Chapter Two: Green Grass, Bluegrass, and a new motto: We Brake For Fun!

We’ve decided that our retirement up until now has been Chapter One, and we’re ready to begin Chapter Two.  It’s a philosophical matter.  What’s it all about, anyway (Alfie)?  What does retirement actually mean?

For us, so far, retirement has meant hurrying, scurrying back and forth, keeping up a pace almost as quick as that we maintained when working (….ourselves to death).  We’ve made three trips back and forth across the country in less than five months.  We’ve put just under 22,000 (gulp) miles on the two odometers so far.  There have been good reasons for all this; there always are.  But we have found ourselves setting deadlines, goals, expectations in the same old patterns.  BUT THAT WAS CHAPTER ONE.

Flip.  That was our new leaf turning over.  On to our real retirement.  A new approach calls for a new motto: Slow Down, Relax, Enjoy Today.  We’re trying hard to let things come to us more; not forcing something to happen because “you might not have another chance later on”; it’s okay to spend a whole day reading a book and taking walks.  If you like where you are, why move on?  No more deadlines, dammit!  Well, you get the picture.  To some extent it’s just a switch from “vacation” mode to a new lifestyle.  Chasing your tail is okay for awhile; but it sure wears you down. 

So we’re smelling all the roses.  Rick found an article in one of the papers talking about wonderful gardens to visit in the spring, and we plan to get to one or two of them.  One is Winterthur, in Wilmington, Delaware.  It is one of the DuPont homes.  I’ve been there before, and am quite delighted to be able to return.  We’ll give you a report later.  We’re also enjoying lovely green grass, new growth on the trees, and beautiful flowers.  By traveling gradually northward as we are we are able to extend the spring by enjoying the best of each region as we go.  From azaleas back in Florida in late February to the incredible display of rhododendrons (more later) here in the Garden State in mid May, to more later in New York, New England, and the Maritime Provinces, we are able to enjoy about a five month spring; then we get to turn around and do the reverse in the fall.  Fantastic.  With any luck, we’ll avoid the muggy eastern summer altogether – yeah, right.  In our dreams.

North Carolina is a delightful and beautiful state, and we enjoyed our time there.  After spending several days with good friends in Raleigh, the capital, we camped for awhile in a local state park on a pretty lake nearby.  Very few people and quite delightful.  But it’s going to be a great year for ticks.  Sight’um outside a wayside grocery:   “Kerosene, Produce, Live Bait, Phone Cards”; seemed to us like an unlikely combination for dinner.  But who are we to say.  And there’s a delightfully named bank in the East:  Wachovia Bank; sounds like they’re always keeping an eye out for what’s in your best interest…..

Have you ever thought about what a Beltline is?  Raleigh has two, the inner beltline and the outer beltline; for when you’re feeling fat or skinny?

We’ve now been to the Outer Banks; ahhhh….the Outer Banks.

  Once you visit, you keep this place on your list of return spots.  We had some stormy weather, but the desolate areas are great to explore.  Looking at the houses right along the water’s edge, you see how new most of them are, and remember recent hurricanes.  I wouldn’t think building a house along that coast made any sense, but some would simply say it was the tough American spirit showing through.  One of the treats along this stretch of coastline is the Wright Brothers Memorial and Museum in Kill Devil Hills.  It’s a great spot, very windy (how perfect), and gives you a wonderful opportunity to feel what was happening there almost 100 years ago.  Their centennial anniversary is in 2003, with a big celebration; we hope to be there for the festivities.  Rick has been reading a book about the technical aspects of the Wright Brothers’ achievements, and has really enjoyed it.  While at the museum we had our first sighting of someone from back home; someone from San Luis Obispo whom I’ve known for 25 years.  A little weird; probably will happen again.  Last time I had a similar thing happen, I was at the Custer’s Battlefield area in the Dakotas, heard a familiar voice, and turned around to see two couples I’d known for years.  So it can happen! 

And then of course there are the lighthouses.  Spectacular monuments to the power of nature and to the history of the region.

From North Carolina we moved on to the Hampton Roads area in Virginia, where we visited the USS Wisconsin, the Mariner Museum, the James River area (we went to Smithfield for a ham, a really really yummy ham), and stayed in a campground in the Newport News City Park.  It was a most amazing place; go visit it, a real treat.  Probably the highlight of our time here was the Mariner Museum.  It concentrates on Eastern Seaboard stuff, of course, and is therefore different than the Maritime Museum in San Francisco.  Lots of excellent information on the Chesapeake Bay area.  And a new exhibit about the slavery trade from the sea-going angle.  This had been written up in the newspaper as very daring and strongly presented, but we were rather disappointed.  We’ve seen other, more detailed and graphic exhibits about what happened to the slaves aboard ship.  We finally decided that we were seeing a southern interpretation of the matter, and it was probably pretty daring for them.  Not to disparage what we saw, but it wasn’t as “horrible” as we had been led to expect.  An interesting fact that was new to us:  far more slaves were shipped to Central and South America than came to North America. 

While in Virginia, we visited several Civil War battlegrounds, each one moving in its own way, and each very educational.  We are saving more for another time, but this trip we went to Petersburg and Manassas, along with seeing some of Richmond.  Rick had not seen Manassas before; I believe it to be the finest setting and telling of the “story” in Virginia.

While in Richmond we went to the Museum of the Confederacy; it’s fascinating to see both sides talking about the same war, with very different perspectives on strategy and meanings.  Most interesting at this museum was a whole floor devoted to Robert E. Lee; what a man!  This exhibit really had some good stuff to share.  The building held more artifacts than you could imagine, far more than anyplace we had seen.  The uniforms and background information on people who had served were especially neat.  We also spent a quiet misty morning in Yorktown, home of the final battle of the Revolutionary War.  It is an exceptionally beautiful town and setting.

We ended our Civil War experience for the time being by heading on up to Gettysburg, where we spent three days.  It was really a cool place, and the day we toured the battlefields we had exceptionally nice weather, so it was really a treat.  Again, many, many artifacts.  The Gettysburg visitor center and museum area has tragically been given over to commercialism, and we refuse to support this, so didn’t take in the events with a fee attached.  Their loss, not ours, we presume.  But lots was free, and great.  After hearing about the commercialism, we were concerned, but the battle ground itself is beautifully preserved and very moving to experience.  We immediately realized, not such a surprise when you think back to your own years in school, that May is field trip month.  Everywhere we go there are mobs of kids.  They are sweet, and fresh, and not a problem.  But there are so many of them!  Groups from all over the Mid-West, here for a week.  Yuck.  But the Gettysburg experience was a tremendous one, and we will come back again, probably in the dead of winter, to see more.

We stayed in Gettysburg one more day than planned because we found there was a bluegrass festival taking place, and we took it in for a day.  Such a good time!  Shades of Live Oak Festival in June.  Frank, we made contact with one of the better groups and gave them your name and number.  Kane’s River, out of Montana, and one of them was familiar with Live Oak.  You need to get them; also a group called Mountain Heart that we hope to get more information on.  We didn’t have the chance to talk to them there, but they were really hot.  The festival was more low-key than Live Oak, but just as much fun.  We got cool t-shirts.

The day after the festival, in moving toward the Jersey coast to meet friends, we came around a corner in Fair Haven, Maryland, and a highland games celebration was going on.  Screech!!!  We stopped, turned around, parked in a big grass field as directed by very spiffy county sheriff types, and spent several hours listening to bagpipes, looking at guys’ cute knees, etc.  As much as anything else, it was an extraordinarily lovely setting with a lush grass steeplechase course and green, green hills all around.   Rick found a real treat:  if you are familiar with Mars Bars, the kind we get in the states aren’t the same as those available overseas.  And there was a tent selling all kinds of English, Irish and Scottish packaged goods, and there was a WHOLE BOX of these candy bars.  No, we didn’t buy the whole box…….just most of it.  I’m being allowed an occasional bite and am supposed to feel special thereby even if I am not allowed a whole bar to myself – it seems that they’re numbered and inventoried.  One item we passed on although we were sorely tempted: a yellow and red bumper sticker proclaiming “If it’s nae Scottish – it’s Crap”.  You have to say it with a heavy, Sean Connery, burrrrr; then it’s really funny.

We are now in New Jersey, very near Atlantic City, visiting with our good friends Tom and Pat Wardell from SLO, who didn’t come to New Jersey JUST to see us, but it’s been fun orchestrating this meeting.  Coming here, we passed a sign for a huge Cat Show, screeched to a halt once again, did the turn around and park thing, and spent a couple of hours looking at all the exotic tabbies and picking up goodies for our two felines.  Then we came back to the coach, decided Agnes and Jeremy aren’t so bad after all, and drove on.  Jeremy has been nicknamed Lumpus felinus, because he sleeps so much, and Agnes (Miss Whinesalot, or simply Anguish) spends her time getting into trouble (Girls just wanta have fun….).  But we do love them anyway.  And they don’t need exotic care like the beasties we saw today.

The rhododendrons are in bloom, baby chicks and goslings are about, and everything is green.  We’ve survived our first roundabouts and the funny way signs read here:  the Del Mem Br, the Boro of Smithville, the Twp of Spritzberg.  What IS the difference between a Twp and a Boro, anyway?  Oh, yes, and one of the local food companies is called UTZ Foods.  We have decided to pronounce it Yutes, like the guy in “My Cousin Vinnie.”  I suspect that’s wrong, but whose keeping score?

From New Jersey we’re heading back into Pennsylvania and then up into New York, hoping to avoid any major memorial day weekend difficulties while working our way toward a big motorcycle event in Lake George the first week in June.  We hope to take in a ball game at the Pirates new park in Pittsburgh, and then maybe a AAA game in Scranton.  Later dudes!  Enjoy yourselves, and remember, Brake for Fun!

Rick and Kathy

See more photos from 2002-2003

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