Driving the Blue Ridge Parkway

A beautiful Appalachian highway remembered

On our way home from a visit to Washington D.C. in 2007, we spent an afternoon on the Blue Ridge Parkway. The Blue Ridge Parkway starts at Afton, Virginia and ends in the Great Smokey Mountains National Park, near Waynesville, North Carolina. We drove the northernmost 55 miles of the Parkway, from Afton to Buena Vista, in Virginia.

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about someone asking me, "What's the most beautiful place you've ever seen?" The Blue Ridge Parkway is one of the places I remembered when I thought about my answer to that question. The scenery is far more beautiful than my photos suggest. You really should look at some of the lovely photos of the Blue Ridge Parkway on Flikr.

We drove slowly and stopped many times to enjoy the spectacular views. It was early April, and the weather was chilly. Patches of snow lay here and there. The trees didn't have their leaves yet. It was very quiet up there, and we rarely saw another car. Sometimes we looked into the distance and saw the farms and highways and towns of the Shenandoah Valley far below us. They seemed very far away and unreal, as if we were catching a glimpse of the modern world from some point in the distant past.

We turned off the Blue Ridge Parkway when we reached the road to Buena Vista, I was surprised that the descent into the valley was so steep. Signs along the road advised truckers how far it was to the next runaway truck ramp. (If a truck's brakes fail while coming down the mountainside, the driver can plow it into a long bed of deep gravel to stop it.)

From there, this story continues downhill, so to speak. I had caught a bad cold in Washington D.C., and during our afternoon on the Blue Ridge Parkway, I had started running a fever. I was eager to pull in for the night, so we stopped at the first motel we saw in Buena Vista. It was the worst motel we've ever stayed in (in the U.S., anyway,) but I felt too sick to look any farther. The one redeeming feature of the place was the cheap price.

I asked for more pillows because the ones on the bed were so flat. The motel manager grudgingly produced one more pillow, and it was just as flat as the rest of them. The room was very chilly, and the heater didn't seem to work. The bathroom had no ventilating fan, so when we showered, clouds of steam filled the room and dampened our blankets.

During the night, I woke up and realized that I was even sicker. I could hardly breathe or swallow. I ached all over, and my chest hurt when I coughed. I remember thinking that I had to get out of that horrible room, before I died there.

I took this photo of the Blue Ridge as we left the motel early the next morning. I was still very sick. I know that when we came through the Cumberland Gap into Kentucky, we drove up to the overlook where I took a few pictures. For the rest of the trip home, I have neither memories nor photographs.

When we finally arrived home, I left the unpacking to Dennis and Isaac. I came into the house and fell in bed, and I slept for the next several days in a feverish stupor. After I finally recovered, I realized that someone should have taken me to the doctor!

I know that my little tale about the Blue Ridge Parkway ends strangely, but that's how it is sometimes with true stories.

A Hurricane Memory

Medieval night with Hurricane Rita

Tonight, the very muggy weather and the threat of Hurricane Isaac is giving me déjà vu. I've never experienced the full force of a hurricane firsthand. But I did have a surreal secondhand hurricane experience, one humid night in southern Tennessee that comes to mind tonight

Keely was still in college in September 2005, and she was a member of  SCA (Society for Creative Anachronism), a medieval reenactment group. Her group was attending a reenactment near Columbia, Tennessee, so Isaac and I went along. We arrived late on Friday night in torrential rain, and decided to sleep in a motel instead of setting up our tent in the downpour.

On Saturday, the sun was shining. We drove out to the site, found Keely's group, set up our tent, put on our medieval garb, and had a very hot, humid day of medieval entertainment and activity.  That night, we enjoyed a nice medieval meal with several courses. That ended the official activities, so Isaac and I wandered back to our tent and settled in for the night.

Hurricane Rita, September, 2005

It was still very humid as we lay down to sleep. There was a reason for all that humidity: Hurricane Rita was hitting the Gulf Coast that night. But steamy or not, the weather was friendly in our curious camp in the woods. At midnight, dozens of people in medieval clothing were still gathered around the embers of bonfires, talking and laughing and enjoying homemade wine and mead.

I couldn't sleep, so I turned on my little radio and put on my headset. The emergency broadcast of a Mississippi radio station was coming in clearly, and I listened to it for the rest of the night. Tornadoes, high water, toppled trees, downed electric lines, impassable roads, emergency vehicles-- I participated in a long, dangerous night on the Gulf Coast of Mississippi, as I tossed and turned and dozed in my tent. The hurricane in my ears that night was the closest thing to a real hurricane that I've ever experienced.

At daylight, the radio waves became faint, and static overrode the voices.  I turned off my radio and got up from my air mattress, tired and sticky. The camp was quiet at last, except for the twitter of birds and a few loud snores.

We packed our tent and headed back to Kentucky. Somewhere between Columbia and Nashville, we stopped at a Waffle House and had an exceptionally good breakfast. I mentioned that Waffle House breakfast to Isaac a few weeks ago and he remembers it, too.

Oh yeah, definitely surreal.

I do not mean to speak lightly of the dangerous, very real hurricane that people faced that night. As I remember the terrible storm I heard described on the radio, my thoughts and prayers are with everyone in the path of Hurricane Isaac. Please be careful.

Related:
Hurricane Ike in Christian County, KY

Discovery by Dowsing

Anecdotes vs. data

Along life's way, I've heard many interesting stories about water dowsers, and I've had a few personal experiences with the art.

• When I was growing up in Nebraska, my dad always called the Gudgel brothers* when he needed a new well. My dad showed them the general site, and they used a dowsing stick to determine the best spot before they drilled.
• At his ranch in Kansas, my brother successfully dowsed for underground water pipes and avoided some unnecessary exploratory digging. 
• Telling me about my brother's dowsing, my father put two wires in my hand and tried to show me how to use them. He wanted me to feel the electric current in the ceiling fan overhead. I was unable to sense it.
• I watched my Mennonite neighbor hold his pocket watch by its chain (a pendulum) and follow the underground water vein on which our old well in the yard was hand-dug. (At least, he said so.)

Woodcut from Georgius Agricolas'
"De re metallica libri XII"
(Wikimedia image, from a 16th
century German mining manual.)

Dowsers find many sorts of anomalies in the earth -- water and water pipes, sewer lines, septic tanks, buried cables, oil, veins of ore, graves, caves, tunnels, buried treasure, lost objects, and much more**. An internet search for "dowsing" will find hundreds (thousands!) of success stories.

Water dowsing is such a common practice that the U.S. Geological Survey, a branch of the Department of the Interior, has even published a pamphlet about it. In the early 1900s, they also published a book about the history of dowsing. While they discourage reliance on dowsing to find water, they don't outright condemn it.

But many scientists doubt that dowsers can find much of anything with their rods, sticks, pendulums, and so on. Stories abound, but stories are not data. When put to the test, it seems that dowsers find things mainly when they dowse in locations where it would be hard not to find those things.

During the 1980s, an extensive, well-funded study of water dowsing was conducted by a group of physicists in Munich, Germany. The group included members who were skeptical to dowsing and members who were sympathetic, so the study could not be called "unfriendly." Variables were carefully controlled, and double blinds were employed. The results were conclusive -- the dowsers were unable to detect water. In fact,  "it is difficult to imagine a set of experimental results that would represent a more persuasive disproof of the ability of dowsers to do what they claim." (J. T. Enright, "Testing Dowsing: The Failure of the Munich Experiments." Published in Skeptical Inquirer, Volume 23.1, January / February 1999)

I've read a dozen success stories tonight about grave dowsing, but I have to wonder how many of the found graves were opened to see if remains were actually there. A report by the Iowa State Archaeologist lists cemetery after cemetery where grave dowsing failed. In some cases, graves were indicated by dowsers, but no remains were found when the ground was excavated. In other cases, remains were found where dowsers said there were no graves. The State Archaeologist advises, "My final recommendation is for cemetery caretakers to stop using dowsing."

I had always imagined that dowsing was a natural ability that you might be born with, just as one might have an inborn talent for dancing or for learning foreign languages. I'm a bit disappointed at the lack of scientific evidence for dowsing. If I had to locate an underground pipe -- well, I guess I'd call 811 -- or my brother.

-----------------------
* When my dad was growing up, his family and the Gudgels were neighbors in the Nebraska Sandhills, south of Wood Lake and Johnstown. Amos Gudgel was one of the homesteaders of eastern Cherry County. His sons who were well-drillers were Francis and/or Bill (as I recall!)  I could definitely be wrong about their names, so please don't hesitate to set me straight.


** I learned in my recent reading about dowsing that it's not just a popular way to find water on the farm. Dowsing is also a New-Age, "spiritual", pagan art, practiced for power. Some even claim that they can predict the future, influence the actions of others, and find success and love through dowsing. To them, it really is "witching", another name that dowsing is sometimes called.

The Whistlestop Flasher

Efficient advertising

On the east side of the train tracks in Hopkinsville, when you're waiting for a train to go by at night, you can see the Whistlestop Donuts sign between the cars as they pass. As the train picks up speed, the bright yellow sign flashes at an increasingly urgent rate: "Whistlestop Donuts! Donuts! Donuts!" This phenomenon is not quite a subliminal message (it's not below the threshold of conscious thought), but it does very effectively lure the mind into sugary, deep-fried fantasies.

Overheard

Time flies.

At the store, I overheard this confused conversation between a 50-ish woman and her 30-ish daughter.

Mom: It's been at least a century since I bought new towels.

Daughter: No, it has not been a century, Mom! You got new towels when you redid the bathroom. That was seven years ago.

Mom: Well, I guess you're right. It seems like it's been over a century, though.

I have noticed that entire months slip by very quickly. Does that relate? I'm not sure.

Over a century ago
(Flickr image by peagreengirl)

For What It's Worth

Fifteen minutes of fame, sort of

Wikipedia has at least three links to Prairie Bluestem articles:

• "Hopkinsville L&N Railroad Depot" links to "Hopkinsville's Railroad".
• "Ethel Hays" links to "Puzzle Pages Workbooks Remembered".
• "Alice and Jerry" links to "Alice and Jerry Readers".

All it proves is that those topics are so obscure, they couldn't find much other information online. Nonetheless, it entertains me. And, with those links and $5, I could probably get a Frappuccino®.

Seen at the Grocery Store

Genealogy nuts 

So, dear family and friends, you think I've become a little obsessed lately with researching the family tree, hmmm?  Please note that this plate is on someone else's car, not mine.

And even though I was quite curious about who owned this plate, I did not go into the grocery store and ask likely-looking shoppers, "Are you the genealogy nut?"

However, if I had seen this person at the car, I would have asked what family names he/she was researching.

No Stone Unused

Recycled tile flooring

Part of an old foundation, seen in Hopkinsville, KY

David Blaney vs. the Reads and Maxwells

Sad end of a little family

I came across an interesting abstract of an old will, and became curious about the circumstances behind it. The will was written by David Blaney in Isle of Wight County, Virginia, about 210 years ago. He named his wife, son, and mother as legatees (beneficiaries) but placed a curious restriction upon his wife (see the clause I have italicized below):

BLANEY, David: Leg. wife Helen; son Cadwallader; to my mother my estate in Isle of Wight called "Sprinfield;" my wife must not acknowledge or keep up the least connection with any of the family by the name of Maxwell or Read, Mr. Benjamin Payne, his wife and children excepted; to William Pennock, Jr.; copies of my will to be sent my brother Asa Blaney in New England, in the care of William Lee, Esq.; Col. Godwin's son and Mr. Benjamin Payne to assist in selling my estate; refers to property in the hands of Dr. Foushee of Richmond, bond of General Lee's and the deed for "Chesterville," of which Col. William Moore and his son are agents; to James Payne, son of Benjamin. Exs., William Pennock, Esq. and brother Asa Blaney. D. ----------
R. February 4, 1799
Wit: Benjamin Payne, Brewer Godwin, Alexander Wilson.
Security: John R. Read and James Maxwell.

Quoted from Wills and Administration of Isle of Wight County, Virginia, 1647-1800, Books 1-3, by Blanche Adams Chapman. Copyright 1938. Page 312 (as viewed on Google Books.) Emphasis added.

I suppose that David Blaney had some kind of feud or hard feelings with the Reads and Maxwells. I wonder if he would have been angry that John R. Read and James Maxwell posted the security bonds for the executors of the estate.

I'm nosy, so I tried to locate more  information about the Blaneys. I didn't find much. The abstract infers that David Blaney passed away sometime before the recording date of February 4, 1799. A Find-a-grave photo of a headstone indicates that Helen Blaney died on May 16, 1799. Apparently Helen was pregnant at the time that her husband died. An infant daughter named Helen Maria Read Blaney, six weeks old, died on June 25, 1799. Little Cadwallader Blaney died on August 24, 1799.

The little girl's name makes me wonder if Helen Blaney's maiden name was Read. Maybe the Reads were her family on her dad's side and the Maxwells were her family on her mom's side. Maybe David Blaney was angry at his in-laws for some reason -- all of them, except for the Benjamin Payne family.

Images from Wikipedia

Whatever the case, Blaney's attempt to control his wife from the grave seems petty -- to me, in my day and age. It was also pointless, but of course, he didn't foresee that his wife would outlive him by only a few months.

And why am I looking at Isle of Wight will abstracts?  I've traced one line of my mother's family back to Thomas Taberer (1616-1692), who was my 8th great grandfather. He immigrated to Virginia around 1650 from England and lived in Isle of Wight County. His will included the children of his wife's widowed sister (or cousin?), along with his own daughters and grandchildren.

Isle of Wight article at Wikipedia
Thomas Taberer in the 1919 Encyclopedia of Virginia
Will of Thomas Taberer (scroll down to "VI Supplementary Records")

Lasters Art Shack Fantasy Minivan

Product of a fertile imagination

I spotted this fantasy minivan in the Big Lots parking lot in Hopkinsville, KY. It had Christian County, KY, license plates. Somehow, I missed photographing the front fender on the driver's side.

I hope the minivan's owners drive defensively, because other drivers will be staring at their vehicle, not watching the road!

Googling for "Lasters Art Shack" turns up this interesting website. On Flickr, you can view more photos of the van. 

Mushrooms, Mottled with Purple

Unidentified Kentucky mushroom

Dozens of these brown and purple mushrooms have sprung up under the old maple tree. I suppose that the spores were lying on the ground, waiting for perfect conditions, and the several quick, hard rains of last week  activated them. Obviously, they like hot, steamy weather.

I have searched the internet for a couple of hours, trying to find an identified mushroom that looks like these. I've looked at photographs of hundreds of mushrooms, but I haven't found a single one that resembles these at all. Maybe these mushrooms are an unusual variety. Or maybe I'm not recognizing them when I see them in someone else's photograph..

It could be that I'm just not searching with the right terms. It's hard to describe them. Are they orange, copper, brown, or tan? Purple or violet blotches, spots, or mottling?

It wouldn't surprise me to learn that these mushrooms are usually found around old trees whose roots are rotting. Our old maple tree is in decline. It has taken a beating in several ice storms and it's leaning southeast. That's a good direction, if it must lean; our house is on the west side of the tree.

UPDATE 6/30/10

Here are a couple of views of the bottom of one of the mushrooms. I really had to search around to find one that was still fresh. All of them have gone dark brown on their top skins, and I only found one little mushroom that hadn't gone brown on its underside. It is smaller than any of the mushrooms in the photo at top. Isaac brought home a pocketful of Euro change from Germany, and the coin in the photo is one of those -- more or less the size of a half-dollar coin.

The flesh is yellow all the way through. The little dip in the outer margin of the mushroom cap seems to be a feature of the species.  In some of the larger mushrooms that I pulled up while trying to find a fresh one, the stem seems to be set to one side, because the dip was deep and spread-open.

Overheard at the Grocery Store

Preschooler humor

In the cereal aisle, I saw a little boy walking hand-in-hand with his mom. The little boy was having a giggle attack. "I'm going to call Daddy 'STUPID'!" he announced.

"That wouldn't be very nice," his mother said.

Another giggle attack. The little fellow could barely sputter out the rest of his joke. "I'm going to call Daddy 'Stupid' and I'm going to call you 'THE BUNNY RABBIT'!"

I didn't get to hear Mom's response to that.

Ghost of Vulcan's Anvil

A weird cloud in the sunset sky

The story of Vulcan from Roman mythology

Fire in a Pile of Hay Bales

Spontaneous combustion of hay

Our neighbor had some bad luck last week with a large stack of big round bales. Apparently the hay was not dry enough when he baled and stacked it. A few days later, the stack of bales ignited.

Our volunteer fire department responded and sprayed the bales with water. The farmer pulled the bale pile apart with a tractor to allow the bales to cool. The smoke from the fire could be smelled for a mile or more, and the bales smoldered for several days.

Hay fires like this are all too common, and they are usually caused by baling and/or storing hay before it is fully cured (dried). The hay can also self-heat and combust if it becomes wet in storage.

The problem is that bacteria and mold grow on wet hay, causing it to ferment and producing flammable gases and heat. Also, as the hay dries, it goes through a natural chemical process called "sweating" in which it releases moisture and heat.

In a stack or pile of hay, the heat from fermenting and sweating cannot escape. The internal temperature can increase to the point that the hay will blacken, smolder, or even burst into flames.

The hay is spoiled even if it just warms up and turns a little brown. It loses most of its nutrients, and of course, livestock prefer not to to eat it.

This sort of combustion can occur in a hay pile of any size. Some of us have seen this in small scale with green lawn clippings or a compost pile.

This farmer lost a lot of hay, but at least he didn't lose a barn. I remember a barn fire that was caused by wet hay bales when I was a child. I was with my mother when she noticed smoke coming from a neighbor's barn and alerted him. The men from nearby ranches gathered and fought the fire, but the barn burned down. (This was on the Ray Ranch at Rose, Nebraska, in the late 1950s or early 1960s when Jay and Martha Hixson were running it.)

Read more on the web:
Cooperative Extension System bulletin "Spontaneous Combustion in Hay Poses Danger"

Bug Eyes

Jeepers creepers, where'd you get those peepers?

Seen in Hopkinsville, KY

Bad Signs

Seen in a town that shall remain nameless

I've been looking at this sign for about a year now. I think the owners of the store speak English as a second language. Still, you'd think they'd have noticed by now. It might be my duty to tell them.

I wonder -- how do you meatloaf fry a chicken? I'm intrigued. I'm also glad there's much more on the buffet because that chicken could be really strange.

Modesty on the Clothesline

Hanging out the laundry

A lady told me about her recent vacation in San Francisco. She was shocked, she said, to see underwear hung out to dry on balconies above busy streets. She guessed she was old-fashioned because she would never pin her underwear to a clothesline and put it on display to the world. It wasn't modest.

This amused me a little because this lady is no shrinking violet. She spent a number of years driving 18-wheelers all over the nation with her husband. She's a plain-spoken person without airs, and she's about 15 years younger than me. Of all the things that she might have been shocked at in San Francisco, I wouldn't have predicted underwear on clotheslines.

When I thought about it, I couldn't remember seeing any sort of underwear hanging on the clotheslines at Mennonite and Amish homes. I can say with certainty that they hang cloth diapers outside to dry, but beyond that, I'm not sure.

When I used a clothesline faithfully for a number of years, I hung out the whole family's underwear. I usually hung the undergarments on an inside line, behind the sheets or towels.

We live in the country. The clothesline was barely visible from the road, but someone who drove into our yard might have seen the laundry well enough to identify individual pieces. To be honest, I wasn't too worried about it.

I asked Isaac (my 19-year-old son) what he thought about underwear hanging in plain view on the clothesline. He says that if he ever sees anything like that, he's going to lodge a complaint with the board of governors immediately. He also says that the only good weapon for fighting something like that is satire. Whatever, Isaac.

Laundry day at a Mennonite home

Homeless Gnomes

Waiting for a garden of their own

I'm a softie for gnomes, because they remind me of German gardens. I own a couple of gnome musicians from Germany whom I do not allow to go outside. They content themselves with playing gnomish flute and concertina music for a garden of houseplants.

The gnomes in the photo are living at Hobby Lobby in very cramped quarters. Some of them look a bit anemic. They need a better home and garden -- you should adopt them! Well, a few of them, at least. Don't be like the lady with 200 gnomes in her front garden. Even with garden gnomes, moderation is good.

Related post:
"Gnomes in the News" includes a photo of one of my gnome musicians.

Gnome game:
10 Gnomes -- Flash puzzle. Zoom in and hunt for the gnome any place the cursor changes to a hand. Zoom out by clicking in the "go back" area at the bottom of the screen. Oh, you can waste some time here.

More gnomes in the news:
"Gnome Sweet Gnome"

Folk Masonry Seen in Henderson, KY

Eccentric brickwork

This modest little house in Henderson, KY, would be quite ordinary if its brickwork ran in straight, horizontal lines. However, as you can see (click the photo for a closer look), the bricks are laid in a very curious way.

The bricks at the corners are set mostly straight and square, but in the rest of the wall, the lines of brick and mortar meander around the stones. It's an interesting example of what I'd call eccentric brickwork or folk masonry.

I saw this little house last fall when my son Isaac and I camped at the Audubon State Park at Henderson for a couple of days. I'm planning to post more of the photos from that little excursion later this week.

Update:
When I got the top photo ready to post, I overlooked the photograph below of a more spectacular example of eccentricity in brick and stonework. As I recall, this home was near the one in the other photo.

Related posts:
Audubon State Park
Sunset Over the Ohio River

Ominous Odometer

666, thrice.

On my way to town tonight, I pulled up to a stopsign and glanced at the dashboard. The odometer had such a surprising number that I photographed it --66666.

The number 666, traditionally associated with the "number of the beast" in Revelations, appears three times within the number 66666. If I believed in bad omens, I suppose I'd be worried about even seeing that number.  

But maybe 666 isn't even the correct bad number. Recent research on ancient Biblical documents indicates that the number of the beast might be 616, not 666.

Furthermore, there are several views among Christian theologians as to the real identity of the beast. My church (Lutheran Church Missouri Synod -- LCMS) teaches that the beast was a symbol of the Roman Empire that was persecuting Christians mercilessly at the time that Revelations was written.

For more information about the book of Revelations as the LCMS understands it, see "A Lutheran Response to the Left Behind Series" (pdf, 908KB).

That odometer reading does worry me a little though. My car's a few miles overdue for an oil change, and I need to get that done soon!