The BoneBlog

So tonight, on a whim, Greg and I went to Roller Derby. I used to watch Roller Derby every Sunday night when it was on while I was growing up. And this is what transpired:

____________________________________

Michelle:  Ooooh, looky at those cheerleaders. I wonder what it takes to be one of those cheerleaders?

Greg:  Well...I don’t think they set the bar very high.

Michelle: Dare me to go down there and pick up some pom-poms?

Greg: Uh, no.

Michelle: Ready?! O.K.! [pose]

___________________________________

Bartender 1:  [unintelligible, but shouting from across the bar, then] You weren’t here doing your job!!

Bartender 2: Oh, yeah?! Well, I’m here now, so what do you want? Huh? What????!!!!

Greg:  Um, ahem, did you say you were going to give me back my credit card now?

Bartender 2: Oh. Yeah. Sorry.

Michelle, to Bartender 2: You should totally kick that guy’s ass.

__________________________________

Greg:  Oh, man…this is boy roller derby. What’s up with that?

Michelle: Why do you think I brought you here? heh.

Greg:  I want to watch girls beat each other up. If I wanted to watch boys beat each other up, I’d have stayed at the bar.

_________________________________

Greg:  Oh look, now it’s girl roller derby!

Michelle: You know, I think I’m kind of built for roller derby.

Greg:  I think you’re built better than most girls for roller derby.

Michelle: [the look] Most girls, huh?

Greg:  I mean, you know what I mean. That came out wrong.

 

 

Was all this worth the $20 and several rounds of circle-the-parking-lot-for-a-space?

 

You betcha.

ARNOLD, MO – The family awoke in Kentucky at 6 a.m. raring to go. Remember, they had packed up everything possible the night before.

After hitching up, our travelers made a brief visit to the dump station.

“Hehehe,” Michelle snickered. “’Brief?’ Hey reporter, Greg’s giving you the stink-eye!”

It’s true, he was, for as it was Greg’s solemn vow to handle the dumping of the black tanks, it was Greg who had the pleasure of dealing with the clog. Yes, the clog.

“Yeah, so uh, after he wrassled around with the sewage hose and all for about 40 minutes, we actually left the campground at 7:30,” said Michelle.

Nevertheless, the family made it home before lunch. Sort of.

Michelle reports, “I was running out of snacks for Ethan. Let’s just leave it at that,”

Once home, after wearily dragging themselves inside, Greg looked out back and said, “Uh, Michelle, have you seen your garden?”

Now, mind you, Michelle has been worried about the fate of her garden during her absence.

“Yeah,” Greg said, “I think she’s mentioned that to me every single day of the trip. No, really. Every single day.”

“We put a LOT of work into that garden this year,” Michelle protested, “so in my defense, I think my concern was justified. Besides, I’m convinced our neighbor has been planting Johnson grass in there during previous vacations. Aside from that, between the work for the raised beds, the detailed garden journal, the extra care to plan everything out…if I lost that garden, why, it’d spell disaster for me. Failure. So when Greg asked if I’d seen the garden, I didn’t know if it was good or bad.”

So, panic-stricken, she looked.

And, after a little cleaning up, supporting of the tomatoes, collecting the ripened tomatoes, etc., here is what Michelle saw:

“We are all grateful for that, I assure you,” observed Greg. “If she had seen what she’s seen in previous years, we’d have all had hell to pay.”

And now, a note:

Thanks to everyone who looked after our place for us while we were gone. It’s so nice to come home to a place that doesn’t require a ridiculous amount of work just to make it habitable again.

Total trip mileage: 3,035.0
MPG: 12.92

KENTUCKY – The Family arrived the evening of Day Thirteen at Grayson Lake State Park in Kentucky.

“Nothing much to say about it,” observed Michelle, “except this: why is it that Virginia and Kentucky don’t allow the public use or display of alcohol, when they are well known for their cigarettes and bourbon?”

Good question.

On Day Fourteen they awoke and promptly went to the nearest Shoney’s for breakfast. Yes, our chain-avoiding family has a weakness for Shoney’s.

“What can we say?” asked Greg, “We like the breakfast bar every few months. It’s a matter of nostalgia for both of us.”

So they pigged out accordingly and drove the rest of the day, arriving at Nolin Lake State Park near Mammoth Cave that evening.

“Still in Kentucky,” observed Greg. “Still no public use or display of alcohol. But we have lots of red cups.”

Shh. Don’t tell anyone.

The Family ended up here out of a desire to see Mammoth Cave National Park. On Day Fifteen, they did precisely that.

“Okay, so first we go up to the Visitor Center and it’s under construction, so if you wanted to see exhibits and history and such (which we did, that’s how we roll), you were shit out of luck,” said Michelle.

“And then before we could go on a cave tour we had to soak our shoes to avoid tracking white nose syndrome around in the cave because OF COURSE we have been in a cave within the last five years, we’re from MISSOURI,” added Greg.

Then Michelle commented, “Yes, so we sat there with our feet in plastic containers full of Lysol solution feeling the way it feels when a cop pulls you over and you’re sitting there, embarrassed, while everyone drives by gawking.”

“Oh, you know that feeling well, do you?” inquired Greg.

“Heh. Not nearly as well as you do,” retorted Michelle. Then she continued, “What was surprising to me was that more people weren’t doing it. Surely of the hundred or so people on our tour, there were more than about eight who’d been in a cave in the last five years. Huh. Guess the rules don’t apply to them,”

Our Family, however, is fond of bats, so they happily soaked their  shoes.

So how was it?

“Well…” Michelle hesitated. “Listen, the guides were very nice, and all…”

“Yeah, but we were pretty disappointed,” Greg said. “Outside of the sheer magnitude of Mammoth Cave, there were hardly any cool formations. The best part of the trip was probably the ferry across the Green River.”

Dejected, the Family returned to camp.

“You know, if you’d never seen a cave before, you’d be really impressed,” said Michelle. In fact, that evening at the campground she told another family just that – they were from Detroit and sure enough, had never seen a cave. “Oh, then you’ll probably have a fantastic time,” Michelle assured them. “It’s just that, well, the ocean is a big deal but if you lived by the ocean, it wouldn’t be. Y’know? That’s how most caves are to Missourians.”

“I felt kind of guilty for not viewing Mammoth Cave as the treasured resource it is rumored to be,” Michelle said.

Fortunately, they didn’t feel like spoiled asses for long.

“Another family in the campground asked us how we liked it. We hesitated, but went ahead and expressed our disappointment. Go figure, they said they, too, were let down.”

After that disappointment, Michelle and Greg were eager to get home. At an impromptu Family meeting, Parents floated the possibility of leaving that afternoon. Naturally, the Kids protested. After much deliberation (decisions do not come easily to These People), they decided  they might as well just go ahead and stay. The Kids were desperate to swim, so the Parents reluctantly obliged.

“Yeah, I got in that lake and after the second crawdad skittered across my foot – and the first one pinched me, mind you – I’d had enough,” Michelle said.

So she sat on the bank and read a book while Greg and the kids frolicked in the lake.

“Frolicked, my ass,” Greg grumbled. “I was ready to leave as soon as we got here.”

Even so, after pulling the kids out of the lake and eating dinner, they made the best of it.

And for the Family, that can mean only one thing. Ice cream!

 

“The funniest thing to happen there, aside from the proprietor’s inability to spell ‘cheese,’ was the telephone call she made just after the ambulance went by with lights and sirens.”

That conversation went something like this:

Proprietor: Where’s the ambulance goin’?

[pause]

Proprietor: Still breathin’?

[pause]

Proprietor: Okay. See you later.

Greg and Michelle exchanged a knowing look (they do this a lot, by the way). They know how small towns operate. They knew they’d soon have the entire story without needing to ask. Sure enough, the proprietor – who, by the way, was VERY nice – couldn’t resist filling them in.

“My husband’s the fire chief,” she said. “A person with a kidney transplant was found unconscious, but still breathing.”

The Family finished their cones (mostly – Ethan finished Michelle’s) and made their merry way back to camp, where they packed up every single little thing they could in order to effect a hasty exit the next day.

“We’re ready for home,” Michelle said. “We’re just ready.”

VIRGINIA, THROUGH WEST VIRGINIA and into KENTUCKY – Not much to report these days. Before leaving Chippokes, Michelle and the kids went to a nearby farm and picked blueberries and corn to take with them while Greg got the camper ready to pull out.

Then they drove. A lot.

But that evening they ate steak! And corn! And had a nice campsite!

“Yes…” Greg said, “And right after we arrived at that nice campsite, along came a park naturalist with a stuffed owl, who was advertising their programs to Laurel…”

“…and we felt sorry for her,” Michelle continued, “the naturalist, not Laurel -- because she really didn’t know what she was walking into here.”

See, Laurel knows about owls. The kid knows a lot about owls. You could say she’s just a LITTLE obsessed with birds of prey in general. So as the naturalist quizzed Laurel, the naturalist herself learned a lot. Really. A lot.

“But the coolest thing about her,” Michelle noted later, “was that she was OPEN to learning a lot. She said several times that she was learning so much from Laurel that Laurel should come give the program. And you know what else? When she didn’t know the answer to something, she ADMITTED IT, which is more than most people are willing to do. That was awesome.”

That evening, Michelle put the kids to work shucking the corn…willingly.

“Yeah, that’s a little ambiguous,” Michelle critiqued. “Make a note that Michelle is always willing to put the kids to work. What you mean is that the kids were willing to shuck corn.”

Meanwhile, Greg cooked up the steaks and they had a very nice meal. The flies weren’t even too bad.

“For once,” Greg grumbled.

Day Thirteen involved more driving. Lots more driving. That is, in fact, pretty much all the Family did. Just after entering West Virginia, they stopped to eat leftovers from B’s Barbecue back in North Carolina.

“It’s far more tolerable to eat in a tin can in a parking lot at 75 degrees than it is at 95 degrees,” Michelle observed. “Of course, it helps when the food is so good.”

After lunch the Family resignedly drove back to the interstate. But wait! The monotony was about to be broken!

One mile east of the St. Alban’s exit on I-64, the Family was driving along when all of a sudden…

BANG!!!

Note: Sorry, readers, we don’t have audio here. Imagine the sound of a rock being thrown into a metal trash can.

“What the fuck was that??!!” Greg exclaimed.

Wide-eyed, Michelle responded, “Ohmygod, I don’t have any idea,”

So they pulled off to the side of the interstate (“which gives me the serious heebie-jeebies,” Michelle noted) and inspected the camper, Michelle cringing the whole time, certain someone would plow into them. Unable to find the cause of the noise, they climbed back in the cab of the truck, puzzled, but then Michelle looked in the rearview mirror.

“I see it!” she gasped.

And there it was.

See, just before the BANG!, Michelle and Greg saw a mower doing some tree trimming along the side of the interstate. And sure enough, it was just as they passed that the BANG! occurred. They’d kicked something up right as the Family had driven by and damaged the camper.

Well, seeing as Michelle is not one to enjoy hanging out by the side of an interstate, they pulled back into traffic while debating their next move.

“I didn’t know that they’d do anything about it,” Michelle said, “but I figured it was worth a try, so Greg pulled off at the rest area just up the road and I started making phone calls.

“First,” she reported, “I called the West Virginia Division of Highways and spoke with Lisa, who was SO AWESOME. I explained the situation and she told me precisely what to do. Trouble is, when I called the number she gave me, they gave me another number, and the people there gave me another number. It’s good to know that Missouri state government and West Virginia state government operate in much the same manner. It’s also good that I’m so stubborn and persistent.”

“Well, maybe in this situation,” said Greg.

“Just what are you trying to say, smart guy?” asked Michelle.

“Oh, nothing. Nothing,” Greg responded.

“Uh-huh. That’s what I thought. Anyway,” she continued, “only once did I get mad enough at the person on the other end to let my meanness show.”

That conversation went something like this:

Operator:  [some unintelligible greeting]

Michelle:  [explained situation for third time]

Operator: [impatiently sighhhhhhing because she can’t believe she has to deal with these Missouri Morons] Well, ma’am, you need to contact YOUR insurance company.

Michelle:  No, I don’t believe I do. See, the State of West Virginia dented my camper, and I think I’ll be filing my claim with the State of West Virginia so the State of West Virginia can pay for it.

Operator: [taken aback] Um, okay, um, well, here’s the number for the people who are mowing out there.

“I’m sure she fully expected me to just roll over. Typical. Anyway, so finally,” said Michelle, “I got the number and called that place and lo, it was the RIGHT number, so that redeemed her in my eyes a little. And these guys were so nice about the whole thing. The equipment supervisor apologized that he was 20 minutes away but said he’d come up there, and he sure did, along with some fella with a personality uncannily similar to Larry the Cable Guy.

“Seriously, it was uncanny. And he had come along ‘just for the ride,’ which made me miss working for state park maintenance. That’s what we’d have done, too.

“Anyway, so they took our information and were so very nice about it, apologized all over themselves for the situation, and told us that it being Wednesday they’d probably get at least two more calls that week for the same thing. They said we’d hear from the claims company the next week, and we were on our way.”

So how does Michelle really feel about the situation?

“They caught me on a good day. I figure if that’s the worst thing to happen to us on this vacation, then it was a very, very good vacation.”

COLONIAL WILLIAMSBURG, VA – First thing this morning, at Michelle’s insistence, the Family rushed to get to the ferry across the James River again. And lo, they got on that ferry just when Michelle wanted to get on the ferry.

“Trust me,” Greg whispered, “That is a very good thing.”

Immediately upon arrival, the Family went to story time for Ethan.

“You should note,” remarked Greg, “That we walked ALL THE WAY ACROSS THE TOWN for that because Michelle had all of us get off the bus at the wrong stop.”

“He LOVES story time back home,” Michelle noted, ignoring the barb, “so I knew he would like this!”

Little did she know that the woman telling the story was about the slowest, most mundane storyteller ever, and that there would be a horse in close proximity.

To his credit, however, Ethan sat through the longer-than-necessary story rather patiently before asking to go pet the horse.

 

The awesome behavior was not long for the keeping, however, because immediately after leaving that area the kids found some colonial toys. Ethan, in particular, delighted in finding alternate uses for the toys.

“I’m so proud,” Michelle remarked.

Moving along, the family visited the Magazine (with original guns), and then stopped so the kids could play stickball on the green.

Turns out, they wouldn’t have been stickball stars in colonial times, but that’s okay.

At that point, the Family split up. Laurel had a little appointment with the Scherenschnitte class. “It was a bust, it was SO EASY, it wasn’t at all what I’d hoped,” she lamented.

“You should note,” remarked Greg, “that we walked ALL THE WAY ACROSS TOWN AGAIN for that.”

Meanwhile, Michelle and Ethan journeyed over to the public gaol.

“Who knew he would love that so much?” Michelle asked. “We heard a fascinating talk about Blackbeard’s men as prisoners there, about how  the jailer earned his money, etc., and then we got to visit the building itself where Ethan tried really hard to embarrass me by pretending he was using the cell toilets.”

So what did Michelle do?

“What would any parent do? I locked him in the cell,” she replied.

Afterward, Michelle and Ethan went to pick up Greg and the very disappointed Laurel.

“Yeah, Ethan and I took the shuttle,” whispered Michelle. “We don’t walk all the way across town when shuttles are available. Duh.”

And then they spent $37+ on some sandwiches.

“UGH, I don’t even want to talk about it,” said Michelle.

The day took an interesting turn when they visited the Public Hospital (ahem, Asylum).

“It was so disturbing, so sad, I can’t even imagine,” Michelle noted, “but it was also very interesting…reminded me of home. And paying $37 for sandwiches.”

After the hospital, the Family needed cheering, so they went   over to the courthouse where they heard lots of stories about colonial life, then got the obligatory photo of the kids in the pillory.

“Hm, yeah, that did cheer me up. Maybe we should have left them,” Michelle joked.

“Wait, who said I was joking?” she added.

It was almost time for dinner, but not before visiting the Capitol Building, where George Washington and Thomas Jefferson spent time, where felony court proceedings took place.

Before long, it was time for dinner.

“It was easier than we imagined to spend an entire day in Williamsburg,” Michelle noted. “We didn’t see nearly everything we could have seen, and we had fun touring taverns and learning so much about colonial life that you can’t find in the textbooks. But we were hungry, so we went to the Kings Arm’s Tavern and had a DECENT MEAL in a FUN ATMOSPHERE.”

The evening wasn’t over yet, for the shows had yet to begin.The Family had tickets to separate shows. After deciding Ethan would behave better for Michelle, they split.

“Oh wow,” Michelle gushed, “The vaudeville show was SO FUNNY. Seriously. And Ethan was laughing so hard he was drawing attention to us and people were remarking on it after the show…which of course embarrassed him so he gave them a sour look whenever they spoke to him. Still, it was great, and then we left and Ethan was saying, ‘Mom, wow, is this what it looks like when it’s dark outside?’ because he doesn’t see the dark that much in the summer, and he was laughing about the horse manure in the road and saying things like, ‘I’m gonna eat those road apples!!’ and we just had a great time.”

That great time was cut short when they returned to the Visitor Center to meet up with Laurel and Greg.

“I asked Greg how his show was and it was just okay,” lamented Michelle. “That sucked. I didn’t want to tell him how fun our show was. I really wish I’d known, then I’d have bought tickets for everyone to go to the vaudeville thing. On the other hand, he thought he was getting the better end of the deal by sticking me with Ethan…who is four, and was tired. So maybe he got what he deserved.”

“Why are you giving me so much hell today?” asked Greg.

“Remember that little jab at the beginning of this post about me having everyone get off at the wrong stop?” responded Michelle.

So what is the final verdict on Colonial Williamsburg?

“Oh, I’d like to go again,” said Michelle.

“Yeah, me too,” seconded Greg, “but we’d probably attend different programs more appealing to us if we didn’t have the kids with us.”

“And we’d probably make use of the shuttles,” added Michelle.

Then they had to rush to make the 9:30 p.m. ferry. Did they make it?

“It was close,” Greg said, “but yes, we made it. And that’s a very good thing because not one of us would have wanted to wait another hour for the next one. So we made it on, and then the guy in the beater in front of us couldn’t start his truck to get off the ferry.”

“Poor guy,” Michelle observed. “Look, I’ve driven a few beaters around, so I know he had to be hating life. There he was, Saturday night, stuck on a ferry and he can’t start his truck so he’s holding us up…how embarrassing. So we waited for everyone else to leave so we could back up and leave the ferry ourselves. Sure hope he got that rig started.”

So, exhausted, our Family returned to camp and promptly drifted off to sleep.

“Well, yeah, THEY promptly drifted,” said Greg.

And that, friends, was Day Eleven.

JAMESTOWN, VA – Day Ten dawned sunny and hot again.

“Yes. Hot. Again!” Michelle echoed.

Our Family awoke and scurried off to catch the ferry to Jamestown. They figured the earlier, the better.

“Could you maybe not say we ‘scurried?’” interjected Greg. “That sounds…I don’t know…like something I wouldn’t do.”

“Okay, so it was hot before getting on the ferry,” Greg said, “but then you got on the ferry and it was even hotter because of course you had to shut off your engines. Whee. And the heat index was expected to easily – EASILY – top 100.”

And so it did.

But the whole group had fun at Jamestown.

“Weak,” Michelle pronounced.

“What do you mean, ‘weak?’” Greg asked.

“Those photos. They’re weak. We couldn’t take photos in the Jamestown visitor center, which is where all the cool stuff is.”

“Anyway, we did have fun, it’s true, even though we maybe rushed it a little,” Michelle continued. “I got on the first replica ship and it was so friggin’ hot that as soon as we got off we just left. We figured we’d seen about all there was to see. It was interesting, VERY interesting, don’t get me wrong… it’s just that we were more interested in celebrating Father’s Day with Greg at a tavern in town.”

So after they left, they went and got all turned around trying to find the Green Leafe. But once they found it, they had a great meal.

“Yeah, they were out of steak and I REALLY wanted that steak salad with the blue cheese,” said Michelle, “but I ended up with a burger which was okay, and fries which are hard to ruin. Plus, the beer was cold and plentiful, the kids had fun with their meal, the server was on her game, and hi, it was air-conditioned. So you know, the burger started tasting even better. Hooray!”

After their return to camp, the Family rode their bikes to the park pool.

“Have we mentioned that every day, all day long, Ethan wears his helmet and announces he will be riding his bike? That he asks over and over if someone will go on a bike ride? That he doesn’t take no for an answer?” Michelle asked. “That kid, I swear…”

Greg reported, “We were at the pool for probably 20-30 minutes before a rumble of thunder forced everyone to evacuate the pool for 15 minutes. Because we know that where we go, so too goes thunder, we knew that was probably it for the night. So we went back to camp while the kids acted like it was The Most Disappointing Thing That Had Ever Occurred. Yeah. Best part of the day.”

But that night, something really magical happened.

Ethan caught his very first lightning bug.

He and Laurel promptly squirreled it away in a clamshell container along with several others so they could “sleep with them.”

“My reaction to that little venture would surprise nobody,” Michelle said.

And of course, thanks to his infatuation with these newfound bunkmates, it was a fight to get him to bed that night.

“We were going to have a LONG, long, longlonglong day the next day,” Michelle explained. “I’ve been around him long enough to know that not enough sleep plus a long day spells disaster all around, and I was sick of the bickering and the fighting and the brouhaha that goes along with being stuck in close quarters with not enough sleep and heat. So there.”

And with that, she marched into the camper and that was that for the day.

We apologize for the interruption in our documentary. It seems Michelle reserved a few campgrounds without WiFi.

“The nerve,” Greg lamented. “I’ve been without internet for way too long.”

But now we resume.

CHIPPOKES PLANTATION STATE PARK, SURRY, VA – The Family awoke bright and early this morning for a busy day.

“After all the complaints about me going by myself to see the sunrise yesterday I figured the WHOLE DAMN FAMILY would go and see it this morning,” Michelle said. “Okay, actually there was only one person complaining, but still.”

So off they went.

 

 

Michelle reports: “The breeze on the Outer Banks is nearly constant…just perfect for flying kites, and we felt the kids ought to have a chance to fly their kites. Ethan and I had tried to fly before in St. Louis but had only fair luck, and I wanted him to see what it was really like with good conditions….so while Greg walked the beach with the camera, I taught the kids to fly sport kites.”

So how did they do?

They did well. Really well.

Soon though, it was time to go back to camp for breakfast and loading up.

“We could have stayed on the Outer Banks a lot longer,” Greg said, “but it’s hard to know these things until you’ve been. I think we’ll return someday.”

On the way out of town Michelle took a few photos of the homes.

“Yeah, true, I took several,” she said, “but I’m not so good with those from-the-truck photos, so only about, oh, ONE of them kinda sorta turned out.”

“I looked up the cost of renting one of those,” Greg noted. “It was something in the neighborhood of $2400 per week. That’s when a travel trailer and a $35/night RV park is really valuable.”

True.

So on they went, north from the Outer Banks to Kill Devil Hills where they visited the Wright Brothers National Memorial.

“It was hot,” Michelle said. “It was SO hot, it was hot, hot, hot, and Ethan was restless, so he and I went on by ourselves so Greg and Laurel could actually, oh, I don’t know, READ the exhibits. Now mind you, I’d have liked to do that too, but at least I was able to sort of skim them.”

 

After a few minutes, Ethan had enough of that inside business, so he and Michelle went outdoors to sweat and work off some four-year-old energy. He was amazed to see planes landing just a few feet from where he stood…

…and he had a good time pretending he was standing with Wilbur and Orville Wright:

He even liked it when Michelle read to him from plaques and pointed out where each flight landed.

After whiling away a few more minutes, Michelle and Ethan were joined by the other two members of the family and journeyed to the top of Kill Devil Hill itself to the monument at the top.

“The kids were especially fascinated by a) the cactii along the walk, and b) the fact that orange flags marked fire ant hills. We didn’t actually see any orange flags, but the idea that we might was just as appealing,” Michelle said.

 

The Family has rarely been more grateful to return to the truck for air conditioning as they were that day, despite grumbling about all the little cars taking up the RV parking spaces.

“It’s a good thing we went when we did,” Michelle observed, “or all these little cars would have taken up all the trailer spots. And mind you, I don’t have a problem with it if they double up in a spot. Two cars to a spot, no problem, if there are no more parking spaces available to the little guys. But to hog a whole space and deprive the RVs of a place to park is dirty business. So there.”

See? This reporter told you it was hot, and when it’s hot, Michelle’s a little cranky.

“What the hell are you writing about over there?” Michelle interjected.

Ahem.

Anyway, so on they went, driving driving driving, to Smithfield, VA.

“I wanted to see St. Luke’s Church,” Michelle said. “I remembered studying it in a college architecture course, and seeing as how it was right along the way, I thought we should go. So we did, and THIS parking lot was empty. Our guide, though, she was a trip. Very animated. And she liked my shoes.”

 

“Old.” Michelle said. “Really old. It was mind-boggling to even think of how many people had stood in that church.”

After a quick stint through the cemetery to admire the stones, the travelers moved just a little north to the home of the Smithfield Ham.

And true to form, they bought one.

Meanwhile, the kids had fun eating all the little candy samples in the store and hanging with their friend Ben.

“Mostly it was a reason to get out of the truck,” Greg said.

“Yeah, he says that because he was freaking out a little about where to park as we were dragging that trailer down the itty-bitty streets there in Smithfield,” Michelle teased.

“Just a little. And don’t forget, it was hot.” Greg reminded her.

“Yeah, true, and I’m not the only one whose temper gets a little short in that situation…” said Michelle.

Finally, after a long, hot, exhausting day, the family arrived at Chippokes Plantation State Park.

“SWELTERING,” Laurel cried.

It’s true. It was. So the first order of business was to find somewhere to eat.

“Okay, here we go,” Michelle said. “We went to the Surrey House Restaurant over in Surry, VA. Well, we got our little waitress Britney….eventually…after she finished visiting about her new Mustang to some locals…and we’d been sitting there for a good ten minutes, crabby as hell.”

But how was the food?

“Edible. That’s about it,” said Greg.

“True,” Michelle replied, “it was quite the, um, adventure, but here’s the thing. We don’t like chain restaurants and that’s why. You win some, you lose some, and yes of course you can go to a chain and it will be the same thing no matter where you are, but what fun is that? It’s the adventure of the thing. Oh, well.”

So after that bust, the family returned to the camper, more than ready for the air-conditioning and a nice, long rest.

CAPE HATTERAS, N.C. – So Michelle (hereinafter known as “The Crazy One”) got up this  morning at 5:15 in order to make it over to the ocean for the 5:46 sunrise.

“Yeah, and I did, too,” she pointed out, “but then I had to run ALL the way back to the camper because I had forgotten the memory card for my camera. GEEZ.”

So did she make it?

Yes, she did.

She has video, too!

“Don’t tell them that,” she said. “I don’t want to deal with editing it so it looks nice right now, and I am not going to throw raw video up there.”

Sorry, folks.

So once that was done and she returned to the camper, and after Laurel finished her pouting about not being invited along on Michelle’s solo trip…

“I was NOT POUTING,” Laurel insisted.

“Yes she was,” Greg whispered…

our Family decided it was time for breakfast. So they went to this little spot way down in Buxton called the Orange Blossom Cafe, where they are known for their Apple Uglies.

“An Apple Ugly is an apple fritter on steroids,” Greg noted.

“Yes,” interjected Michelle, “and I was SO PROUD of this girl in the restaurant. Some lady was getting all impatient because she was having to wait FIFTEEN WHOLE MINUTES for her order when there were FOUR orders in front of her – I know, the very NERVE, right? – and the girl working the counter looked her square in the eye and said, ‘Sorry, there are 4 orders ahead of you. This isn’t McDonald’s.’

“YES! Now that is a girl after my own heart,” Michelle continued.

The fact is, the Family was waiting too, because the Apple Uglies sell very quickly, and they were waiting on a fresh batch from the fryer. Once it arrived, they took it over to the lighthouse area to picnic. So was it worth the wait?

“Ohhhhhhh, yes,” Greg said. “It was warm and gooey and just a little greasy and HUGE, and…”

“And I ate my ENTIRE UGLY,” Laurel boasted…which is more than Michelle could claim. “Ethan finished mine off,” she reported.

That photo doesn’t really do it justice. Suffice it to say that thing is at least 6 inches in diameter and 1.5 inches tall. Ethan, by the way, had a double-dipped donut. For the uninitiated, that’s a donut dipped in both glaze AND in chocolate. Wow.

 

Needless to say, our travelers skipped lunch.

Next they climbed the 248 (!) steps of the Cape Hatteras lighthouse.

“Okay, that’s actually 257 when you add in the steps at the front,” Michelle observed. “But get this – NOBODY BITCHED ABOUT IT, can you believe it?”

However, she later reported that the Ugly was sitting awfully heavy in her stomach. I think we all know the feeling.

Back at camp, Michelle faded out quickly, which was largely due to the combination of her early morning and the Ugly, so Greg took the kids to the beach, where Laurel promptly got stung at least twice more by jellyfish.

“I joined them about an hour after they’d left,” Michelle said. “By that time she’d already been stung once, and it kept happening. Meanwhile, I kept a sharp eye out for those diabolical creatures and moved away from them whenever they were washed up. Still, the lure of the ocean kept bringing me further into the water to jump the waves. And let’s face it…how many times will I see the ocean in the next year? Probably zero.”

After thoroughly wearing the kids out at the ocean (“Well, not really, we kinda made them leave, but Ethan nearly fell asleep later in the truck,” Michelle said), they returned to the camper to ponder over supper. It occurred to our Family that here they were on Cape Hatteras and they had not yet done a seafood dinner. So off they went to Risky Business, a local seafood shop, to see what today’s catch was. They picked up mako shark, wahoo, shrimp, and blue crabs along with all the fixings, then excitedly returned to camp where they cooked it all up.

“Yeah, so then the flies showed up,” Greg lamented. “I had to put a plate of shells and corn cobs out to lure them away from the real food. Good thing they’re not very picky.”

As it turns out, Michelle was so busy eating she didn’t take any photos.

“I kinda remembered that halfway through the shrimp,” she said, “but sorry, I was competing with everyone else for that delicious food. You’ve all seen shrimp before, right? I mean granted, this was fresh-from-the-boat-today shrimp, but…”

And then she went back to her dinner. Meanwhile, the kids finished and went down the road to the camp playground.

“Haven’t seen them in awhile,” Greg observed, “but we’re on an island so they can’t go far.”

They may go out and find some ice cream tonight, but tomorrow our Family pulls up their stakes (‘you mean stabilizer jacks,” corrected Greg) and moves along to Virginia, where they will stay for three nights, touring Colonial Williamsburg, Jamestown, and whatever else strikes them at the time. For the second year in a row, they will celebrate Father’s Day while on vacation. Meanwhile, they will retain fond, very fond memories of their time on Cape Hatteras, where both adults have indicated they’d willingly return.

So stay tuned, dear readers. But be forewarned that as our Family moves further from civilization, it will likely be without internet access the remainder of the trip.

“Unless we get lucky and some fool has left theirs unsecured,” Greg said.

“Yeah, or Greg decides to violate the Terms of Service on our phones and tether them so I have internet – even then it’d probably be such a pain that I’d bellyache about it, slam the laptop, and go storming off, seeing as how I’ve been utterly and completely spoiled by his ability to circumvent security measures put into place by others,” Michelle added.

So noted. Lock down your connections, readers, and be thankful Greg uses his vast abilities for good rather than evil.

G’night, Hatteras. Thanks for the memories.

CAPE HATTERAS, N.C. – Our Family awoke this morning at the KOA. A squirrel spent some time visiting Ethan, most likely because a) Ethan was in the middle of breakfast, and b) breakfast consisted largely of peanut butter.

 

As you can see, he was quick to send the infiltrator packing.

Soon after breakfast, our group worked their way out of the campground and up through North Carolina’s interior, marveling at the tobacco fields along the way.

“It’s been many years since I’ve seen tobacco fields,” Michelle said. “I remember one farm in particular near Rocheport, Missouri when I worked on the Katy Trail, but that’s it until now…and today we saw a wealth of them.”

Today was barbecue day. After exhaustive research (“Yeah, believe me, it was exhaustive…and exhausting for the rest of us,” Greg remarked), the Family stopped at a renowned North Carolina  institution – Skylight Inn – where they go whole hog and roast the full pig over oak, then as they chop the pig up, they incorporate the cracklins right back in.

“It was really something,” said Michelle. “The cracklins are crunchy, which is kind of a strange thing for a Midwesterner, but they were GOOD, and once Laurel was talked into it, she tried the coleslaw and – get this – LIKED IT, despite the number of times she insisted to the contrary. I have told her and told her she should try things again and again because she might find a recipe she liked…”

At this point, Michelle fixed Laurel with a pointed look.

“Sorrrrreeeeee,” said Laurel, and went about her business.

“Anyway, the unleavened cornbread was also a chewy, tasty novelty…” Michelle added.

After  that, the Family’s bellies were full (except Ethan’s, who refused to eat his lunch), but they soldiered on to Greenville and B’s Barbecue, where Greg pulled the whole big camper over to the side of the road so Michelle could run in and get barbecue to go.

“It wasn’t air-conditioned in there. It was so hot,” Michelle observed. “Maybe that’s why there were empty tables, because I understand that is a rarity. At any rate, I frankly don’t know how those ladies keep their good humor. The fun part? It really LOOKS like a barbecue shack – that’s how you know it’s good.”

Michelle scurried back to the road with the goods, then after ensuring no traffic would flatten her, unlocked and climbed into the camper to refrigerate the food for later.

The merry misfits wound up at Cape Hatteras National Seashore around 4 p.m. where they dropped their trailer and promptly visited the beach. It was, after all, all of a block away from the camper.

 

Ethan played with his boat (he was scared of the waves, light though they were), Greg and Laurel played in the water, Michelle and Laurel played in the water….

And then Michelle found this:

Folks, that’s a jellyfish. And after that, Ethan found 4 or 5 more, also washed ashore.

And then…

“AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I GOT STUNG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

Yes, that was Laurel.

And she had been stung.

By a jellyfish.

See here?

And here?

Ouch.

So back to the camp they went, to find something to help the welts.

“Vinegar. Pickles. Just find something,” Michelle said. Greg offered to pee on Laurel, but she declined. Ethan, too, would have stepped up to the occasion. But instead, Greg and Laurel went to the camp store for mundane meat tenderizer and the even more ho-hum vinegar.

“Laurel should thank me for Googling jellyfish stings,” Michelle said. “And here I was resistant to getting one of those candy-ass fancy-pants phones that can do that kind of thing.”

So Laurel spent quality time in her chair with her meat tenderizer.

And Michelle, so helpful, said, “Gee, Laurel…you know…you smell kinda good. Like tasty meat.”  

Granted, it was just before supper, but that was not well-received.

So as consolation, they allowed Laurel (henceforth “The Jellyfish Victim”) to choose dinner for the evening. She chose pizza. “No,” said Greg. “Not at ALL predictable.”

And pizza it was. Good pizza, even! Why? “Because I had researched things to death, of course, and everyone makes fun of me but then they are SO GLAD that they aren’t eating CRAP, and then I get to rub it in their mocking little faces,” Michelle noted. She’s a little tense right now.

Folks, while adventurous with other foods, Michelle is a traditionalist when it comes to pizza and burgers. She doesn’t like pizzas that don’t have, say, pizza sauce on them. No barbecue, no pesto, no ‘white sauce,’ none of that BS. She just likes plain old pizza sauce.

Ethan, on the other hand, had just one thing in mind.

“I want pineapple!!!” he exclaimed.

“Are you sure? Do you want ham and pineapple?” Michelle asked. “That is a pretty popular pizza.”

“NO! Just pineapple,” he said.

So pineapple it was, and pineapple he ate. And ate. And ate. Probably because he didn’t eat much for breakfast, on account of the squirrel, or for lunch, on account of…well, this reporter hasn’t quite figured him out yet.

 

At any rate, once they returned to the camp, Greg decided to finish off the night right, by taking the kids on a bike ride. Michelle was uninterested, but sidled up to him, whispering, “You know, if you were to come back with chocolate in your hand, it wouldn’t hurt my feelings.”

And that is what he did. Coconut M&Ms. Who knew? They’re like Mounds, but in little disc form.

So how is the vacation so far?

“Every day, at the end of the day, when we’ve finally (FINALLY) gotten the kids to settle down, when everyone is reasonably clean and the sun is setting, and I am tired, I wonder if I can handle one more day or if we should just pack it up and go home, to hell with our prepaid reservations,”Michelle observed.

“But then,” she continued, “the next morning I wake up and I can’t wait to see what the next day has in store for us.”

And with that, she headed off to get Ethan into bed. After he played with the campsite toad. But that’s a whole ‘nother story.

Goodnight.

*Editor’s Note, 20:43 EDT: It seems Laurel is now wearing her jellyfish stings as a badge of honor. They no longer hurt, she reports, and she cannot wait to tell all her friends that she, SHE, was the first of her group to be stung by a jellyfish. And so it goes.

*Editor’s Note, the Second: Laurel would like me to add that after visiting all those barbecue joints, she ended up with meat tenderizer up to her elbows. A fine ending to a fine day, she believes.

OVERHEARD ON THE ROAD --

“Christ.”

“What an asshole.”

“Why won’t he let me over? I can’t see because of the awning, or I’d just be aggressive and move on over.””

“Great. Now I’ve missed my exit!” [slams fist on steering wheel]

Those were the kinds of things Greg muttered repeatedly on the road as he tried to pull into / return to the right lane.

“What is wrong with people?! Why are they all assholes?”

Then the family stopped along the route for gas, and checked the right rear trailer blinker just to be sure.

And it was inoperable.

So despite their best efforts to the contrary, they were not signaling before moving into the right lane.

For up to approximately 1500 miles.

“Hahaha! Whoops. Guess we’re the ones who are the assholes,” Michelle laughed.

Guess so.

The Family would like me to apologize to everyone they have wronged on the road, and to assure all those drivers that the bulb has been changed and checked, and it shouldn’t happen again.