Dogs and bears

Laurel, Maryland
39 06.193 N 076 51.354 W

What an abrupt cultural change!  This morning we woke up in our camp site on The Blue Ridge Highway.   It was silent and cool.  The only sound was that of the morning bird songs.  The only concern was to avoid the bear.   Two hours later we were driving on the Washington D.C. beltway in rush hour traffic.  Man oh man how stressful that was for a couple of sailors.

I'm afraid that last night was our last night in a tent on this trip.  Today and tomorrow we are attending a Westsail Rendezvous on the Chesapeake Bay.   After that, we drive back to Dave and Cathy's house in Zebulon, NC where we started 5 months ago.

We are staying in a motel in Laurel, MD for two nights.  That is the closest affordable room we could find.   Rooms in the neighborhood of the rendezvous were listed for $560/night!!!  Even camping nearby was super expensive.  Here in Laurel we are right in the back yard of NSA.   Given my anti-government sentiments, I'm sure that they are looking over my shoulder at this very minute.

Anyhow, a parting story on the camping.   We made friends with two couples in adjoining camp sites.  They were on one side of the road and we were on the other.  Both had been there for more than a week.  Both couples told us that the bear visited their sites every night and nosed around.  (This bear did not nose around our tent.)   That kept them awake at night, especially the young couple in a tent.  But that is only half the story.

The young couple also had two dogs.  One was a small boxer, the other was a gigantic Great Pyrenees.   Think of a white Newfoundland dog.  The dogs slept in the tent with their owners.  The people told us that every night the dogs never woke up when the bear came around.  That is surprising.  Every dog we ever owned would be on high alert and ready to bark as the slightest alien noise or smell from nearby.   I wondered what would happen if the dogs did wake up, and then went crazy because of the bear.  A small dog would probably not scare the bear.  He would just kill it.   But what about if the dog was as big as the bear or even bigger?   If the big dog attacked the bear to defend its masters, the bear would no doubt win.  But the bear would also become enraged and all pumped up on adrenalin.  Might not the bear then be likely to attack the people?   I don't think I would want that big dog sleeping in the tent with me.

We didn't see that bear, but driving out of the park this morning we did see another bear crossing the road.  That makes three bears we've seen along the highways on this trip.  One in New Mexico, one in Ontario, and one in Virginia.  The New Mexico bear was by far the biggest of the three.

Conflicted

Charles Town, Virginia

3926.907 N 077 59.371 W

Well, we had a very educational day. We drove from our camp site on The Blue Ridge Highway to Harpers Ferry, WV. We toured the history there. Then we drove further to Antietam National Battlefield. We learned a lot of history. We were inspired. But we were also appalled and sobered by the realities of what we saw.

I should mention that Libby has a blood relation with John Brown. Therefore, Harpers Ferry has special meaning for us. Months ago I addit it near the top of the list of places we wanted to visit.

John Brown; what an enigma. His cause was noble, his bravery deniable. But his tactics were terrible. He murdered innocent families in Kansas, just because their politics differed from his. In Harpers Ferry hi was worse than incompetent as a military planner and commander. What did he accomplish? Many people blamed him for instigating The Civil War. We both think that The Civil War was an unspeakably horrible tragedy. But perhaps the war would have happened anyhow, and it did end slavery. Most inspirational was the quote below.

Is it not possible that an individual may be right and a government wrong? Are laws to be enforced simply because they were made? Or declared by any number of men to be good, if they are not good? - Henry David Thoreau

The Battle at Antietam Creek was the bloodiest single day battle in American history. 23,000 dead. What a shame. We are taught to admire and glorify soldiers who die to protect our country,but in this case all the soldiers on both sides were doing that and both represented "our" country.

One and only one thing seems morally clear. General George B McClellan seems to have had dozens of opportunities to end the war early and to spare hundreds of thousands of lives. He bumbled all of them and Lincoln bumbled his leadership by keeping McClellan on so long.

When one is searching for moral clarity, everything about The Civil War is so muscled. Real life is messy, but this case is horrible. The Union fought to end slavery, hooray. But The union wrongly denied valid states rights and the right to secede. The South fought bravely to defend their way of life, but I believe their claim that slavery was essential to that way of life was bogus. John Brown inspired. McClellan bungled. Lee didn't believe in the souths cause, but he defended it bravely and brilliantly. Most poignant from our visit to Anteitam was a plaque in The National Cemetray with Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. The last sentence of which says:

-- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.--- À. Lincoln.

I cringed reading that because I believe that that type of government has perished in the USA. I've heard that mention of the phrase "of the people ... by ... for" are met with derision among the elite in Washington. What a naive concept according to them. So much blood spilled defending a concept that we are voluntarily surrendering in the name of national security. Yet we post those words at the national cemetery over the bodies of those soldiers.

So, we return to our camp site tonight in a somber mood. Better educated, inspired, but sobered.

The Blue Ridge

Elkton, Virginia
38 24.437 N 078 37.256 W

Boy are we having fun!   We spent the last three days camping on Loan Mountain off the Blue Ridge Parkway in Virginia.   This place is a new candidate for favorite.   The mountain scenery is beautiful, and since Labor day is past there are no crowds.   We are really really enjoying ourselved here.

150 yards behind our tent is the Appalachian Trail.  Also there is a rock promontory that lets you sit and see to infinity.   Does anyone remember the opening scene of the movie "Sergeant York" where Gary Cooper sat on a rock contemplating infinity in the Ozarks?  This place looks like that.
It is especially nice in the evening, and it is west facing so we see spectacular sunsets.

Two nights ago, neighboring campers heard a bear rooting around out tent at night.  They got a picture of him at dawn.   We had all our food locked in the car according to the rules.   But that leads to an unsettling question.   Is it a good thing to lock our food in the car making us the only tasty bear food nearby?   It doesn't help when your partner says, "I hope you didn't brush your teeth before coming to bed.  They say that bears love the smell of  toothpaste."

It fun what you can do with a 10 second delay on your camera.  Just don't step back.

 

Panorama from the summit of Blackrock Mountain this morning.

We have two more days of Blue Ridge camping to go, then off to civilization, a motel, and a Westsail Rendezvous on The Chesapeake. 

The Beauty of Glass

Sutton Lake, West Virginia
38 40.244 N 080 32.923 W

Below are some of my favorites among the snapshots I took at The Corning Museum of Glass.   The beauty and innovation in some of those pieces takes my breath away.   What a marvelous medium for artistic expression.   If I didn't live on a sailboat, I'd be sorely tempted to take it up as a hobby.

Several of the pictures were taken through plexiglass display cases which limits the quality of the photos.

The museum is apparently very rich.  It has been able to acquire the best of the best examples of the works of the world's finest glass artists.  Bravo for them.   If you have a chance, stop in Corning to see youself.

(p.s. Corning's Stuben Glass Works no longer exists.  Starting in 2014, the size of the museum will be doubled.)

Works by Richard Marquis

Approx 1 meter in diameter

Add caption

Approx 1 meter each in size

Made from broken LCD glass (like the glass on your iPad screen)

Took three years to carve

Window by Tiffany

Hill Country.

Sutton Lake, West Virginia

38 40.244 N 080 32.923 W

What we have seen so far of West Virginia reminds me of Norway. In Norway I once remarked, "they can't have a football team in Norway because there is no flat spot as big as a football field." So is it in WV. The exaggeration is only slight. Our campground has a flat spot big enough for four fields. But the roads in and out are as narrow, windy, and steep as you'll ever see. The hills and mountains are beautiful. This area had lots of rain this summer so the lush green colors are vibrant.

We are spending the Labor Day weekend here to stay off the roads and avoid the crowds.

Last evening the had "Hillbilly Stomping and Hollering" at the campground. It was lots of fun. I describe it as like River Dance, but (much) less practiced. Anyhow, we are getting a good exposure to the Appalachia culture down here. Very cool. Sometimes we have to struggle to understand what people are saying, but most people have little or no regional accent. I blame that on TV.

There are no signals at the camp site, so I have to drive 15 miles in the morning to a McDonald's to get Internet. Each morning I fear that the headlines will say we are involved in a new war. No war this morning, thank goodness. But the New York Time's lead story says that Obama also plans to attack Iran before the end of his term. Ay caramba. Below is what the NYT actually said.

In a two-hour meeting of passionate, sharp debate in the Oval Office, he told them that after a frantic week in which he seemed to be rushing toward a military attack on Syria, he wanted to pull back and seek Congressional approval first.

He had several reasons, he told them, including a sense of isolation after the terrible setback in the British Parliament. But the most compelling one may have been that acting alone would undercut him if in the next three years he needed Congressional authority for his next military confrontation in the Middle East, perhaps with Iran.