Damn concrete roads - off the beaten path - tribute to Dan - did not expect this

All of this post corresponds to what Esther calls "silly behavior". Apparently this is endearing, as when I do not display it she thinks I am sick or demented. Anyway, here goes...

I hate concrete roads. Arkansas has a whole bunch in disrepair. They sound a bit like a boxer's speed bag. Ta-poketa-poketa-poketa-tut-tut-tut-poka-poka-poketa-poketa. This gets as old a a trucker's blues after say, 100 miles or so.

Poketa-poketa-poketa
My baby she done left me, 'cause I drank the whole town dry
My baby she done left me, she didn't tell me why
Poka-tut-tut-poka-tut-tut-poka
I'm havin' a hard time drivin'
But grown men just don't cry

So, today we have been moving on through Tennessee. In the middle of the day we took a detour from the interstate grind and traveled up through the Blue Ridge on Route 58. This was a bit like a drive up the mountains in Jamaica. The road fought like a boa constrictor. It was windy, it was wiggly, it made my head spin. But it was really beautiful. Here is a picture of Lover's Leap, way up on top of a hill in Virginia.

We were way up above the clouds. We had to drive through a layer on the way down the other side. This is a spectacular spot. Click the picture to see it in full size.

We began to notice during this part of the trip that Virginia loves Dan. We do, too, so here is a bit of a tribute to Dan. It all started with Route 58, known as the Danville Road. Then, of course, we came across the Dan River.

And the road named after it.

Of course, there are the Meadows of Dan.

With what I consider to be superior signage.

On the way in, and on the way out, in case you missed.

Of course, you could just pass it by. I wouldn't recommend that, though.

Well, just in case you had forgotten, it is all about Dan.

You have to drive a ways, but you finally get there.

There is plenty more Dan, too. This is just a sample. There is even a Dan Science Center.

My favorite of all, though, is this one.

So long, Dan. We enjoyed our stay with you and Heather. Heather, this one is for you. This greeted us at the hotel when we returned for dinner. Mom thought it was a scorpion at first.

How cars are sold today

Well, I'm getting older, and I thought I knew how to buy a car. My first couple I bought in upstate New York. The next few I bought in Florida, while in graduate school. Then I moved to New Jersey, where it seemed much the same. You drive to where the cars are and talk to someone who wants to sell you a car. Then, after choosing one, you go away and arrange to get the money. Then you go back where the cars are and pay for it. If everything works out OK, then you drive the car away. It all seemed reasonable to me, too. But now things are different.

Here is a little background info. My daughter just got her first apartment in Manhattan. It's not fancy, but it's hers and she is happy. Then her car, which we bought in the "normal" way, began to be a nuisance to her. First it began to collect tickets while her boyfriend drove and parked it in the wrong places. That was solved by ditching the BF (there was more, but I'll leave that for another story). Then one day the car disappeared off the street. She was right at the decision point about whether to sell the car or not. So the disappearance could have been good (provided the insurance company paid). Unfortunately, the BF had come back to haunt her. He had never paid his tickets, so the car was impounded. Well, that is an adventure in New York City! Visits here and there to offices in strange places, followed by payment of large sums of money, including her former BF's tickets. She made her way through it without complaining too much. But she did decide to sell the car!

OK, so, what to do? She didn't know, but her uncle did. Her uncle lives in Flushing, and volunteered to show the car at his house. I don't know why, but it was really decent of him. So he was to show the car and my daughter was to advertise so it would sell. Well, right after paying deposits and her first rent, that was not in the cards. She didn't even have an Internet connection. So her very kind uncle started dropping off fliers and putting in Internet ads (don't tell his wife - she thought that was my daughter's job). Well, nothing much happened for a while, but then, last Wednesday night we got a call. And all hell broke loose! My daughter calls up and says there may be a buyer. Her uncle calls up and tells us the same. Daughter calls back and says "It's not enough. What do I do?" So I coach her on how to negotiate. Then her uncle calls up again and tells us the bottom line and the shocker "They want to buy it tonight!" Did daughter dear prepare for this? Hell, no! The title, manual, and extra keys are here in NJ!

So we tell him "No way! We'll come over tomorrow, when we're scheduled to go to Brooklyn." He says "No, it has to be tonight. They need the car for tomorrow. They'll pay cash!" So we hem and haw for a bit, then tell him that we'll come over. Then we ask him "Where do we do this thing?" He tells us in Manhattan, then corrects himself to say Astoria. It's 6PM by that time, and we have to conclude this quickly. So, off we go, worrying about counterfeit money, unsavory buyers, and so on. We call everyone in sight telling them we're on the way. Uncle is driving the car over to meet us. By 7:15 we're picking up my daughter and explaining things to her. Then we put the Astoria address in the GPS and head for Queens. So, traffic is fairly light and we get there in twenty minutes or so, pulling up just behind the uncle. "Not so bad," I say to myself (stupidly, it turns out in retrospect). Uncle gets on his cell phone and tells us "I can't get the guy!" So we stand around for a while, thumbs up our asses, wondering WTF. The house owner comes out in curlers and tells us the guy lives here but he isn't here right now.

It's at this point that I begin to focus on what's gone wrong with car buying. Rule 1: go to where the cars are! What the hell, the car, the seller, the uncle, and the immediate family in yet another car are all going somewhere that the buyer IS NOT! Uncle is resourceful, however, and calls one of the other people who came to his place with the buyer. He says, "I'm close by, a couple of blocks away. Let me call the guy and find out what happened and get him to call you back." So, we wait, and wait, and wait. Then uncle's phone rings and the dude calls back. "That guy will call you in a minute." So, the missing guy finally calls and tells us "I'm in Manhattan and, by the way, I'm not the guy buying the car." So now we're really in a lather. Uncle, not to be topped, calls the other dude back.

The dude tells us "Come and get me, then we'll get this thing going." I'm saying "Great, maybe this will happen." So off we go to DESTINATION 2. Well, it is DEFINITELY NOT a couple of blocks away. It is a couple of MILES away. We're following uncle and he goes through so many yellow lights, trapping us behind, that I'm beginning to wonder if we'll every catch him. Thank goodness we have cell phones. Finally we get to DESTINATION2. When we catch up with uncle, he starts up again immediately. I think he is still heading for the dude until I see that the dude is inside the car. "Where are we going," I ask my wife, who is in continual contact with uncle by now. Eventually we squeeze the address for DESTINATION 3 from uncle via the cell.

DESTINATION 3? "What the hell?," I ask, while watching my better half punch in the address. Now we are approaching the real buyers. However, they are not in Astoria, they are in Elmhurst! On and on we drive. By this time I am getting pretty snotty at the prospect of more driving in Queens. We drive and drive, past shopping centers and train stations, past car dealers and delis, past prostitutes and pimps. Finally our trusty GPS guides us to a very dark neighborhood. Yipes! So, uncle is standing on the street with the dude and two nerdy, grad student-looking people. We open up the car and get the buyer in the backseat. Daughter counts the money. She inspects it for counterfeit. She writes down the buyer's name and address. She signs over the title. She writes out a receipt for the money. Then she gets out to get the plates and registration from the car. IT WAS NOT TO BE!

So, to recap: by this time we have driven to Manhattan, continued to DESTINATION 1 in Astoria, continued to DESTINATION 2 in Astoria, driven on to DESTINATION 3 in Elmhurst, finally to conclude the sale. We thought we were done, after 3+ hours. But nooooooo, uncle proceeds to tell them that they can't leave an unlicensed car on the street or the cops will give them a ticket. I could have shot him!. So now there is a detailed, BUT INCONCLUSIVE discussion on WTF to do. I'm really pissed off at this point. This is way too much capro-copulation for me! (BTW, that's goat f__k for the uneducated.) So, the final upshot is that we all get back in the car, abandon the purchasers, and drive to DESTINATION 4 back in Astoria. I'm flaming, but resigned by this time. Uncle is picked up by his son. Daughter gets her plates and registration. We all get back in the car and drive back to Manhattan, then back home to NJ.

So, this is how to buy a car these days:

1. Get two friends, including one with mechanical skills, together
2. Rent a car and drive to where the car is (this sounds appropriate so far)
3. Drive away, promising to meet and buy the car with cash, but giving the wrong address
4. Let the guy at the address go off and do whatever he wants without telling the sellers
5. Let another guy go off somewhere else, but let him answer the phone
6. Force the seller's car to drive to three different destinations, trailing another car for support of the selling team
7. Force the seller's car to drive off to a fourth destination for parking without plates
   
8. Let the sellers go off on their own finally, to get home at a much later hour than they thought reasonable
   

Things are different now. I just hadn't realized how different they are

Road Trip - Day 4

Last night was interesting. We stayed in by far the worst motel for the trip. The room was unpleasant. The place was too close to the road so we heard trucks all night. Neither of us slept worth a damn. When we got back on the road we remembered we hadn't filled our tank the night before. As I looked at the gas gauge, it looked way too low. It seems somebody came by and siphoned about 1/4 of a tank while we slept poorly!

Today was a day of changes. We changed from the hills of the Appalachians to the flat lands west of the Mississippi. The roads are built 20-40 feet above the fields, which are huge! Some are 1/2 mile square. There is rice, with canals curving through in pairs like old flooded tracks. There is corn and wheat in amazing abundance - square miles visible from this road alone! The land here is flatter than piss on a platter.

The weather changed as well. Coming down I-81 and across I-40 we had temperatures in the 70s and 80s. Continuing west today we had 90s all the way. Strangely, the heat seemed a lot drier than what we sometimes get in NJ. It is a lot easier to handle.

The roads today were unusually crowded with trucks. They came in strings of ten or more in some cases. It seemed that they played leapfrog for miles and miles, frustrating all of us that wanted to go faster.

For our excursion today we broke away from I-30 after Little Rock and drove over to Hot Springs. This is a town that had a strong peak in the early 1900s with its development of spa properties. The historic district is lined with beautiful architecture. There are many beautiful low buildings (2 and 3 stories) for blocks and blocks, each of which was a spa. Note the restored building below that houses the National Park Visitor Center. In one of these buildings I once visited a museum to the spa trade. It contained a large variety of very strange water and electrical devices, designed to torture health into the unsuspecting. It isn't clear if any of it worked.
















In the picture below you can see the detailed window frames and moldings.


















We moved on then to the Crater of Diamonds State Park, south of Hot Springs. This park is devoted to an upwelling of diamond-bearing soils. It is an open field of dirt where people dig up buckets of material, and then use sieves and water to remove the soil. Then they inspect their gravel and rock remains to see if they got any diamonds.
















Here is E, scrubbing away the mud and soil from the rocks. You can rent a "basic kit" inexpensively. It contains a shovel, a 5 gallon pail, and a pair of sieves (coarse and fine). You dig up soil wherever you want, then take it to a covered pavilion (the sun is brutal). There you wash it through your sieves, then despair when no diamonds show up.

Most people, including us, don't get a thing. Here is our handful of what turned out to be common rocks (calcite and jasper). Apparently, if you stick to it as some locals have, you can make a fortune finding even gem quality diamonds. At least we still have the $85 million PowerBall tickets! Maybe they'll be the right ones this time.

After a couple of hours of excitement we motored on down the road into Texas. It also has a lot of trucks! We spend our night in Sulphur Springs, resting up for a morning run to Austin. Much better motel this time.

Road Trip - Day 3

Yesterday's drive was mostly along the Appalachian Mountains, though we drove through a bit in the southern part of Virginia. The views were great, with rows of mountains in the haze. Yesterday we began to get into kudzu country. For those who don't know, kudzu is in invasive species in the SouthEast of the US. It spreads rapidly and chokes out anything it encounters. You can see trees, hillsides, and bushes all choked out with this vine. It has big leaves and seems to shade out anything else.

Today we spent all day driving through Tennessee. Kudzu continued and grew even thicker in parts of the state. Tennessee is a big state. On this third day we begin to understand how big this country is. This morning we made an abortive attempt to find a statue to the flying spaghetti monster (FSM). Apparently the relatively small town of Crossville, TN, has made a commitment to the FSM, along with those other commitments. We could not find the park, however.

Just before noon E & I stopped to visit my Aunt Lui. She is my Mom's sister, and is one of the few remaining Neills of that generation. She must be in her 80s now, and is fit, friendly, and funny. She told us some old Neill stories and gave us lunch in her beautiful brick home. She made me remember fondly what a good sense of humor my Mom had. Several of these pictures below show Aunt Louie and her home, along with E and I. Auntie has a working Victrola in her home!

Note the Neill family resemblance...

We continued on just past Memphis to West Memphis, Arkansas. This is just across the Missippii River. It is very wide here. The bridges have to continue far beyond the banks over the flood plain, too. After a bit of rest E and I got back in the car and traveled to Beale Street in Memphis. Along the way we stopped in a park along the banks of the Missippii in Memphis. The park itself is beautiful, but the view is even better. Enclosed are a few pictures of the river and the I-40 bridge, "Millionaire's Row" - the houses along the bluff just East of the park, and of Beale Street.

We had dinner in the Blues City Cafe. The ribs are great! Beale Street is a bit disappointing, with just two or three blocks barricaded for pedestrians. The music was in evidence, though. We could hear lovely blues the whole time we were there. We passed by B.B. King's Club, but did not go in.

Day Trip - Day 1 continued

Here are a few pictures from the town of Luray, Virginia. Don't hesitate to stop here if you get the chance!

Here is a bit of the Luray Caverns property. This is beautifully maintained.

I also had another camera in the caverns yesterday. The camera had a bigger lens, so some of the phots came out a little better. The most amazing thing to me is the depth of interest (new term). You can keep looking deeper and deeper into a scene and see more and more. You can also look closer and closer and keep seing more. See below.

Road Trip - Day 2

When you are on a big road (like Interstate 81)  you are really tempted to stay on the cruise control and just go. You have to stop along the way, though. Just take a side road that promises something unusual and follow your nose. A case in point below. Off I-81 is a sign pointing to Natural Bridge, Virginia. On land once owned by Thomas Jefferson is a really beautiful natural stone bridge, along with a variety of other natural features.

On the way down to the level of the stream that passes through the bridge is a 1600 year old tree (arbor vitae). These trees are beautiful. This one died in 1980 or so, after a long life. It grew very slowly (the estimate is 30 years per inch of trunk size).

A tribe of Indians (Monacans) once lived in the area. There is a demonstration village here. Sometimes there are some dancers and a native life show.

About 50 feet above the level of the stream is the "Lost River". This is a stream running through the cliff above the stream, completely enclosed until heard and excavated.

 There is a fair bit of wildlife in the area. We saw this turtle and a fat snake sunning on their separate rocks.

Follow the trail all the way to the end and find the "Lacey Falls", a multi-tiered, beautiful, but kind of dry waterfall.

Don't forget to stop and take a picture of the famous FoamHenge along the way.

Later in the day we went through two sets of thunderstorms, both of which were enough to slow traffic from 75 to 40. They forced us to put the flashers on. Fortunately, no one cracked up during these miseries. There were a bunch of bikers with camping gear that were not having a good time, however!

So far we are finding hotels for a decent price. They seem to be clean and relatively new. They have wireless (therefore these entries). Not bad!

Road Trip - Day 1

We're making this a 5 day trip. We'll average around 5-6 hours a day and take breaks when there is something to see. Today was full of observations:

• Route 78 has no pee stops - ouch
• Route 81 is better that way
• Favorite sight - a beautiful dark green corn field next to a golden field of wheat
• There are a lot of Civil War battlefields - we stopped at none (Antietam was close, but we were aimed toward Luray Caverns)
• Too many trucks are on the road. They clog things up a lot, along with idiots in cars. Why is my road crowded?
  
• Luray, Virginia is a nice small town. We were there a short time for lunch, but noticed how clean and presentable it was. It is the kind of town that America was filled with prior to the advent of the mall. It has small businesses along a main street. There is a stream going through town, with garden spots along the bank. There is a farmer's market. You can get barbecue here (we did for lunch). It was kind of pretty and normal.
• Luray Caverns is huge! We walked 1 1/2 miles through the Caverns, and there was more than we saw. This is one of the most impressive caves we have seen - not that we have seen all that many. Here are a few pictures.
• Hot as hell, though. We left 70 in Flemington at 7:30AM and here it was 93. Austin is reported to be over 100.

  

  

There is still a lot of running (and dripping) water in this cave. There are a couple of pools that have beautiful reflections. My photos don't do it justice. The flash disrupts the image by showing through to the bottom of the pool.

Road Trip!

There's going to be a road trip starting tomorrow! E & I will drive down to Austin, Texas, where our daughter has just moved. This should be a classic - 5 days down, stopping in Luray, Knoxville, Memphis, and Sulphur Springs.We'll have side trips to

• Luray Caverns
• Jackson,Tennessee to visit my Mom's 80+ year old sister
• Hot Springs, Arkansas and maybe to the Crater of Diamonds to try our luck
• Beale Street in Memphis
• and more

We'll spend some time down in Austin, then come back via Florida (to see grad school buds) and up the East Coast. ROAD TRIP!!!! Both of us are looking forward to it. We'll keep you up to date along the way when we can get net.