Slightly bored in Delaware

It wasn't easy getting an RV park reservation for Memorial Day weekend.  We finally scored one at Yogi Bear's Delaware Beaches Jellystone Park RV Resort in Lincoln, Delaware.  Given that moniker, we weren't sure that the campground would offer the sophistication we prefer, but beggars can't be choosers.  The park was full on Memorial Day weekend.  Lots of kids in the swimming pool, on bicycles, riding in hayrides, and having a great time.

Lincoln is in a somewhat remote area of Delaware.  There's not too much of interest nearby, but it is within driving distance of several ocean beaches.  The closest of these is Rehoboth Beach, and one day we drove to a park-and-ride location and caught a shuttle there, since we'd heard that parking availability near the shore is extremely limited.  Rehoboth Beach is a very long, straight beach - not the beautiful white sand of the Gulf of Mexico, but still attractive.

It is paralleled by a boardwalk a la Atlantic City, with lots of shops, restaurants, and hotels.

The beach area is pretty, and lively, but the traffic getting there is brutal.  Nancy and I are not beach bunnies, so tourist attractions like that hold little appeal as an area where we'd like to settle down.

We had a hard time finding much of anything to do in the four days we were at the campground.  There weren't any restaurants in the area that interested us.  The landscapes in that part of Delaware were pleasant but didn't have the wooded grandeur we had loved in the Carolinas and Virginia.

The only museum nearby was the Air Mobility Command Museum at Dover Air Force Base.  It is dedicated to "military airlift and air refueling aircraft and the men and women who flew and maintained them."  There was a good collection of the kind of airplanes that had been used for supplying and transporting goods and personnel in conflicts around the world.  This is the B-17G, a bomber and transport used extensively in World War II.

And for those fascinated by airplane cockpits, this is a mockup of the control center of the C-17, the Air Force's newest strategic airlifter.

That was about all we found to do in Delaware for excitement.  Until ...

On Sunday afternoon, a storm of biblical severity slammed us - the same one that caused the deadly flooding in Maryland that you may have seen in the news.  The drumming on our motorhome roof was incredibly loud.  Reportedly, at one end of the park the water rose to a couple of feet deep.  It was probably a bit frightening for all those families in tents.  I love a spectacular weather event, as long as we survive it and don't get wet, and I just hope this one didn't scare the kids.

Washington, D.C., city of museums

The number of museums in downtown Washington, D.C. is shocking.  We had already visited, with Frank Hyatt, two magnificent collections: the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery and the National Gallery of Art, which we rushed through and look forward to revisiting in the future.  But those were only the beginning.

Later that week we went to the Newseum, which is devoted to tracing the evolution of communication, especially the news business, and promoting the first amendment.  On the day we visited, there was a display of the Pulitzer prize-winning photos throughout the history of that award, and surprisingly, we were familiar with almost all of them.

Among the many other exhibits was one of special interest to me - a photographer's record of "The Battle that Changed the Course of the War".   The images were of the Marines fighting in the South Vietnamese city of Hue during the Tet Offensive of 1968.  At that moment in time I happened to be stationed as a Navy medical officer at the hospital in Phu Bai, only about twelve miles from Hue, and there was a steady stream of choppers bringing wounded Marines and South Vietnamese soldiers to our emergency room, where they were treated, or stabilized before being transferred to a surgical suite.  That brought back some pretty rough memories.

On another day we went to the National Museum of American History, which displays various specific aspects of American life, including sports, art, music, science, technology, communication, and so on.  For example, this is a mural of Leroy Niemann's homage to American jazz.

We also visited the National Archives Museum, which displays original copies of the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and the Bill of Rights, along with other documents important in our history.

One negative to our little museum tour that day was the presence of huge numbers of school kids, with their piercing voices and constant random motion.  (That's the curmudgeon in me raising its ugly head.)  I assume that these were field trips for middle and high school students near the end of the school year.  Presumably there are other seasons when the lines may be shorter and the sound level more conducive to quiet contemplation.

We barely scratched the surface of the pantheon of museums.  Here are a few of the others we would have liked to visit but didn't have time: the National Air and Space Museum, the International Spy Museum, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the National Museum of Natural History, the National Museum of African American History and Culture, the National Museum of the American Indian, the National Museum of African Art, the Museum of the Bible, and dozens of others.  Many of them are free.  And these displays are housed in the monumental architecture that is characteristic of the entire National Mall section of Washington, which also includes the Lincoln Memorial and Washington Monument and all the other famous monuments and memorials.

Annapolis, the capital of Maryland, is also nearby.  Its state house is historic in that it is the oldest continually operating state capitol in the United States.
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That building is where George Washington, at the conclusion of the War of Independence, officially resigned his commission as commander in chief of the Continental Army, in order to become the first American president, thus setting the precedent of keeping the military separate from the executive branch.

Annapolis is also the home of the United States Naval Academy, and while we were there, fighter jets were constantly screaming overhead at incredible speed, looking to me like the greatest fun available to human beings, at least for those whose stomachs can tolerate it.

It's not news to anyone that the Washington, D.C. area is one of the great travel destinations, but the variety and extent of its attractions were even greater than I had understood.

The Hyatts of Alexandria

Frank Hyatt was the physician who preceded me as a family doctor in Ben Lomond, California.   Just before we arrived there in 1975, he moved his practice to San Jose, then left California in 1985 and began practicing medicine in South Carolina.  We lost contact with him and his wife Olga, but when we reached the American south on this trip we googled him and found out that he is currently practicing in a town not far from Washington, D.C.  As we approached that region, we contacted him so we could get together with them and exchange histories.

The first meeting with Frank, on a Saturday, was in downtown Washington, D.C., and he wanted to show us a couple of his favorite museums.  We took the Metro into the city and went to the patio at the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, where Nancy recognized Frank sitting at a table, even though over 35 years have passed since our last contact, and neither of us has escaped the ravages of time.  He's now 85 years old, and still practicing medicine.  He told us that he goes into his office three times a week, and his work is primarily dealing with opioid addiction patients.  He calls himself a redneck physician treating redneck patients.

We strolled through the gallery, and it is quite a remarkable collection of paintings, photos, and sculptures of prominent Americans through the centuries.  That's Frank on the right.  In spite of his age, which sounds ancient even to me, he seems in good physical shape and handled the walking and stair climbing without difficulty.

There were images of every president and significant founding father and almost every other famous and important American from history.  One could easily spend a day or two there in productive and pleasant study.

Then we took a cab to the National Gallery of Art, one of the world's great collections.  After a delicious lunch at the museum's courtyard cafe, we hot-footed it through as much of the museum's extensive exhibits as time permitted.  Some of the rooms featured masterpieces of American furniture from 1700 to 1830, which resonated with me, since I've dabbled in woodworking myself.  Again, our visit only scratched the surface of what was on offer.

On the way out, we passed a life-sized sculpture of two nude women lying intertwined sensually, which Frank, a deeply religious man, called an abomination, while I felt it was a sensitive and moving expression of the artist's vision.

Frank and Olga invited us to dinner the following evening at their home in Alexandria, Virginia, which is to the south of Washington, while our RV park is to the north.  On Sunday we allowed ourselves an hour for the Metro system trip, but our planning was deeply and almost comically flawed.  It started well, but the Metro system map we carried was out of date, so we were unable to transfer from the green line to the yellow line at the stop indicated on our map and had to reboard, costing us 15 or 20 minutes.  And the Washington Nationals were playing the Los Angeles Dodgers that day (the Dodgers won), so all the trains were seriously delayed, and the coaches were packed.

End result was that we were exactly one hour late arriving, but Frank and Olga were perfectly sweet and understanding.  They drove us through the historic downtown of Alexandria, which appeared to be almost exactly what we are looking for in a neighborhood - charming buildings and lots of interesting restaurants and shops, with a waterfront close by.  Bears further consideration.

We stopped at Balducci's Food Lovers Market, picked up our dinners and some California wine, and drove to Frank and Olga's apartment.  We learned about the lives of their children, who were attending grammar and high school when we knew them, but now are in their forties and fifties.  Sobering.

While Nancy and Olga talked, Frank explained that his technique for getting patients off their life-destroying opioid dependency involves the prescribing of Suboxone, which contains an opioid of very limited euphoric effect and also acts like Narcan to block the effects, including the pleasures, of other opioids.  He said that his patients find that taken properly, this treatment gives them their lives back.  He feels that this is what God put him here to do.

Two good old boys from Louisiana (he from Baton Rouge, me from Tallulah) who both attended LSU Medical School have taken very different paths in life.  Somehow we got to talking politics, and eventually slid onto the subject of Donald J. Trump.  He said that he finds Trump a highly immoral man but he likes most of his policies.  I, on the other hand, admitted to him that I had voted for Obama twice, which knocked him back a peg or two.  I was prepared to be asked to vacate the premises, but Frank, a gracious southern gentleman, recovered quickly and remained kind and friendly.  As we left, he handed us a packet of religious literature and suggestions on what to do in Washington, D.C.

Dinner in Washington, D.C. with Nancy and Andrew Wainer

Long day on the road.

It all began with brake work on the motorhome at a shop in the Charlottesville area, while we waited inside our unit.  They finished about noon.  Then we were off for a planned visit to our great nation's capital!

And the rains began, and were fierce, and continued off and on for the entire trip to Washington, D.C.  As we approached the city and the highway widened to five or six lanes, traffic slowed to a crawl.  We spent about an hour traveling the two or three miles to our turnoff, after which another accident slowed our progress.  Finally we reached the last multi-lane highway on our route and sped along for a mile or so until a third accident blocked the flow.  An awful experience.  Since our last rest stop I had been driving for over six hours, with no way to pull over - not an ideal bladder situation with an older gentleman behind the wheel.

But our campground is a nice one, just outside Washington, in the town of College Park (so named because the University of Maryland is within its borders).

We were excited for a chance to meet up in Washington with our dear friend from Santa Cruz, Nancy Wainer, who was visiting her son Andrew.  Andrew, who lives in the city, is the Policy Research Director of Save Our Children and a fine political writer.

In order to get together with them, we had to use the subway system to take us into the city, since driving around the area had somehow lost its charm.  We bought Senior Passes, which offer discounts.  A little complicated figuring out how to use the Metro machines to add fares to our cards for each trip, but before long we were old pros at it.

The Washington Metro system is quite impressive - efficient, clean, and fast.

Andrew lives in a very nice condo in downtown Washington, surrounded by all the exciting amenities of that great city.  It was wonderful to see him and Nancy again.  Nancy's husband Mark, who's on a photography trip in Oregon, called while we were there.  The Wainers and the Wilsons, together again!  Brought tears to our eyes and made us just a little homesick.

Since rain was still falling, we took an Uber ride to one of Andrew's favorite restaurants, Maple, and had an outstanding meal.  Nancy told us about what's going on in Santa Cruz, and Andrew filled us in on life in Washington, D.C.  We spent a great deal of time discussing politics, which of course is the lifeblood of the city.

Afterward, with the skies finally clear, Andrew and Nancy walked us back to the Metro station.  It was fun passing through all the beautiful neighborhoods.  I must admit, I was fantasizing a bit about how cool it would be to live in that city with its great restaurants and entertainment.  Of course D.C. is uncomfortably hot and humid in the summer and cold and snowy in the winter so there would be definite tradeoffs.

Incidentally, some weeks ago I had sent in a sample of saliva to AncestryDNA.com, in order to find out where my ancestors hail from.  Unfortunately, the results were rather boring and exactly what I expected - 60% Great Britain, 31% Scotland and Ireland, and perhaps a smidgen of Scandinavia.  I was hoping for something a bit more exotic - Eastern European, Jewish, African, Middle Eastern, or Japanese.  But it was not to be.  I was impressed that something in the DNA told them that I probably had past ancestors in Mississippi or Louisiana - and indeed I was born in Louisiana and had not informed them of that fact.

Charlottesville, Virginia

Charlottesville was the scene of that infamous white nationalist march last August.  But that's not the reason we decided to check it out.  We're here because Market Watch rated it as one of the top retirement communities in Virginia.

Upon arrival at our campground, we saw an attractive young woman holding a beautiful white ferret.  She let Nancy hold and pet the ferret, and when she saw my Santa Cruz T-shirt she told us that she was also from Northern California - specifically, from Humboldt County.  She was rather heavily tattooed and the very image of what an outsider would call a California hippie.  Because of her appearance and her county of origin, Nancy asked if she was a grower, and she answered yes.  She and her boyfriend raise a number of varieties of weed, but business has been hurt by the recent legalization of marijuana use in California because small growers can't afford the $500K required to achieve legal status.  She may or may not have donated a small amount of product as an expression of state solidarity.

Charlottesville is the site of the University of Virginia, which was founded by Thomas Jefferson.  And having a college nearby our future home is important to us, for continuing education options (which, to be honest, we probably won't take advantage of) and for the plays and music and life that it brings to a community.  (The beautiful home he designed and built - Monticello - is also nearby, but we had toured it in the past.)

UVA - the University of Virginia - is a UNESCO World Heritage Site because of the grandeur of its architecture and the loveliness of its grounds.

Unfortunately, at the time of our visit, classes were over and graduation was scheduled for the following weekend, so very few students were around.  Regardless, it's always fun to look at the bulletin boards to see what's playing, what's for sale, and which issues people are excited about.

I'm a passionate Golden State Warriors fan, and they are currently in the NBA playoffs.  On Monday evening, when the first game against the Houston Rockets was scheduled, one of the most violent thunderstorms I've ever experienced came into the Charlottesville area.  Incredible rain hammered the roof, one scary wind gust rocked our motorhome violently, and before long electricity in the entire region went dark.  Our motorhome, including the TV, can run off battery power, and we can use a generator to replenish the batteries, but in severe weather the satellite dish on the roof can't bring in our DirecTV channels, so my chances of watching the Warriors game were looking bleak.  Even if it were safe to drive to a nearby sports bar, it was unlikely to be open, due to the power outages.  Only rabid, neurotic sports fans can sympathize with how catastrophic that would have been for my mental health.

Luckily, the front passed through, the rain stopped, and even though the entire area would be without electrical service until the morning, we were able to watch the game, on battery power.  And the Warriors took care of business.

Our last night in Charlottesville we had an extremely tasty dinner at Public Oyster House.  The city has a top reputation as a foodie destination, and many of its best restaurants and shops are along the Historic Downtown Mall - a scenic eight block walkway along streets closed to traffic.

Charlottesville is a great town, in a lush and beautiful part of the country.  I could live here, but Nancy thinks its weather is just too hot for her to consider as a permanent home, so we're not adding it to our list of possibles.

As we were getting ready to leave from a downtown lot, a car with California plates was parking.  The couple said they had moved to Charlottesville from California.  I asked how they like it here.  She said, "California is better."

Fort Monroe, Virginia

Our current campground is in the town of Fort Monroe, Virginia.  The fort of the same name is just a few blocks away and is of historical significance.  When the Civil War began, it was in the hands of Union troops, even though Virginia joined the Confederacy.  And it was at that fort that Lincoln helped to plan one of the early battles of the war.

Fort Monroe is surrounded by a moat, and within its walls is a large village of elegant homes, presumably officers' quarters in the past, and impressive brick apartments which were probably enlisted men's barracks.

Fort Monroe is right on the ocean shore, and across the road from our campground is a series of lovely beaches.  Things may get crowded in the summer, but at this time, in spite of 90-degree temperatures today, Saturday, there were a great number of parking spaces available, and the beaches had plenty of room for everyone.  By the way, Nancy and I are not among the beach bodies depicted.

Just a few miles away is the city of Hampton, the home of Hampton University, which was established shortly after the end of the Civil War and initially was exclusively for black freedmen.  It is one of the predominantly black universities scattered throughout the South, and even today the student body is, according to the internet, 95.2% African-American.  The faculty, however, is more diverse.

Neither Nancy nor I had ever before visited a historically black university, even though one of them, Grambling University, wasn't far from my undergraduate college, Louisiana Tech.  We didn't know what to expect.  Well, it is a gorgeous campus, perfectly groomed and maintained, with wonderfully impressive brick architecture.

By chance this was graduation weekend, so it was crowded with students, family, and friends.  During our entire visit we didn't see a single white person, except for each other.  That was something we had not experienced before, and at first it felt slightly uncomfortable, but everyone couldn't have been nicer, and it turned out to be a wonderfully positive experience.

We visited the Hampton University Museum, which shouldn't be missed.  It featured a gallery of African art, one of native American art (since at one time native Americans constituted a significant portion of the student body), a room detailing the history of the modern university and its considerable accomplishments, and a great gallery of African-American paintings and sculpture.  Unfortunately, no interior photos were allowed, but trust me, there was some outstanding stuff on display.  Below is shown the entrance to the museum.

We also visited the Hampton Museum, in the white section of town.  It paled in comparison to the university's museum, but to be fair, the town and surrounding area have a fascinating history, and this was well covered by the museum.  The first English settlement in the present United States was nearby, and the area was important in a number of the early wars of the nation.

On our last day in that RV park, a class-C motorhome (defined as one which has a bed above the cab area) pulled in to the site adjacent to ours.  Nancy noticed that the license plates were German, so she introduced herself and learned that the couple were indeed German citizens and had had their motorhome shipped by boat from there to the states, at considerable expense.  They had spent just under a year exploring the US and Canada, in two segments, and now were almost ready to return to their homeland and ship their motorhome back.  I'll leave the political discussion they had with Nancy to your imagination.

This area of coastal Virginia is pretty and has a very nice feel to it, but it's awfully hot and humid today in the middle of May.  We're probably not cut out for this weather.

The Outer Banks of North Carolina

The Outer Banks is a beautiful coastal region of northern North Carolina consisting of skinny beach islands just off the mainland.  The waters in that area are known as the "graveyard of the Atlantic", and over five thousand shipwrecks are known to have occurred there because of numerous shoals (sandbars), heavy winds, and treacherous weather.  Today it is an upscale vacation destination.

Our RV park here is called the OBX Campground.  "OBX" is an abbreviation for Outer Banks, and all the license plates of local residents begin with those three letters.  The campground is located in the town of Kill Devil Hills, which is the historic site of the Wright brothers' first flight.  (The town of Kitty Hawk, more commonly associated with that flight, is nearby and was the closest community at the time.)

At the Wright Brothers National Memorial, we hiked to the top of a steep hill from which we could overlook the area where Wilber and Orville tested their gliders during four years of experimentation and eventually succeeded in the world's first powered heavier-than-air aircraft flight.

A fascinating metal model of that first airplane and statues of the individuals involved is on the grounds of the memorial.

In 1585 settlers from England led by Sir Walter Raleigh established the Roanoke Colony in what is now the town of Manteo on Roanoke Island.  The colonists all disappeared three years after the last shipment of supplies from England, and the cause of that disappearance is an unsolved mystery to this day.  The Lost Colony Exhibit is an interesting museum on the exact site.  Nancy and I, after reviewing the evidence, were unable to figure out what happened.

Several years ago four friends - two bartenders and two beer brewers, all living in the area - decided to start a rum distillery business - the first LEGAL local distillery - which they named Outer Banks Distilling.  They acquired a building in that same town of Manteo, took classes at Michigan State, bought the best distilling equipment they could afford, and began production.  They offer tours, and we signed up.

The two former bartenders took us around and described the processes involved.  Their catchphrase is "molasses to glasses", because the production of rum, as we learned, always begins with molasses, which they buy from Louisiana.  A number of steps are involved - diluting and purifying the molasses, adding yeast to produce alcohol from that mixture, then using the beautiful copper-plated distiller below, which they purchased from Germany, to finally yield the rum that can be sold for profit.

We were told that "kill devil" is old English slang for rum, so they call their product "Kill Devil Rum".  The bartender/owners were a riot, we were given a rum tasting at the end, and we highly recommend the tour if you visit the Outer Banks.

The southernmost island of the Outer Banks chain is Cape Hatteras, which supposedly is more vulnerable to hurricanes than any other place in the United States, due to its exposed location, jutting as it does out into the Atlantic.  Cape Hatteras is a narrow thread of land, with the ocean visible at times on both sides of the road, and we drove all the way to Hatteras Village, at the far end of the island.

Because of its hurricane history and because it's less accessible than the other Outer Banks islands, Cape Hatteras has been less developed than the others.  Still, in Hatteras Village and in several other towns along the way, we saw a large number of the distinctive houses characteristic of Outer Banks architecture.  All beach houses built in the last twenty years or so are raised up on pilings so that the lowest inhabited floor is twelve feet or more above the sand, in order to give the building a greater chance of surviving the hurricane.surge that will inevitably come.  In the photo below, compare the newer house on the left with the older ones on the right.

On the main Outer Banks islands the great majority of homes are up on pilings and bear some similarity to the house on the left.  These buildings tend to be colorful and cheerful, and I am a fan of that architectural style.  One downside for us is that such homes require much more stair climbing than older legs prefer.

We like the Outer Banks quite a lot, but the weather and what we hear about summer traffic probably rules the area out for us as a future home.

Our last night in the islands we had a wonderful meal at The Colington Cafe.  Driving home, we noticed, on the front lawn of an older home, a group of fifty or so rectangular tanks, each with a light bulb over it.  I stopped the pickup truck and Nancy walked over to see what was going on.  A gentleman at work confirmed that he was harvesting soft shell crabs.  The process is as follows.  Small hard-shelled crabs are placed in saltwater tanks, and they are checked at least every four hours.  As soon as one sheds his shell in preparation for rapid growth, and before he can generate a hard new shell, he is removed from the tank and packed up with his fellows for sale to distributors and eventually to restaurants.  This harvesting only occurs several times each year.  Fascinating.

Back in our motorhome we reflected on how much we like and have been impressed by North Carolina.  Asheville, Boone, the Research Triangle (Raleigh-Durham and Chapel Hill), the Outer Banks - that's a lot of variety, mountains and shore, much of it appealing.  The people here seem intelligent and friendly.  Great restaurants and fine universities.  Excellent roads.  Fascinating history.  North Carolina is, without question, one of our favorite states.

Duke Medical

One day at our campground, as Nancy was returning from morning coffee, she passed a fancy motorhome leaving the park, towing a new SUV - whose wheels were locked!  The SUV's tires were smoking, and the rims were sparking and leaving grooves in the pavement.  She made a U-turn and laid on the horn, and someone on the road was yelling and waving his arms, but the driver was oblivious.  He drove on, with Nancy following and honking, but he didn't stop until a half-mile later, when someone in his line of sight finally got his attention.

Sadly for the reputation of my demographic, it was an older gentleman at the wheel.  That's going to be a costly mistake for him.

I suspect he had left the towed vehicle in park - or possibly had the parking brake on.  That's the kind of situation that Nancy and I hope to prevent with our routine every time we hook up the pickup truck to the motorhome.  Nancy stands outside, I drive forward, and if the wheels aren't turning properly, or there's some problem with the connection, she screams and waves her arms and I stop and correct any issues before proceeding.  So far, so good.

The Raleigh-Durham area is rich in touristy things to do.  We spent a Sunday afternoon at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences.

It featured a large collection of jaw-dropping skeletons of whales and dinosaurs, plus exhibits explaining and detailing the evolution of life on Earth.  (Surprisingly, they didn't agree with the theories at the Creation Museum we visited.)  A unique feature of the museum was that as you walked along, there were a number of scientific research rooms, visible behind floor-to-ceiling glass, containing microscopes, computers, monitors, and other scientific paraphernalia.  In only one room were scientists seen - and you could hear their amplified voices - but this was the weekend, and during the week I suspect that the ongoing work of scientific research there could be observed from the museum floor.  That might well be fascinating.


On the evening before our last day at the Raleigh campground, as I began to rise from a sitting position, there was a severe pain in my right knee, and I cried out like a girly-man.  I was unable to put any weight on that leg with my knee flexed, even though I could stand upright without pain and walk almost normally.  It was very difficult to maneuver myself into the driver's seat of the motorhome, and it hurt to depress the brake pedal, so that my ability to drive us to new RV parks suddenly was at issue.

My self-examination of that knee was negative - no instability, not even any tenderness.  But I decided that I'd better get it examined professionally.  I learned that Duke Health, associated with the Duke University Medical School, had an Orthopedic Urgent Care clinic, and that sounded like where I should go, since we had a campground reservation on the Outer Banks for the following day and I didn't want us to miss it.

I registered into their system and eventually had an X-ray and was seen by a physician's assistant.  He said that the X-ray was essentially negative, and his examination of the knee was also unremarkable except for the pain elicited upon manipulation.  He did not commit to any definitive diagnosis but expected that things would slowly improve.  I was fitted with a knee splint and sent on my way.

It was an interesting day for me, less so for Nancy, who spent three hours in the waiting room, and was bored to distraction.  By the way, Nancy wants it known that she strenuously objects to my decision to wear shoes and socks (rather than sandals) with those shorts.  I know she's right; my excuse is that I was in pain and not thinking clearly.

The next morning my knee was somewhat improved, I was able to drive the motorhome, and our trip and this blog will continue.

Nancy and Craig go to a gun show

Our campground is part of the North Carolina Fairgrounds complex.  While we're here, this weekend, in various venues on site, there will be a horse show, a model train show, a coin and stamp show, and one that holds a lot of interest for us - a guns and knives show. In Savannah Nancy and I had marched in an anti-gun/common sense gun control rally, and that pretty well expresses our opinions on the subject, but we thought it would be interesting to get the flavor of the other point of view.

Admission to the gun show was $9, and ID's were not checked.  In fact, vendors are not required to do background checks or even look at customers' drivers' licenses or other forms of identification before selling people Glocks and AR-15's.  And individuals who want to sell their own firearms, presumably to dealers there, are allowed to bring them in, as long as they are unloaded.

The show was in one of those enormous buildings you see at events like this, and it was extremely well-attended.  The interior seemed to cover about an acre.

Photography was forbidden, so stealth was required to get even a couple of poorly-composed shots.  I pretended to be checking my email, then brought up my phone, clicked, and dropped it back down again.  In reality, nobody seemed to notice or care, but I couldn't help worrying that a guard was going to tackle me, which of course would have been great material for the blog.

What kinds of things could one buy at the show?  Every sort of handgun and rifle imaginable, as you would expect.  AR-15's were for sale at every other table, it seemed.  I found it interesting that the cost of an AR-15 was in the $400-$500 range, and the cost of most handguns was not a great deal lower.  Of course there were also fancier and much more expensive weapons available for the connoisseur.

This was a knife show, too, and we bought an OTF model.  "OTF" stands for "out the front".  Press a rocker button and the blade shoots from the body and locks in place.  Press it again and it retracts out of sight within the body.  If I'm ever forced to defend myself, the other guy better look out.  I do understand that there are some leftist pinko states where the carrying of OTF knives is restricted.  And I understand that they're illegal in Canada, so if we cross the border, we'll have to hide it.  Such desperados.

At the same stand Nancy acquired a rechargeable taser for the closeout price of $5.  We feel safer now.  I briefly considered buying a handgun for protecting us in the unlikely event that someone forced his way into our motorhome at night, but that's so unlikely, and we know that a handgun in the home statistically is more likely to harm a family member than an intruder, that for the sake of Tammy Faye and Sophia, we're going to rely on our knife, our taser, and our common sense for protection.

What else was for sale?  Obviously, all kinds of ammunition and firearm accessories.  T-shirts, signs and bumper stickers, camouflage apparel, flags, and books (The Anarchist Cookbook, The Poor Man's James Bond, Do It Yourself Machine Guns), and other survivalist literature,  And the NRA had a stand there.

It was a fun and unthreatening atmosphere.  Of course it makes absolutely no sense that gun stores are required to do background checks, but gun shows are not.  So anyone who is judged unqualified to purchase a gun, due to assault convictions, jail time, or mental illness, can legally buy multiple assault weapons at a gun show.  Nancy are I are philosophically opposed to gun shows of this type, but today was a lot of fun.


Postscript: Nancy always reads each entry before I post it.  She didn't like the tone of this one, because she thought it made us sound paranoid about our safety.  Fact is, we don't worry about that at all.  Much of the above was tongue-in-cheek.  The reason she wanted to buy the knife was for slitting open packages, she said.  A $60 package opener.  (Also, it was kind of pretty.)  She bought the taser mostly because it cost just five dollars.  And who can resist a bargain?

The Research Triangle, North Carolina

The Research Triangle is an area in North Carolina containing three important institutions of higher learning, all within twenty-five miles of each other - the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, Duke University in Durham, and North Carolina State University in Raleigh.  Many high-tech companies have located here.  Our RV park is part of the North Carolina State Fairgrounds in Raleigh and thus is a good base for exploring the region.

We drove to Chapel Hill and had a look at the very pretty campus of the University of North Carolina.  We saw a preponderance of women students, and the internet told us that they make up 61% of the student body.  The days of male dominance in this country appear to be merely a fond memory (of mine).

We also checked out the nearby town of Apex, which is recommended by one of the services as a great place to retire.  Indeed, its downtown is wonderful, with beautiful buildings, shops, and restaurants, and the residential areas we saw were very attractive.  An appealing community.

This part of the country is quite beautiful.  Everything - the lawns and pastures and the trees lining the freeways - is lush and green.  There are lots of great restaurants.  However, the weather tends to be hot around here, and humid.  Here we are in early May, and the high the past two days was 86 degrees.  I'm not sure that's going to work for Nancy and me, but it might be perfect for those with different temperature preferences.

And the traffic we've encountered has been rather horrible - comparable to many California cities, including  Santa Cruz.  That's another strike against this region of North Carolina.  If it weren't for the weather and traffic, it would be a contender.

The North Carolina Museum of Art is fairly near our campground.  It has a fine and amazingly extensive collection of art and sculpture through the centuries - from ancient Egyptian objects through Roman and Greek sculpture to paintings of medieval, Renaissance, and modern times, and a large display of sculpture by Rodin and other artists of the prior century.  There was also a featured selection of contemporary art.  Call me conventional, call me bourgeois, but the contemporary stuff displayed was boring to me, and I preferred the exhibits from the ancient world, the Renaissance, and the turn of the century.

But to demonstrate that we are not hopelessly provincial, our favorite section was something called You Are Here: Light, Color, and Sound Experiences.  It was a collection of room-sized work by artists of today using three-dimensional displays and audio-visual effects.  In some cases the experience was somewhat psychedelic.

In our row in the RV park is a motorhome with California plates.  We learned that the couple are retirees - younger than us - who still live in Corralitos, California (just down the road from Santa Cruz).  Small world, and a long way from home.  They do a lot of traveling in their unit, accompanied by their two cats.  We'd been to many of the same places, and it was fun comparing notes.  They also are thinking about relocating out of state in the future - to an area with cheaper real estate prices and lower taxes.

Most importantly in our lives, beloved family member Sophia had dental surgery today.  The vet did a cleaning and pulled nine diseased teeth.  That's similar to what was done to Tammy Faye several months ago.  I suppose its very common for older dogs to develop significant dental disease that is not always obvious.

Originally a shelter dog, some months ago we tested Sophia's DNA and learned that she is a Coton de Tulear (the national dog of Madagascar).  I think that suggests that she is of royal parentage, and she tolerated the procedure like a champion.  Here is a post-op photo of the patient - bedraggled, with post-anesthetic stupor, spilled pink liquid medicine in her chest hair - but determined that tomorrow she'll be the best dog she can be.

Boone, North Carolina

We were desperate to get out of Lynch, Kentucky.  Why?  Not because of the poverty, nor the poor shopping opportunities, nor the local citizenry.  It was because we couldn't access the internet there!

Verizon showed multiple bars of phone signal, but no internet service.  We had never seen that before at any part of the country we've passed through.  And at this point in our lives, it's almost impossible to live without the internet!  Sad commentary on how dependent Nancy and I (and modern Americans in general) are on wireless technology.  Luckily, our DirecTV satellite signal was good, so we were able to watch TV, including my Warriors and Sharks games.  Otherwise things would have been even more miserable.  Pathetic, I know.

Once again the road out of Lynch was narrow, steep, and twisty.  It took us over Black Mountain, the highest in Kentucky, whose 4100 feet elevation isn't impressive in comparison with the Sierras or Rockies, but I was relieved when we pulled onto divided highways for the remainder of the drive that took us to Boone, North Carolina.

The reason we chose to visit Boone was that it was recommended as a possible landing spot to us by Wyman, originally from North Carolina, who with his lovely family very nearly bought our home in Ben Lomond.  We knew almost nothing about the community otherwise.

Turned out, Boone is a very nice town.  It is the home of Appalachian State University.  Nancy and I walked all over its beautiful campus and were impressed by its varied brick-based architecture.  The internet (available here, thank God) told us that its student enrollment is similar to that of UC Santa Cruz.

The downtown is nice enough - what you'd expect in a college town.  One of its restaurants is called F.A.R.M  (Feed All Regardless of Means).  Everyone who walks in will be served a meal, even if he or she can't afford to pay the suggested donation.  Sweet Nancy wanted to support that worthy cause, so we had a very nice lunch there, and happily donated to excess.

Most of the customers looked solvent enough to pay for their lunches, but we saw a couple of individuals who appeared down on their luck and might have been homeless.

The restaurant personnel are almost all volunteers.  Nancy chatted with the cashier, a middle-aged lady who had moved to Boone from Los Altos, California, loves it here, and helps out at the restaurant almost every day.  If we happened to relocate to Boone (unlikely), Nancy would almost certainly volunteer her time.  As much as we like the town, it probably doesn't have quite enough action for a couple of dynamic types like Nancy and me.