 But first was the drive through the mountains of West Virginia, notable for its old towns and neglected buildings, each place with its own claim to fame like \u201cBirthplace of Mother\u2019s Day\u201d or \u201cFirst Land Shots of the Civil War.\u201d\u00a0 We\u2019d drive through one pastoral scene after another, the hillsides alternating between herds of grazing animals and old, wooden billboards for upcoming churches.\u00a0 Every so often we\u2019d stumble across a geologic phenomena like Seneca Rocks or climb a mountain and see the whole of creation below us.\u00a0 It\u2019s a kind of America not contained in the city, where change comes slow and skeptical and nature climbs into your character.\u00a0 I\u2019ll not estimate which life holds higher value, but coming from the city I was parched for these sights.<\/p>\n

It was on reaching the summit of a particularly steep mountain that our expedition ran into trouble.\u00a0 We had stopped at a scenic overlook when I noticed a faint yet familiar smell coming from my car. \u00a0 It was a burning smell I remembered from six weeks previous, when a hole had rusted through my radiator.\u00a0 Sure enough, when we started the car back up the temperature gauge went straight to red.\u00a0 Fortunately we had already climbed the mountain, but after coasting down its eastern side we still had 10 miles to Harrisonberg, VA.\u00a0 The temperature started creeping up with any acceleration and we were forced to turn the heat to full blast on an already 88-degree day.\u00a0 We stopped 5 miles from town when the needle topped out and I feared damaging the engine.\u00a0 We had just passed a chicken plant, and even a quarter of a mile away feathers littered the shoulder and surrounding fields.<\/p>\n

After twenty minutes we resumed driving and slid into Harrisonberg, home of James Madison University.\u00a0 We were hoping the car just needed a break after climbing so many mountains and decided to let it sit for an hour.<\/p>\n

I was despondent.\u00a0 Erin tried to buy me a milkshake to cheer me up but I was too sick to eat anything.\u00a0 I was nine hours from home, halfway into our vacation and I had no idea what was going on with my car.\u00a0 I had asked the mechanic to make sure everything was good before the trip, especially the cooling system, and was steaming at the possibility that he had done a half-assed job before a 1,200-mile trip.\u00a0 But I couldn\u2019t do anything but wait in the meantime, so we took a walk down to JMU\u2019s campus.\u00a0 It was attractive enough, but the buildings felt too new while striving for a distinguished look.\u00a0 The place was empty for spring break, so my assessment is incomplete and tainted with visions of a shattered vacation.<\/p>\n

After an hour and a half we got back in the car and said a prayer that the problem was solved. \u00a0 Within two miles, though, the needle rose to red and we were forced to find a service station.\u00a0 A local Jiffy Lube pointed us to Speedy’s Auto Body.\u00a0 By that point, it was 4:15 on the Saturday before Easter.\u00a0 I spoke with the head mechanic, a true Southern gentlemen. \u00a0 We discussed the car’s recent radiator replacement and potential other issues like a busted thermostat.\u00a0 He said he’d look at it but told me the reality: if it was anything the least bit major, he’d be unable to help me given the lateness of the day. They finished servicing the other cars and put mine on the lift at 4:30.\u00a0 A crew of four hurriedly went to work on the problem.\u00a0 They identified the issue as the thermostat, then had the desk attendant quickly call up the parts store.\u00a0 Five minutes later, with the attendant still on hold, the mechanic came back into the waiting room. \u00a0 He told us that when they were replacing the antifreeze, the cars thermostat magically repaired itself.\u00a0 To paraphrase the gentleman’s explanation:<\/p>\n

“If you’ll pardon my language, miss, sometimes us men get a little bit, well…gassy.\u00a0 And the same thing happened with this here car.\u00a0 The thermostat was all blocked up and couldn’t get coolant to the radiator.\u00a0 The damn thing just needed to be burped.”<\/p>\n

I had heard of cars needing to be “burped” if new coolant was not properly added, but the mechanic had never heard of a car going over a thousand miles after the new coolant before having the “gas problems” my car had.\u00a0 He took it for a test ride and it worked like a charm, and we were discharged before 5:00 pm with a mere twenty dollar bill for new coolant.\u00a0 Stunned at the turn of fortune after an afternoon of inconsolable depression and anxiety, only one thing came to mind as I got in the driver’s seat.<\/p>\n

“Well, I guess all the car had was a case of the Sheetz.”<\/p>\n

We drove on to Shenandoah Valley incident free and enjoyed the views the southern end of Skyline Drive has to offer.\u00a0 Erin and I both agreed we would have preferred a hike through the area with one or two breathtaking views more than scanning the over forty overlooks, but I was happy to be experiencing any scenery after the afternoon’s events.\u00a0 We arrived at my sister’s house at 8:00 pm, four hours behind plan, and spent the night stuffing and hiding Easter eggs for her kids to find the next morning.<\/p>\n

<\/object><\/p>\n

Day 5<\/p>\n

Easter Sunday started at seven, when the kids stormed the living room to look for Easter eggs.\u00a0 Between the four of them – Luke, 10, Arden, 9, Drew 5 and Taryn, 3 – they must have collected ten pounds of candy and thirty dollars in change.\u00a0 We followed it up with a buffet breakfast – my first buffet breakfast in two years – and headed to Mass before the day’s big event: the Bon Aire Baptist Church Annual Easter Egg Drop.<\/p>\n

Picture if you will a football field covered with roughly five thousand Easter eggs, with five hundred candy-mad kids held back by only police tape.\u00a0 Add to that the local rescue chopper performing fly-by’s while an announcer pumps us up, then dumping garbage bag after garbage bag of Easter eggs from the chopper to the field below, the cargo dropping like pellets of bird poop.\u00a0 The chopper leaves and the kids storm the field like biblical locusts, all to the tune of praise music blasting over the PA.\u00a0 The most amazing Easter of my life was over in less than five minutes.<\/p>\n

The rest of the day was calm: napping, eating and playing with the kids.\u00a0 Taryn, who has the most adorable, permanent held cold you’ll ever hear, introduced me to her pet moose “Murph Lucyson,” a name she coined herself. \u00a0 Luke, Arden and I played tetherball and Drew whispered secrets to me through her new Easter bunny. It’s so warming to be around children who love you without reason, especially when my job as uncle is to do the same right back.<\/p>\n

Day 6<\/p>\n

We left Richmond at eleven on the way to Gettysburg, the final stop of our journey. \u00a0 After traffic we arrived there just before four, the car showing no signs of stress.\u00a0 We checked into the motel and went to the battlefield, stopping at the visitors center to pick up a map.\u00a0 It was there I got my second souvenir of the trip: a brass Union belt buckle.\u00a0 I considered a Stonewall Jackson lithograph, but thought twice about the purchase.\u00a0 We got back in the Civic for another car tour, which seems to be the way Americans enjoy their national parks \u2013 on the move yet sedentary.<\/p>\n

We stopped at the Soldiers’ National Cemetery and stood on the spot where Lincoln gave his Gettysburg Address, thereby visiting the locations of the two most famous American speeches in one trip.\u00a0 We visited the Virginia Memorial, location of Pickett’s Charge, and found a solitary man playing banjo sitting on a tree stump.\u00a0 He captured the tone of a land fastened in time, kept there not by the trappings of an 1860’s culture but by the unblemished veneration the space elicits in our minds.\u00a0 We visited Little Round Top, where the South nearly took the North’s flank were it not for Maine’s 20th<\/sup> desperately holding the hill.\u00a0 The silence of a perfect spring evening supercharged the air where six hundred men died in the space of a parking lot.\u00a0 We got in the car and drove the park’s remainder, passing too many memorials to count under the blossoming trees.\u00a0 It felt less a cemetery and more a sculpture garden, a difference of beauty I greatly appreciated.<\/p>\n

We made a left turn back into the real world and straight into the parking lot of Pickett’s Charge Buffet.\u00a0 It was the only thing Erin remembered from her childhood trip to Gettysburg fifteen years earlier and she wanted to relive the experience.\u00a0 She hoped against hope Robin was still there, the effeminate waiter her grandfather had lampooned all those years ago to the family.\u00a0 So for the second time in two years I went to a buffet, this one a clear stop for parties of forty or more.\u00a0 We were walking to the buffet like when lo and behold, Robin appeared, explaining to customers Gettysburg casualty rates while handing out pitchers of soda.\u00a0 Maybe it’s the desensitization of living in New York, but Robin seemed only about a three on the effemininity scale, to which Erin agreed.\u00a0 Childhood memories are always seen through the fish eye lens; the food was sub-standard and pricey.<\/p>\n

We went back to the motel and watched the Duke-Butler NCAA championship game.\u00a0 Tucked in the room’s couch cushions I found a wedding band.\u00a0 When I said to Erin \u201cOh, I found a wedding ring,\u201d she thought for a second that I was about to propose to her.\u00a0 I almost wish I had, because pulling an engagement ring out of a Motel 6 couch and popping the question would be the best-worst proposal ever.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Day 7<\/p>\n

We left for the city at 11 after eating at Gettysburg Family Restaurant and fueling up at Sheetz.\u00a0 It had been such a relaxing vacation that I tried to reflect on what made it so.\u00a0 I figured it had to do with setting aside time to live in the present moment versus living in the eternal future of our everyday lives.\u00a0 Right now I have two paintings, three songs a move and a screenplay that needed to be finished in my mind.\u00a0 On vacation, all that preoccupied me were the blossoms and the valleys.\u00a0 We got back to Erin’s apartment to find that my deranged cell phone was unable to even make calls and I immediately felt the anxiety of everyday life try to take over – all the things that need to be done that seem inescapable without drastic action.\u00a0 I calmed myself in hopes that the present moment would keep my company a little longer.<\/p>\n

The tugboat moves forward despite lamentations, for no one will trust that they’re buoyant in water.<\/p>\n\t\t

\r\n\t\t\tEaster Road Trip 2010 Who: Erin Welch and Mike Varley When: March, 31 – April 7, 2010 Where: Washington, DC, Maryland, West Virginia, Shenandoah Valley, Richmond and Gettysburg. Why: To see the road and visit friends. Day 1 March 31st was a work and travel day.\u00a0 I left Long Island at 8pm after working 11 […]<\/span><\/a>\t\t\r\n\t\t<\/div>\t\t\r\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Easter Road Trip 2010 Who: Erin Welch and Mike Varley When: March, 31 – April 7, 2010 Where: Washington, DC, Maryland, West Virginia, Shenandoah Valley, Richmond and Gettysburg. Why: To see the road and visit friends. Day 1 March 31st was a work and travel day.\u00a0 I left Long Island at 8pm after working 11 […]<\/p>\n\t\t

\r\n\t\t\tEaster Road Trip 2010 Who: Erin Welch and Mike Varley When: March, 31 – April 7, 2010 Where: Washington, DC, Maryland, West Virginia, Shenandoah Valley, Richmond and Gettysburg. Why: To see the road and visit friends. Day 1 March 31st was a work and travel day.\u00a0 I left Long Island at 8pm after working 11 […]<\/span><\/a>\t\t\r\n\t\t<\/div>\t\t\r\n\t\t","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7],"tags":[63],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikevarley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/526"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikevarley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikevarley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikevarley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikevarley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=526"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/mikevarley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/526\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":531,"href":"https:\/\/mikevarley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/526\/revisions\/531"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikevarley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=526"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikevarley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=526"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikevarley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=526"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}