AZ Day 4

Day 4 – Also known as the most boring day on earth.


I suppose I am thankful that I have a place to hunker down during this storm. Bobby used to tell me all the time that they haven’t had snow here since he moved down nearly 10 years ago -- and told me this story. When he and Kerry finally moved into their home and had their first snowfall, Bobby was out in the driveway breaking his back to get it all shoveled. As he was doing so, he noticed that not one of his neighbors was out shoveling their driveway. He soon found out why. By 1:00, all the snow had melted. After that, he mailed his snow shovel back to Connecticut. Well, this ain’t one of those normal Virginia Coast storms. I just took Hope out and I am guessing that there is at least six inches, possibly more and it is not supposed to stop until after midnight. It is deep enough to make it very difficult to walk in. Something tells me I won’t be leaving here until Monday. It is not supposed to get above freezing until Tuesday. Didn’t George Washington cross the Potomac in a storm like this?

This is a picture out Karen’s window at about 8:00 this morning:

The last time I stayed here, I nearly froze to death because the building has, what I assume is, a cement slab foundation. The floor is brutal cold. Last month, I had to get up in the middle of the night and drag my electric blanket in from the van. It still took all night and half the next day before my “bed” got warm. This time I was smart. I brought in the electric blanket first. But alas, it did not work. Again, I had yet another sleepless night because I could not warm up. I fear my little electric throw bit the dust.

This morning I rearranged the blankets so that the electric one was not directly on the carpeting. It’s been on all day and there is still no heat coming out of it. I guess I will have another sleepless night unless I sleep with all my clothes on.

Every day I find more and more things that I cannot do without my computer. Yesterday's and today's dilemma: no TV. I brought my TV receiver, but I did not bring the software disk. So yesterday, I spent a good lot of the day looking for freebe software that I could download so I can watch TV. Today, I have the software, but no antenna. I also cannot seem to hook up Frann and Lane's loaner computer to Karen's Internet, so I am using Karen's very slow, very odd laptop. And the electricity went out at least four times this morning.

Since Karen has not moved in yet, there is no food, no cooking utensils, no sofa to sit on, no TV. At least I have Internet service to keep me occupied. I tried to make breakfast this morning, which consisted of eggs, bacon, and toast. Apparently I didn't bring in everything that I needed from the van the first three trips out there, because as I tried to make breakfast, I realized there was no butter or oil and no toaster. I couldn't find the small frying pan I gave her last month. I found a very large, deep set frying pan in the oven. When I pulled it out, water splashed all over the floor. Will someone please tell me why you would leave a pan full of water in the oven????

I managed to make my eggs and semi-toasted my bread in the pan after the eggs were cooked. I then found out Karen has no eating utensils. I found a plastic fork, knife, and soup spoon and I melted the fork while trying to remove the bacon from the pan.

I am trying to do everything in slow motion today to fill in the day. Hope and Olly are snuggled up on my makeshift bed, with Olly lying across my legs. I may follow in their activities and take another nap. Bed time is a long ways away. Karen was going to stop in if the roads weren't too bad; but they are, so I doubt if we'll get together this trip. At least I have a semi-warm roof over my head and I am not out camping in this crap.

I dragged in about as much stuff from the Van of Discovery as I’m going to bring in. One of my friends e-mailed me and said, “Can you drive the van of discovery into the house? It might be easier.” What can be better than a friend with a sense of humor to cheer you up? If I bring in any more of my stuff, it will take me a full day to pack the van back up again.

To keep myself occupied, I took three naps, checked my e-mails, wrote up the last three days’ adventures for my blog, had fifteen cups of tea, walked Hope twice, and finally got my computer hooked up to Karen’s Internet access point. It is now nearly 6:00. I don’t know where the day went.

This is a picture of the Karen’s driveway at 4:00 this afternoon:

AZ Day 2-3

I don’t remember what happened. I will try to backtrack my brain to see if I can recall all the nothing that has happened in the last three days.


For those of you who have not followed me in previous travels with the Van of Discovery, we seem to have a bit of a problem getting anywhere. I could tell you that it is because of all the rest stops I make or that it is because of all the U-Turns I make or that it is because of the 45 minute stops in Wal*Mart or Target or a grocery store, but that would make far too much sense. First, I need to backtrack to bring you up to the real reason why it takes me three times longer than the average traveler to get anywhere.

I have an AKAI flat-screen TV at home. I got a good deal on it because it was the floor model at RadioShack. I have had it for three years, so it may be four years old or older. Still, that really doesn’t seem to be so old as compared to TV’s that used to last 15-20 years. The video card seems to be going on it as recently I’ve had strips of hieroglyphic messages pop up across the screen. They started in black and white and then in color. With time, they actually started to form real words, but not complete sentences yet. With time, I realized that the messages were coming across the screen via one TV station – ThiS network. Oh, BTW, I don’t have cable or satellite; I have the dreaded over-the-air, new-and-improved digital signal captured with bunny ears. After watching these messages for weeks and watching improvement in the messages for weeks and realizing that they were being transmitted and that the problem was not my video card, I came to the only likely conclusion that I was being contacted by aliens.

Now, back to the Van of Discovery and my three-times longer traveling problem: Yesterday, I drove from Midlothian, VA to Gloucester, VA – a 90 mile drive over thruways that should have taken me no more than two hours. The only stop I made was for gas and I managed to miss rush-hour traffic through Richmond. I swear I left Midlothian at 3:30. I wanted to make sure I got to Gloucester while it was still light because parking the van in Karen’s driveway can be rather tedious in the dark. I don’t know how it happened, but I arrived at Karen’s three hours later, pulling into her driveway at 6:30. I came to the realization last night that, the aliens trying to communicate to me through my TV were not telling me that they were coming for a visit; they were telling me that they had plans to come pick me up. Last night, I lost time because I was abducted by the aliens and it happens every time I get into that van. It is the only explanation as to why it takes me three times longer than it should to get to any destination.

So, getting back to where I left off with Day 1, I left Stevensville, MD at around 9:30. I had 160 miles to go and figured it would take me about 3 hours. I pulled into Midlothian at 2:30 in the afternoon. Another alien abduction must have happened, because my 3 hour drive turned into 5 hours. Midlothian is the location for the company I’ve been working for the past three months. I stopped in to see Dave and called Bobby who was working at home that day. Other than that, I didn’t get any work done. I was too wiped from lack of sleep the night before and a grueling five-hour drive. Oh, yes, I forgot to mention, the wind was brutal. Roadtreks on Dodge chassis’ have a history of road sway, especially in high winds. I just spent big bucks having new shocks put on the van which helped immensely, but did nothing to help with the high-wind conditions. I had all I could do to keep the van on the road that day. I had five hours of white-knuckle driving.

My plans were to stay at the Kings Dominion campground just north of Richmond that night. It was about a 45 minute drive away. I suppose it is just as well I didn’t go there as I know it would have taken me 2 hours. Anyway, Bobby said it was too far away and that I should go to Pocahontas State Park which was only 18 miles away. So, I drove the 18 miles, which took about 45 minutes, only to find that the park was open but the campgrounds were closed. Now, I had nowhere to stay. What to do???? I drove back to Midlothian and set up camp in the parking lot at work. I was going to be there the next day anyway.

I took Hope for a walk, managed to wash my hair with about two cups of water, made dinner, and settled in to watch a movie before going to sleep for the night. When I went to bed, it was 60 degrees out with a slight, balmy breeze. When I woke up the next morning, it was below 30. The heat came on so often that I got worried about draining my battery too far, so I got up at 5:30 and started the generator. This makes sleepless night #2 – too much noise between the furnace, traffic, a freight train somewhere, and in the wee hours of the morning, the sound of the generator popping and gurgling underneath my head.

Although I was at work a full day, I didn’t get more than four hours work done. I had a meeting with Dave and Bob, had another meeting with Dave regarding a lost paycheck, caught up with four days worth of e-mail, wrote one or two e-mails out, and filled out my timesheet – which I forgot to hand in at the end of the day. The rest of the day was spent virus scanning Frann and Lane’s PC to make sure I didn’t infect it with my timesheet and looking for software so I could watch TV.

I will continue with Day 4 – The storm and the most boring day on earth. Oops, I forgot. I have one picture. Just above Williamsburg on I-64 was a car fire.

AZ Day 1

I left Frann’s somewhere around 9:30. I wanted to make sure I missed the rush-hour traffic that goes south to Stamford. I had a couple of stops to make, anyway. One of those stops was to go to Costco to return one of the four mats I purchased for the Van of Discovery. Somehow or other, I missed Costco. Next stop was MickeyD’s for breakfast; then we hit the road. Traveling was fairly uneventful, which is good because the day before was not good and I did not need any aggravation.


Every other time I drove down to VA, I took Rt 301 around Baltimore and Washington, D.C. This time, I took Rt 213 which bypasses Baltimore. What a great ride. It was a practically desolate road that went through farm country and a few small back country towns. The map noted it as a Scenic Route.

I looked for a park that I could stop and make lunch at and also take Hope for a walk and hopefully and free romp. I looked and looked and watched and no park did I pass, so I finally stopped at a marina. It was kind of cool because the boats that were at this marina were mostly very old yachts and houseboats. Each one had its own “garage.” So Hope and I walked up and down the different docks. At the end of one, I took a picture of the draw bridge that I previously drove over.

Back on the road, I didn’t drive for more than two minutes when what comes up? A park. Jeez! I knew it!

The destination for the night was to be either Cracker Barrel, a commuter lot that I saw the last time I was down here, or back to the Duncan Family Campground. I opted for the commuter lot. It was huge and packed, so I figured there would be quite a few cars there overnight. After dinner and the bed were all made up, I checked out the parking lot again. At 7:30, it was nearly empty. There were maybe two cars in the lot.

This was my first experience with boondocking alone. Boondocking is having no hookups – no electricity, no cable TV, no sewer. Just park somewhere, spend the night, and take off the next morning. Many RV’ers boondock in Wal*Mart, Flying-J’s, Cracker Barrels, and even hospital parking lots.

For those of you who do not already know, my PC got a virus of death the day before I had to leave. This was NOT good timing. I had prepared my laptop with everything I needed for this trip: many camping and RV’ing websites in my favorites and worked on jailbreaking my iPhone so I could tether it to the PC. The laptop was already set up to use at work, including LAN printer access (more on this problem tomorrow). Frann’s husband, Lane, tried to fix the PC to no avail. It was dead meat, so Frann and Lane lent me their Dell. (more on this problem tomorrow, as well). As of tonight, the only gripe I had about it was that I couldn’t hear the movie I watched. I had to put the earphones on.

At about 8:00, I turned off all the lights inside the van so I wouldn’t be so conspicuous and I watched a movie by PC light. Sleep that night was not good. I put earplugs in to drown out traffic and furnace noise. My earplugs are custom make for my ears and they have these little handles for ease of removing them. The handles stuck out too far and made it very difficult to sleep with.

So, ends Day 1.

Bash Bish Falls

I used to go to Bash Bish Falls in Copake, NY, whenever my life was in turmoil and I needed to destress and re-contemplate my life. I don't remember if I've been there at all during my last marriage, but I find it hard to believe that it's been 14 years since I was last there. My recent life's contemplating efforts were always done at my cabin in VT, so I had no reason to even think about the falls. So much time has passed, that I nearly forgot about my favorite sanctuary. Someone, who very recently came through my life and left faster than the blink of an eye, brought that memory of Bash Bish Falls back to the forefront of my mind.

The last two days seem to be our January thaw. It was 42 degrees just before lunchtime today. Cabin fever hit hard, I was having Van Of Discovery withdrawal symptoms, and I had nothing better to do today, so I packed up a lunch and Hope and I took a drive to see what the falls looks like in the ice and snow. In one word: AWESOME!

I drove Rt 44 through Winsted, Norfolk, Canaan and Lakeville to get to Rt 22 in Millerton, NY. It felt good to drive thorough those small, country towns again. Copake was only 15 minutes north of Millerton. Somewhere in the back of my brain, I thought I remembered two entrances to the Taconic State Park. Well, there were, just not where my poor brain remembered. As I passed Copake Falls and the sign to the Taconic State Park, I thought this was the first entrance, so I drove another 15-20 minutes beyond that. Somewhere north of Hillsdale, I was driving up a hill and, as I glanced out over a cornfield below, I saw two animals playing with each other. They were up on their hind legs almost boxing like kangaroos. I pulled off the road quickly and saw that they were two foxes (foxi?). They spotted me get out of the van, so, unfortunately, they stopped their playing. Apparently someone else was enthralled with seeing them, as well, because they pulled off the road behind me and started snapping pictures.

Zoomed image (not much better):

I drove a bit further until nothing seemed familiar anymore, so I turned around and went back to the Taconic State Park in Copake Falls. That was the place.

The path from the parking lot to the falls is 3/4 of a mile. It was already 3:30 in the afternoon and I wasn't sure what time the sun set, but I figured I was pretty safe because the parking lot had about 10 cars in it, which meant lots of people were still on the trail. As soon as I hit the path, I knew it would take me forever to walk that 3/4 of a mile. My boots have absolutely no tread left to them and walking on the snow-packed trail was treacherous, at best. Note to self: buy yourself a new pair of Timberlands before going to AZ.

The 2-4 miles I walk Hope every day and all the x-country skiing I've been doing for the last month made the 3/4 mile hike seem like a piece of cake. It took me no time at all to get to the falls, despite slipping and sliding and taking baby steps the whole way. Note to self: Buy a new pair of Timberlands before leaving for AZ.

This picture is a view of Bash Bish Brook on the way to the falls:

Here, someone had a sense of humor. I assume it is a welcome sign. Either that, or a very large paw print:

After much snow-surfing, we reached the falls. Note to self: Buy a new pair of Timberlands before leaving for AZ.

There are two banks of stone steps to walk down to the falls. Luckily, there is a railing down the middle of them. The steps were more treacherous than the path. I managed to climb down sideways, draping my body over the railing and stepping on the edge of the steps where the snow was worn off. Finally making it down to the boulders at the river's edge, I tried to go down one more level and landed flat on my butt. Some guy was there with his dog which was making Hope extremely antsy, so I am sure she had something to do with me landing on the ground. I looked up at him and said, "I knew this was going to happen. I think I'll just sit here awhile." Note to self: Buy a new pair of Timberlands before leaving for AZ.

The falls from the boulders at the edge of the pool. Can you hear the roar of the water?:

Looking up at the top of the falls:

A view looking down river from the falls:

On the way up the steps back to the path, I met a woman coming down who did exactly what I did by hanging over the railings. I don't know what her problem was; she was wearing boots with cleats. Note to self: Buy a new pair of Timberlands before leaving for AZ.

This picture is supposed to be the sun setting on the river. I couldn't quite get the right angle and I certainly don't have the right kind of camera for shots like that.

This is the last picture I took. It is pack ice on the river.

I so wish that cameras captured the true wonder of what my eyes see. They miss the depth and sometimes the brilliant colors. Someday I will get myself a decent camera. Before I do that, I really need to buy myself a new pair of Timberlands.