Day 91 – VA to DC to MD to DE. Friends + Friends + Baltimore Harbor

Wednesday October 31st, 2018 (full photo album here)

Halloween had arrived, and the only costume I had in mind was a pair of shorts and a sun-resistant long sleeve shirt. My uniform, really, for the trip. A hotel meant a quick and straightforward getaway – rendered all the more positive for a lack of any vehicular tampering!

I had a busy day ahead of me, filled with friends and place and miles and states, a multiplicity of each.

First: I finally had the chance to visit the Lamb Center in person. A non-profit in the Fairfax area which is dedicated to the very complex and strenuous work of ministering to the homeless and helping them get onto their feet. This visit was not random – my seminary peers Dave and Deb have long worked with and now for the Lamb Center, and it was a pleasure to not only get to see them – but also to rejoice along with them at the triumphant successes of this vibrant and growing center. It is certainly not always easy (and I commend all the staff and volunteers there for their hard work in trying circumstances) but it was hope-giving to see them working so hard to do good:

They were also excited to be present (and capture, sheepishness and all) the Virginian addition to the map:

Sad to go but on a rigidly busy schedule, I bid Dave and Deb goodbye and rumbled through busy streets with infinitesimally short red light timers and even shorter distances between the stoplights. I think in at least one case my Titan was the whole distance from one light to the next. No matter – the next step was lunch with a few more old friends, with an equally long-deferred chance to visit in person. I met Andrew and Anthony at a Five Guys near Bethesda MD (some of my old stomping grounds from undergrad) and we enjoyed the chance to catch up in person, discussing everything from the ridiculous cost of living in the DC area (I do not miss that) and the difficulties of keeping in close touch with friends spread out over such a large area and with the responsibilities and requirements of our lives and work making it even harder (I keenly and sorely feel that, and not just with them but with many friends). It was, just like the morning, a very good time – and also far too short.

We assembled for the prerequisite photographic evidence, in this case making use of the shade of the superstructure of the camping rig:

They provided legal witness as I affixed Maryland, officially, to the back of the truck (while I also noticed a lack of sticker or space for the District of Columbia):

The third major task for the day: another set of old stomping grounds, but grounds I do not care for. Not one bit. I had the “pleasure” of driving north along Interstate 95 from the DC area through the Baltimore area, messy traffic storm and all. Stopping by the iconic Power Plant Barnes & Noble of Baltimore, MD seemed reasonable, and the Inner Harbor has a surprisingly cheap and sparsely-used parking lot (NOT a parallel parking nightmare). I took in the impressive shrine to capitalism presented by the power plant turned bookstore turned shared advertising for a chain restaurant…

… and then I promptly exited without buying anything from either venue. Having paid for parking, I admired a bunch of ships and a submarine from across the Inner Harbor, as the sun set in the background…

… mostly because the actual point of interest, the famous Baltimore National Aquarium, because it decided to be closed far too early. I was reduced to Christmastime window staring in unmasked frustration and desire, at an exhibit I would be unable to see on this trip. At the very least, the “window” was the entire front of the building, which is basically a gigantic terrarium:

My time in Maryland on this trip was, therefore, at an end. Back into the truck, back through the winding streets of Baltimore, and then back into the great unknown – Delaware.

More specifically, I was heading to the Blackbird State Forest of Delaware for the purposes of a decent night’s sleep. It was a few false starts as none of the roads were labeled in the park, and the most likely candidate road required driving through the ranger’s housing area, the maintenance sheds, the snowplow parking area, AND interpolating that “horse trail parking lot” was a sign which actually meant “drive this way to reach the loop with all the campsites.” No idea how I did not immediately find the campground proper. But I did, and the tent was quickly up – almost as quickly as I was out cold. As the next morning included, there were stickers to earn – the poor signage be damned!

Day 90 – WV to VA. Seneca Rocks + a Friend in Fairfax

Tuesday October 30, 2018 (full photo album here)

The sparse traffic on the nearby road got a bit less spare, and affected a tad of a rumble from a set of semi trucks in a row – this was enough to serve as an unwelcome alarm clock. As lumbering as Mikes can be, I lumbered and (according to some eyewitnesses within a 12 mile radius) grumbled mightily at the noise and equally unwelcomed sunlight. My primal shout of challenge (“boy it is too early!”) went unanswered by the sun; the next semi truck to pass did manage a throaty roar in reply.

No matter.

I emerged blinking and groggy and wrestled the big orange tent into a small black lunchbox of sorts, and squinted as I admired the Seneca Rocks in the clear sunlight:

Was I salty about the clear skies only deigning to clear up hours too late, after the low light pollution of the night skies could have enabled me to bask under the stars… but instead getting an evening of cloud cover? Yes, yes I was. But life is short and unpredictable and not always willing to play ball – so I rolled with those punches and shrugged – there will always be another night of skies to soak in.

For my day’s path, I took the back roads of WV through to Purcellville Virginia, hitting a couple of rounds of construction and/or school traffic. Having been in the Washington DC area for over 5 years I had it in mind to approach DC from a different direction than usual (north or south, functionally) – and I got my wish. As with the Blue Ridge Parkway, I got some spectacular splotches of fall amidst the large swatches of summer holding out – so the handful of images I took did not really come out. And that is, contrary to the implied spirit of this blog, entirely OK. The trip was a blast to document in word, image, and even some video – but the trip was also about embracing many dozens of hours per week in blissful quiet (excepting the delicious diesel drone and carefully calculated podcast choices). So I did a lot of that for this particular day of the trek – and that made for good prep for the intensity of returning to DC traffic with a far larger vehicle than my previous jaunts through that particular federal district.

This traffic was braved for a good cause, however – I was worming my way into the depths of urban traffic, urbane restaurants, and more specifically a restaurant whose logo features a royal headdress of a turban – Jaipur Royal Indian Cuisine. Not just food, either, but a long-overdue meal shared with my old college friend Chris. We laughed and had a grand old time. Then, we tried for an evening photo together behind the truck and the light sensor on the phone was a bit slow. We ended up with a less than happy-looking photo as both frowned at the camera lagging…

… but then we got our best Airplane 2 genial smiles in place and decided we DO want to please the court with a photo, and our unintentionally Indiana Jones vs Major Toht hats atop our heads, our smiley worked out nicely:

I dropped Chris off at the nearly Metro, and seeing him on his way, I saw myself finish the day’s drive.

I ended up at the Comfort Inn of Fairfax VA, not too far in miles albeit far in minutes. Funny, how after so many dozens of nights spent in bear and wolf country; after a night inadvertently spent sleeping up the hill from multiple prison complexes in New Mexico; after flying into the end of Hurricane Lane in Hawaii and driving into the end of Hurricane Michael in Florida… I felt the least safe I had felt in weeks on the trip, parking my truck in the downtown lot of that hotel. It was well-lit, sure – it had video cameras and the Fairfax police force operating all over the place because of how high the population density is. And even so – being in “civilization” had me itching and uncomfortable. No problems with the hot shower and proper bed (those are things I fully embrace) – but the embrace of so many people who were all rendered strangers and disengaged by the vagaries of city life, well, this trip had done nothing if not amplified my prior dislike for such things.

There was a time, not too far in the past, where I genuinely considered the possibility of buying a few light construction tools (a skidsteer and maybe a small excavator) and then packing up all my stuff onto a big trailer which my new Titan can tow – and move somewhere into the wilderness. Build myself a house of my own, by and for myself. Enjoy the peace and quiet and use that as a foundation for making better sense of a confusing and increasingly frenetic world. Somehow in the course of my trip, that desire (frankly an extreme desire) became blunted. That isn’t quite the right word, actually. I think that desire became molded into something new and unexpected, something more productive and engaged with the world (such as it is). Though I do not think I will be able to stomach moving back into the metropolis of Washington DC, I have gained more of a drive to pick a place to go and be and engage. It may not be forever, and it certainly may not be the right place on the first try – but as I will explore in a summary post at the end of the trip’s chronicle, I was realizing by this point on the trip (with a handful of states and provinces left to go) that I had a damned good sense of what those next steps might take me.

But we get ahead of ourselves.

I reached that hotel, parked and hoped for the best in terms of vehicular security, shrugged and walked inside to get a good shower and some decent sleep. When those basic needs are on the line, well, rhapsodizing can wait until tomorrow.

Day 89 – NC to VA to WV. Autumnal Splendor + Cloudy Night Skies

Monday October 29, 2018 (full photo album here)

A lovely start to the day, with a bit of frost on the damp tent walls and a frigid walk to the bathhouse to get me awake and *quickly*!

A hot meal and the physical labor involved in packing up all of the mobile HQ did me some good when it came to warming up – the bright sun did decide to come out but did not deign to warm the air much. No matter.

The Blue Ridge Parkway, as you shall see, turned out to be resplendent – and for once I decided that a few pictures of the photographer might be interesting, if for no other reason than seeing my high utility gained from the tent platform-as-observation tower:

Now, please enjoy some breathtaking glimpses at the autumnal glory of the Blue Ridge Parkway and surrounding rolling hills:

At some point in the day, I pulled off at a highway intersection to partake of a Chipotle competitor called Salsarita’s, which was fairly tasty. The day’s drive restarted, continuing at a nice and slow pace. The right choice – it was just beautiful to soak in while rolling along those hills and valleys.

My intended destination was the gorgeous Seneca Rocks WV, where I had first visited a few years prior. As you can see from those pictures, I had seen breathtaking views of one of the spiral arms of the Milky Way galaxy for the first time in my life, with the naked eye and then captured in photographic form. I had high hopes indeed (one might even say sky-high) to try and capture a sequel evening’s worth of astronomical splendor and glory.

Before that, however, I had a great number of miles to cover. Rolling along, at some point into the night I hit the border of West Virginia and switched over to that uncomfortable nighttime driving in deer country feeling, but which wasn’t quite as scary as it used to be (with moose and elk country far behind me and a gigantic tank’s worth of bumpers). Frighteningly, I rounded a corner in the darkness and panic stopped – the road was strewn with wrecked parts, glass, debris (seemingly tools from the back of the truck bed). I was horrified to peer over the edge of the road and no more than 10 feet below me – an older pickup truck, one headlight still lit, with the cab crunched and smashed and the glass all shattered. 2 of the 4 doors were opened and dangling off of severely fatigued hinges. This was all horrible enough – but even worse, in its own way, was the absolute lack of human presence. I had no way of knowing how long it has been present (there was no radiator leak so I was not seeing steam, there was no fire) but the headlight was still on and that implies it had not been too long sitting there… which made the lack of a person or a body even more perplexing. The crash was *bad* and it wasn’t clear why or how it happened (no deer corpse, no skid marks, no second vehicle) – maybe a creature had been successfully avoided? I called out at the top of my lungs until I was hoarse from the effort, and got no reply. I did not get too close to the truck for fear of poison ivy and uncertainty over the truck’s stability after rolling, but with doors open I could clearly see no person inside. Yikes. Even with my cellular signal booster I was within the valley around the Greenbank Observatory radio telescope (which severely curtails the amount of radio and wireless signals around the telescope, meaning no cell towers) I was not able to make an emergency call from my cell phone. I *raced* up the road and was lucky enough to see a semitruck repair shop on the left side of the road some 15 miles further, operating at close to 1am. I jumped out and asked them to call the police on their land line, explaining what I knew, and with that my encounter with a terrible accident scene was over. I have no idea what happened, but I sincerely hope that the occupant(s) of that truck ended up being alright. If for no other reason than they had limped away from the wreck, I think my hopes are justified.

Tired at the end of a long day and with a somber mood descending after the adrenaline of impromptu search and rescue for that driver, I eventually rolled into the parking lot outside of Seneca Rocks. I added the following sticker the next morning, but I went to sleep overwhelmed by a sense of gratitude at my own safety after so many hours and miles of this trip:

Day 88 – Truck Maintenance Round #3 + the Blue Ridge Parkway in NC

Sunday October 28, 2018 (full photo album here)

Compared to the preceding days, Sunday turned out to be a day of rest after all. Waking up very late indeed, I got my gear arranged and departed for the main task for the day: maintenance. The lovely people at the O’Reilly’s were nice enough to let me do the work in their parking lot (sideways, as the truck is so damned long that I would have had my legs sticking out into the parking lot’s traffic lane):

It took quite some time, not least of all because yours truly made an error and test-started the engine with one fitting loose (… so, as it were, the innards of the engine got liberally baptized with oil). Eventually, though, the work was all done and the engine bay was squeaky clean. A long couple of hours (made longer by some nice old ladies fascinated by the tent set up to dry in the sun) and I made the all too Mike choice of not eating before the labor at hand. Not wise, but so it goes. I buttoned the engine and truck up, and departed Denton NC for a leisurely course across the state to the west.

My mission was simple: enjoy a sizable breakfast at something like 3pm, and then make it to the start of the Blue Ridge Parkway. I settled into the Smoky Mountain National Forest for a slow-paced evening of reading and relaxing. Not a lot of days like this on the trip, but they were all the sweeter when they did happen.

Day 87 – Rebellion + Gold in NC

Saturday October 27, 2018 (full photo album here)

Up and at ’em – in this case, the ’em refers specifically to a couple of fascinating new (to me) sites I checked out in the northern of the Carolinian states.

My first stop was to see the historical site where the Battle of Alamance took place. In short: prior to the American Revolutionary War, there was a serious issue with corruption in the Carolinas and a series of local farmers eventually decided they wouldn’t put up with it any longer. Calling themselves the Regulators, they assembled a force of irregulars and militiamen onto a field…

… and proceeded to get gunned down in a pitched battle with the governor’s troops (including some other militiamen farmers).

There was, in other words, a failed revolutionary effort prior to the Revolutionary War proper, and I had never even heard about it. The things one learns by accident, well, they can be engaging and unbelievable. A few others have made note of it, which is why there is a monument on site (relocated some years ago):

Special thanks to the very thoughtful and attentive folks working on the historical site, for telling a great tale and highlighting the fascinating historical story of that tiny rural field and accompanying visitor’s center.

The other stop for the day was one I only decided on after finishing at the Alamance site, and so I crossed a bunch of the same miles to go to an equally interesting place, the Reed Gold Mine (though, unfortunately, some of the staff there was downright rude, with some others being very friendly – not quite as warm an overall welcome compared to the folks at Alamance). The Reed Mine is interesting for two major reasons – first, that it was the first confirmed discovery of gold on the North American continent (some 200 years after the Spaniards started looking). They even gave us a chance to see inside the historical mines, with original rusty minecart and all:

But the other factoid – the largest gold nugget discovered east of the Mississippi was found here, by accident, after the mine was declared empty…

… and then they made a plaster model of this gigantic hunk of gold and I could not deal with the sheer size of the thing:

I learned about the weird measurement systems used for gold and silver and was again struck by the ways in which so much of what we take for granted (units and systems of management) was, in the not-so-distant-past, an open question which organically developed and then unfolded into the forms we know today:

I would have liked a hot shower but I was not seeing any open sites in campgrounds near me, and instead I settled for the known parking lot in the forest from the night before. At the very least, the familiar would save some time in searching for a place to sleep in the evening. That, and afford me a chance to see and admire what was long my dream vehicle in person (a Land Rover Defender turbodiesel, with a stick shift and the short pickup truck bed, and legally titled for use in the US after being imported from some other country):

I added the North Carolina sticker to the tailgate…

… marveled at seeing my breathe in the cold and rainy air of North Carolina merely days after sweating profusely in Florida…

… and I got the tent set up so I could escape the imminent rain, crawled inside, and played the very engaging FTL: Faster Than Light on my laptop in the dry tent. Odd, how relaxing from speeding along great distances with a lot of command decisions was something I relaxed from by… making a lot of command decisions in a simulator of moving great distances at a fast(er than light) pace. Life is odd like that, sometimes.

Day 86 – SC to NC. Helping raise the American Flag at Fort Sumter + Charleston Aquarium

Friday October 26, 2018 (full photo album here)

[Editor’s note: there are a LOT of solid photos from today, and like usual they can be viewed on Flickr using the link above.]

Sometimes, you just wake up in a Hell Hole [Wilderness Area], and that is just fine. That was my experience, at least, and prompted me to nod in gratitude at another morning started off the right way (no poisonous snakes, no rain, plenty of fresh air and quiet).

From the wilderness, I drove into the belly of the proverbial beast – downtown Charleston SC. I found parking alongside a power plant of some sort and hoofed it over to the mainland visitor’s center for Fort Sumter. I was lucky enough to arrive just before the first ferry of the day, and so I jumped aboard for the trip out into Charleston harbor. We eventually put enough distance behind us to get the Fort in view – it certainly did not look imposing or even all that large from so far away:

We docked and awaited the rangers doing their safety check (among many other places and sites, Fort Sumter was hit hard with Hurricane Michael’s weather and bluster) before we could get off the boat. For the umpteenth time on my trip, I was struck by the lurking and gnawing facts of climate change and what it might mean for our species, so simply and clearly portrayed:

From Civil War cannonballs still lodged into brick walls constructed by slaves…

… to displays explaining how the Civil War truly saw brother fight brother, and [Confederate] student besieging [Union] teacher at Fort Sumter…

… to seeing the original American flag captured at the surrender of the fort and then flown anew when the Civil War had ended…

… and so much more to be learned in the on-site museum and from the park rangers. A lot lurks in the photo album for the day, about the Fort and otherwise.

Helping raise the American flag over Fort Sumter, though, was an unexpected honor and while captured in a photo, is a bit difficult to easily explain with just a photo. They apparently do this every day at the Fort, asking veterans and other volunteers to help raise the American flag over this key site in the unfolding of a long-passed Civil War. The United States has a great many terrible historical realities behind it (and many still in progress) – just like every other government in the history of our species. I am also very thankful for the many freedoms, rights, and responsibilities which have come with the chance of my being born in this country – which was never (and is still not) a guaranteed project – so it was a certain sort of honor to help raise this particular flag, at this particular place:

Eventually, our tour’s time on the island ended, and we piled back aboard to sail to the mainland, to our dock attached to the National Park Service’s site building:

Inside, I was glad to see a very carefully- and thoughtfully-composed series of exhibits about concurrent facts about the conflict, from the ongoing facts of slavery and how they affected/afflicted/warped/shaped the nation from before the Revolutionary War…

… to the political realities of the antebellum period being contentious to the point of a Senator nearly being beaten to death with a cane after a speech, and all the other goings on which led to regions of the country being drawn and redrawn and fought over:

A lot of food for thought; it seemed reasonable to walk next door and check out the truly glorious South Carolina Aquarium:

As the sign in the entryway rightly claimed, I really did go from mountains to the sea and encountered the wildlife denizens along the way…

… from a bald eagle…

… to an inquisitive octopus with Halloween decorations sunk into the tank with him…

… from the 3rd floor terrarium at huge scale…

… to the most unlikely of pals, a puffer fish and terrapin turtle in that saltmarsh terrarium…

… an eye-poppingly white albino alligator…

… a touchy kestrel…

… there was so, so much there, inside that relatively small building. A sea turtle hospital and a series of aquariums big enough to allow for human divers to swim with the schools of fish and sharks as presentations are done. They even have a family of river otters you can watch take a nap (I know I did) – and when you have that, what more do you need?

Pondering that question, I walked back to the truck and was glad to see it was not ticketed, tampered with, or otherwise in peril. Safe enough to warrant adding the South Carolinian marker to my collection:

A good start for the other remaining task of the day – driving up to the Uwharrie National Forest in North Carolina.

Besides not knowing exactly how to pronounce the name of the place, I arrived and did the dance of “well, where exactly CAN I sleep for free and without being woken up by traffic” which was my near-constant companion on the trek. In this case, the hurricane meant that several roads were closed to me and in some cases submerged…

… but after a good 90 minutes of driving around and searching for a spot, I settled into a chilly gravel parking lot nestled into the woods and got set up for an evening of enjoying the pitter and also the patter of raindrops onto tent canvas.

Day 85 – GA to SC to beautiful Hellhole

Thursday October 25, 2018 (full photo album here)

Chilly night gave way to chilly morning, and it was time to emerge from the relative warmth of my tent. The aforementioned heated bathhouse and shower beckoned from right across the road, and I gave into this temptation to get clean and warm up all at once. The process of packing went quickly/slowly, to coin a phrase – I was flying through the steps and then was interdicted by the friendly camp hosts – they were wildly curious about that truck-with-orange-tent-atop-it they had seen from afar. I was more than happy to tell them about the trip and share a few of my hopes and fears – they in turn shared with me how they have been slowly but surely moved from one state to another, working as hosts while exploring, on their own quest to hit all 50.

Yet again on the trip, I was edified by chatting with random strangers who were good and decent and giving – and yet again, I was struck by how this narrative emerging from simply talking to people failed to match up with the fear and loathing encouraged by the 24 hour garbage news cycle.

My next move: driving over to do laundry and stock up on provisions in downtown Elberton GA, and get some postcards done at the laundromat:

The more mundane tasks and chores finished, it was time to go and explore the less mundane – a granite-focused museum in the (self-declared) granite capital of the country, if not the world. I drove over and managed to go into the wrong entrance, for the professional associate of graniteers (not sure they call it that, but it has a nice ring to it, no?).

Take two. I went over to the parking lot for the actual Elberton Granite Association‘s Museum, and felt more confident this time when I saw gigantic granite slabs offering subtle clues about my location:

The inside of the museum was one large room with a lot of thoughtful content presented in every corner of it:

I learned a slew of facts about the various innovations and techniques in cutting and shaping granite, including the rather unlikely fact that most modern cutting is done with water of all things (pressurized water being frighteningly powerful):

The Association owns and operates the Museum, and so it features a smattering of their own advertising over decades, and I rather enjoyed the unexpected hop, skip, and jump through various decades advertising best-practices:

… then the unintended “advertising” of pictures like this one, when a freight train hit a truck transporting Elberton granite and was brought to a dead stop by the sheer weight of the plinth crumpling the front of the train!

I was surprised to see the wide variety in color options possible from the ground’s hidden rocky treasure trove (though, somehow, I doubt that they come out of the ground pre-labeled with etched color names like these):

Very interesting, very informative -my ideal average experience on this trip!

Georgia’s visit was now done, excepting many miles of driving to make it to the next state. I did a bit of Google searching and found the most inviting possible place where I might sleep near Charleston SC – namely, the idyllic, pastoral Hellhole Bay Wilderness Area, which is a portion of the Francis Marion National Forest…

I mean come on – nothing says “safe and comfortable camping area” like sleeping at the corner of Hell Hole Road and Hell Hole Road A. I only regret not having had a copy of the iconic Spinal Tap’s Hell Hole on hand to loop as I drove!

Hell Hole turned out to be one lane’s worth of gravel ruts and low visibility at first…

… until I hit a snag where hurricane damage had dropped enough tree limbs and branches that I wasn’t willing to risk scratching the hell out of the paint on the truck (driving over is not a problem, but scratched paint was a risk too risky, as it were):

So, I did a good 700 feet of reversing to the previous crossroads, and then a bit further out of the wilderness until it was a 2 lane Hell Hole Road. There, next to an intersection of forest roads, I felt I had enough space to squeeze a campsite on the edge of the road (being careful to avoid the tallest grass – poisonous snakes being best seen behind glass, as tomorrow shall showcase):

Or, as it looked without freakishly bright flashlights:

I kept my poisonous snake encounter counter (if you will) to a perfect score of 0 – and I also maintained my high score of “nearly instantaneous” when it comes to falling asleep. Great success.

Day 84 – From FL to the Guidestones of GA

Wednesday October 24, 2018 (full photo album here)

Wake up, pack up, back up, and roll out. You know the drill; at this point, I certainly did.

Day 84 was almost solely a travel day, and one which saw me racing against the shortening autumnal day’s westward arc as I sprinted north and west, to get to Elberton Georgia.

You may be wondering, reasonably: why Elberton? The answer is simple and clear, and that is entirely unlike the origins behind the site: the mysterious Georgia Guidestones.

I will let you read about the site, but suffice to say: some group with tightly-lidded secrecy managed to get land and permission to construct a Stonehenge-esque monument to reason and how to rebuild our species in the event of catastrophe. Constructed on the edge of cattle grazing fields in far rural Georgia.

Now, a portion of the pictures of the monument itself and some of the explanatory text on site (also done in granite):

One might be surprised at the astronomical features built into using these granite plinths, but then you take in the entire site and recognize that it really is meant to help the potential survivors of a possible apocalypse rebuild knowledge of the stars:

To give you a sample of the text and scale, I playacted at Vanna White for a moment:

I was just so excited to visit this intriguing place I had read about years prior:

… and of course I was as much of “a kid at Christmas” as ever, when adding Georgia to the map:

As one can see, I did beat the sunset with enough time to both see the site in proper daylight, but also to be around at the right time to capture the monument in its most Stonehenge showing possible, without the multilingual inscriptions visible:

The deep south may have been my locale, and with rather hot days behind me in Florida, one can imagine my surprise that as I rolled into the Richard B. Russell State Park I was able to see my breath in the chilly evening air. Much as the morning’s ritual was muscle memory, my evening campground reconnoitering saw me drive a lap, pick an open spot (immediately across from the heater bathhouse with heated showers, praise be) and then set myself up. I had snagged a small encore – as Huntsville saw me buy and build a Saturn V, Kennedy saw me buy and now build a small Lego Space Shuttle. Once again, I found myself enter the state of flow from engaging in such a task. Focus on the constructive project at hand and disengage from the worries and stresses of the world. A solid end to a solid day.

Day 83 – Cape Canaveral + SPACESHIPS

Tuesday October 23, 2018 (full photo album here)

[Editor’s note – here starts an end-of-trip streamlining of my blog posts, not because I am tired of editing and writing them months later. Rather, on the trip itself I had to pick up the pace for miles traveled and stressful stops with traffic and confounded timing for visiting places… and so, paradoxically, being on the portion of the continent with the best cellular signal saw me least consistently able to record my full thoughts. In retrospective, I believe that I also began to more deeply embrace the solitude of so many miles and hours, and so being conversant, even in a journal, did not appeal as strongly as before. Nevertheless, I shall try and tell the tale over these posts, in shorter form.]

Having explored the depths of the seas the day prior, I figured I would set my sights skyward. Or, rather, in the immense void hovering above the sky. Space.

But we get ahead of ourselves.

My truly late arrival at the hotel the night prior meant that I had a relatively late start to my day, as I struggled to get out of bed and started. This is surprisingly, honestly, because I was excited-out-of-my-mind about visiting the Kennedy Space Center for the first time in my life. I am, amongst other things, a nerd. This should not be unexpected.

To use the list format and jump through a selection of the fantastic things seen, my time there included:

• The original countdown clock, used for all the Apollo missions, refurbished and then reinstalled at the entrance to the park:

• The aptly-named Rocket Garden, showcasing many of the earliest American rocketry efforts for exploration, manned and unmanned:

• An exhibit of art related to NASA and space engineering:

• The original computers and consoles, saved for decades, used to control John Glenn’s famous flight of 3 orbits around the Earth…

• … along with his original map he had written notes onto, “just in case” he made a wrong turn perhaps?

• A bargain of a deal on a meteor of my very own, if only I had worn my other shorts where I keep the $12,000 in petty cash:

• A prime example of the NASA sense of humor in the form of an award presented to those engineers who figured out how to save the lives of the Apollo 13 crewmen as they limped back home:

• Slightly better-fated, the recovered command module of the Apollo 14 mission:

• A “slightly” old moon rock, recovered on Apollo 17 (humanity’s last visit to our moon):

• The actual original prototype from 1969, which was compelling enough when floating gently to the ground to serve as the basis for the Space Shuttle program (like the remote controlled-airplane at Johnson Space Center which was used to convince of the feasibility of the Space Shuttle being transported atop a 747):

• Speaking of the Space Shuttle, enjoy the Atlantis mounted for all to see and with the iconic Canadarm deployed:

• Learning the surprising fact that current satellites have been miniaturized down to “picosats” as they can be specialized for one core function and thus allow for multiple to be included in a single launch:

(A few deep breaths after a lengthy list of THAT magnitude)

… but that is NOT ALL. Besides having to contain my inner Lego Movie the whole day INSIDE the Space Center… I also was fortunate enough to squeeze in the bus tour. Outside, I enjoyed a few more list-worthy items:

• A massive alligator, perhaps 15′ in length, and barrel-chested with dinosaur-grade armor plating:

• A glimpse inside the gargantuan assembly building where Saturn V rockets and Space Shuttles were once prepped, and where Space-X and other private rockets are now being assembled in preparation for launch at the Cape Canaveral spaceport (a thrilling scifi phrase, but describing real life):

• Specialized spark-free gravel from Alabama, still bearing the treadmarks of the mammoth crawler-transporters used to move spacecraft from assembly to the launchpad:

There are a slew of other fascinating moments – many of them were captured in photos and can be seen and read about in the linked photo album for the day. Moreso than any one engaging moment or exhibit, though, this day highlighted for me a vital fact.

Namely: our species is capable of an astonishing level of callous disregard, violence, despair, and sometimes evil. But we have also accomplished some nigh-miraculous achievements, and being immersed in a sea of them (many within the past ~80 years, barely a blink of the historical eye) really humbled me. We do a lot of things poorly or even wrong, but somehow we manage to do other things correctly. Perhaps there is still hope of some sort or another, for this big human family.

For something less heady, I found a pizza place where I got a bargain on a humongous dinner slice of pizza which was left over from lunch (and tasted like it, too):

To close out a lengthy and lovely day, I figured on a night time drive to the Osceola National Forest to find a place to sleep. The sun set, the forest loomed, the unmarked National Forest road with viable pull-off (and in this case, evidence of prior campers) all did their typical dance. I set up and got ready to sleep and recharge.

Day 82 – Key West + Turtles + Dolphins + Pie

Monday October 22, 2018 (full photo album here)

I woke up mighty early and quickly walked over to the camp office to settle up for the spot/avoid the draconian penalties implied for failure to pay before sleeping there. Thankfully, the lady running the campground turned out to be a sweetheart and there was no problem. She suggested I get on the road quickly if I wanted to see Key West, given that the Fantasy Fest was gearing up and thus traffic had swelled. And so I did. I enjoyed the view on the Seven Mile Bridge as I went…

… and eventually made it. I was fully turned off by the tourism in full swing around me, and decided on a drive-by GPS coordinate grab of the southernmost point in the US:

No parking and a line of people waiting for selfies = not the right fit for me. Not one bit. North I went, on a trajectory which would see me end up in sub-Arctic Iqaluit less than one month hence.

With the bulk of the day ahead of me, I resolved to stop at the things which had intrigued me on my zesty southbound approach. First and in a nod to my childhood favorite animal, I could not help but visit the Sea Turtle Hospital and Research Center:

The grounds featured all manner of iguana denizens…

… but besides the informative learning exhibit, I had gone for the tour of the hospital and recovery tanks. I was not disappointed one bit, and may have felt my heart melt slightly at these beautiful and rather unintelligent creatures just surviving, with a lot of human help:

We even had the chance to feed the patients in the main tanks:

There was a turtle ICU, with poor creatures suffering more intense ailments. The most surprising: a sea turtle which had eaten a live eel and the eel survived, blocking the digestive system of the turtle until it was surgically removed by the vets (as outlined in yellow):

On the side of the ocean, we encountered the hatchery – where turtle eggs saved by beachgoers which did not hatch on their own are given a chance to hatch and allow the babies to build a bit of strength before release into the ocean. They are remarkably tiny fellows:

I highly recommend checking out their website to learn more – this non-profit is the premier source of research info and has saved over 1000 of these creatures in over 30 years. It made my heart sing to again encounter some good in this world. Plus, if ever I have a qualified civic aquarium, I can get a free disabled sea turtle shipped to me for free (courtesy of a partnership with FedEx) in return for caring for it for the rest of its life (as some injuries prevent release back to the wild)! Another life goal grafted onto me, because of this trek, I s’pose.

Next up: house-made ice cream AND key lime pie at Sweet Savannah’s, to help with the heat of the day and because delicious:

The dessert emporium was a few buildings from the Turtle Hospital, and then a few doors further north was the Dolphin Research Center. Without further ado, enjoy the sight of dolphins having an absolute blast as echo rainstorms from Hurricane Michael dumped rain off and on:

Trainers and other visitors were around, but for more than one moment I was transfixed by the intelligence and playful personality exploding from these mammalian relatives of the oceans:

To be fair – the park also housed a few seals and sealions who were less amenable to photos based on the stinkeye I got:

The trainers’ last exhibit of the day involved the clear intelligence of the dolphins, as they tossed out multiple dissimilar items (a wand, a ring, a q-tip shaped float) and then the dolphins each had to figure out how to gather and carry those multiple items on their snouts. Most impressive of all, perhaps? We got a wave goodbye:

Heartstring tugging was not quite done – in the gift shop, a photo from a month prior, as the owners of a dog bred from Lassie’s line brought it and a dolphin from Flipper’s line, without prompting, had come unusually close to examine the visitor. Fiction < fact:

I continued north. Back where I started, on Key Largo, I figured I would try to squeeze in one more visit for the day. The John Pennenkamp Coral Reef State Park was unfortunately closed for any of the tours (glass bottom boats and so forth) but I figured I would spend at least a little time on a Floridian beach. Luckily it was still legitimate Florida and had real-Florida-warnings:

It even featured real-Florida storm clouds a-rollin’:

I headed north again and stopped for a Cuban dinner of great flavor and service. This trip being an prolonged exercise in “how often can one eat AND run,” I clocked in a rather speedy meal and was back on the road.

My destination: someone near Cape Canaveral, to try and camp close to the Kennedy Space Center.

My reality: once again being foiled in my evil, nefarious plots (“pay money to camp in a campground”) by Floridian tendencies to close campgrounds and bar the gates. In case of Mongolian invasion maybe? “Just In Case?” I know not:

Editing this and the past few days of posts in February 2019, it is hard for me to believe how many things I saw and miles of driving I crammed into any given day… and I did it. So you will understand, then, how my failure to secure a campground was leavened with exhaustion. The outcome: I settled in for a night at the Best Western of Titusville Florida and didn’t think twice about it.