It's All About Serendipity

Federal troops fire their canon at the Creek and Seminole Indians southwest of Lake City, FL.

Serendipity is a wonderful thing. We drove across the Florida line on Sunday morning. Temperature was 75 degrees. Full sun. Ah. This is why we're here. We looked down the highway to choose a campground for the night and settled on the insignificant O'Leno State Park, just south of Lake City.

And that made all the difference in the world.

When we checked in (it cost only $9.90 for our slot), the ranger told us about Alligator Days that were about to begin. This is a re-enactment of a battle in the Second Seminole Wars against the Seminole and Creek Indians who lived in the area back in the 1830s.

The battle was scheduled to start in an hour which gave us time to get parked, have some lunch, and wander over to the battle.

Booming canon announced the start of the proceedings. Indians – who looked awfully white to me – whooped and yipped as they crept through the pine scrub, shouting their taunts to the US soldiers, pioneer militia and settlers and reenacted the Sept18, 1836, Battle of San Felasco Hammock. I checked into the demographics of the recent census and Native Americans now only account for 1.6 per cent of the population. But they looked good, with some awesome face painting, superb top hats and lots of rawhide clothing.

The battle pushed back and forth, with U.S. Officer, sucking on his pipe and shouting orders to his men to advance with their muskets, then to report back on the location of the Indians in the hammock. The big gun then opened up and cleared out the recalcitrant Indians. In the meantime, the audience, often made up of the fighters' wives – wearing period dress – photographed the proceedings with their digital cameras.

The festival also included Native American musicians and dancers, a drum arbor with dance ground and tee pee camp, as well as traders selling historic replicas, handcrafted arts, manufactured souvenirs, and food.

All of this was a great way to return to our home base – we still are 322 miles out – and we are delighted to be back. This has been a wonderful journey down the eastern edge of the country. We spent much time in the cradle of the Civil War. We took in the Appomattox Court House in Virginia, where the war ended with the surrender of Gen. Robert Lee.

Farther north in Virginia, we spent a day at the home of that American genius, Thomas Jefferson. Monticello is perched on the top of a high hill, giving views of the Blue Ridge mountains. He had a thousand acres and 200 slaves up on that mountain, helping him grow the crops and even making iron nails. The entryway to his home has a complex clock that run along the front wall and shows not only the time, but the day of the week.

When we entered Georgia, we met up with friends we'd made while living in Cambodia back in 2003-4. Then we connected with one of my proteges from early journalism days. She and her husband now shuttle back and forth to Afghanistan where she created an Afghan news service that supplies unbiased and credible journalism in that beleaguered country for embassies, CNN, BBC, many of the U.S. TV networks, as well as newspapers inside the country. She is rightly proud of her “baby”.

We drove with them to the little town of Jasper, GA, for dinner and visited her photo exhibit in an office building on the main street of this little town. The picture of the Afghan man in his turban hangs in the front window and already had created some trouble for the locals. Someone had called the local radio station to complain about the afront to their community of having this turbaned man's picture in the center of their town!

Lisa decided to replace the picture with one of a fresh-faced Afghan girl because Hallowe'en was a day away and that might prevent the building from being egged or even having the glass broken. Ah, what a wonderful world we live in!

A Day of Death

President Lincoln meets with Gen. McClellan on the battlefield at Antietam to order a final push against the Rebels. McClellan ignored his commander in chief.


Tuesday morning broke for us, but bleakly. Mist hung in the hollows on the northern edge of the Blue Ridge Mountains, up in the panhandle of Maryland. The cutting breeze made us wrap an extra layer of warm clothing around us as we ventured out onto the battlefield at Antietam.

It provided a fitting sense of chill at this the site of the ultimate day of death on the battlefield in all of our history.

Twenty-three thousand men died or were wounded on that one day, Sept. 17, 1862. It did not matter whether they were from the North – the Federals – or the South – the Rebels. They came together on that fateful day and faced thousands of cannon balls, muskets and rifles. And they fell in the Cornfield, on Bloody Lane, at the Middle Bridge that crossed Antietam Creek which ultimately joins the Potomac River.

Gen. Robert E. Lee brought his southern troops north, because he'd been winning the war to that point. He wanted to hurt the North and perhaps get the recognition of the European countries – particularly Britain – that the South was a separate country.

Gen. George B. McClellan believed Lee had many more troops in the area that his Union forces. He was wrong. He was a timid man, a good planner, loved by his men, but a lousy leader.

He sat in an overstuffed arm chair, overlooking the battlefield. The ladies and gentlemen of Washington had driven out to watch this decisive battle and they tittered and swooned at being so close to the star of the show. McClellan loved the adulation and played to the crowd while his men fell, and fell, and fell.

More than 10,000 men fell in the first three and a half hours after dawn broke on Sept. 17. By dusk, the battle was over. It was effectively a draw. The sounds of crying and groaning and begging calls for water could be heard all through the night.

The germ theory of infection was unknown back then. Surgeons operated on wounded soldiers in unsanitary conditions with unsterilized instruments. An amputee had a 65 percent chance of surviving surgery - but a 90 percent chance of dying from infection.

Jo and I drove and walked the fields, passing the 96 monuments that have been placed where the men fought and died. Only one monument honors soldiers who fought for both the North and the South. This was erected by the State of Maryland – a border state – because it had men who served on both sides.

It was chilling and sobering to linger along the split-rail fences and feel the presence of the spirits of so many souls. Sharpsburg, MD, would be a difficult town to live even now, I think. There is a sense of endless loss in the place.

We stopped in at a little tavern for lunch but there was no energy in the place. We returned to the field and spent an outstanding half hour with a park ranger who talked us through the strategy of Gen. Lee. He explained the power of the terrain, the way Lee moved his troops, the lack of coordination of the Federals as they came up the hill and were sliced in half by the cannon.

He also told us that five days after the battle, President Lincoln issued his Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation. The document became final on Jan. 1, 1863, and gave the war a twofold purpose – reuniting the country and freedom of four million slaves.

Lincoln came here to the battlefield and to the many hospitals that were set up in an attempt to save the wounded. He spoke with men of the South as well as Northern soldiers. The war would continue for another two-plus years because of the ineptness of McClellan's lack of follow-through on that day in 1862. Lincoln replaced him but the blood continued to flow on both sides so that, by the end of the war, 600,000 men had been killed or wounded.

Spinning Across New York

Friend Jody Hyman spins with her drop spindle at the Rhinebeck, NY, Wool Fest.

Here's the scene: Dutchess County Fairgrounds in Rhinebeck, New York. Hundreds, nay, thousands of crunchy-looking women in their knitted hats and hand-warmers and shawls and knitted or woven dresses. This is the Sheep and Wool Festival. Surely, men were tagging along. There were even a few men spinning and weaving. But this was clearly a woman’s event.
The women of all ages were there to buy yarn, or fleece, or roving (the cleaned and washed wool). They were there to buy the contraptions that make spinning and weaving and knitting and crocheting easier.
We watched a contest of drop spindle spinners alongside a spinning wheel contest. The object was to spin the longest yarn in 15 minutes. Jo's friend Jody Hyman, a prodigious spinner and basket maker who is a master of the drop spindle, took second place. The drop spindle is the world's simplest tool. It looks like a top that you would spin on a table. But in Jody's hands it came alive as she hanked on a piece of raw wool and set it a-spinning. She produced 15 yards of yarn in 15 minutes. A younger woman pulled out the stops and produced a fraction more yardage in that time.
On the more mechanized section, a buxom lady sat beside her homemade spinning machine and fairly made it hum. It had been constructed of PVC pipe and it vibrated and bucked as she spun her heart out. When her son would put his hand on the machine to reduce the vibration, she would mutter, “Keep tyer hands off!” Across from her was a male spinner with a handsome cherry wood spinning wheel who seemed to be making awesome yardage. And closer to me was a German woman who constantly complained of the low-quality fleece she was trying to spin. No matter. The PVC lady won and the German lady took fourth place.
Dutchess County is in the Taconic range of high hills. They are at their absolute peak in terms of color as the sugar maples take on the scarlet and gold of the last breath of summer. We took up residence in a New York State Park down the road from the festival. We were ensconced in a wooded glade, peaceful beyond belief. But cool... quite cool. So we ran our propane heater in the evening before retreating under our down comforter.
Now, on Sunday, we begin our trek south.

Draco Malfoy is Dead

John carries the captured Draco Malfoy out of the hen house while Cassy recoils from the bird's evil eye.
I bring you great news. Draco Malfoy, the rooster ruling the hen house at grand-daughter Trisha's place in Kent, Connecticut, is dead.

Malfoy (named after one of the evil characters in the Harry Potter series of books) was a bit of a wicked bastard. He pecked me at the back of my knees when I went into the hen house to pick up the daily dozen eggs. He chased Trisha and terrorized her to the point she was unwilling to do the daily chores in the hen house. But his days were numbered when a farmer up the road said he was planning to slaughter 100 chickens and would be happy to include Malfoy in the batch.

Our son in law, John, entered the hen house at dusk on Sunday. He had learned the art of grabbing and controlling the rooster: you lay him on his back and he immediately quietens. He slid him into a borrowed cage and Malfoy, when released, set up an awesome squawk while jabbing his beak through the cage. But it was too late. Now Malfoy's hours were numbered.

The farmer asked Lynn if she wanted the dressed rooster back for dinner. She wasn't that keen. But when the farmer said it would cost $5 either way, she decided she'd bring home the carcass. We ate Malfoy but found him to be a skinny bird... no breast meat to speak of, and dark meat that was almost black. But he tasted pretty good.

2010 Journey

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So, How Much Did It Cost?

Our rig, parked in the repair facility in Mobile, Alabama.

A number of our blog friends (mostly those who have an RV) have asked me to share details about the cost of our trip. Even though we have not finished the entire journey (we have about 1,350 miles to go before we return to our roost in Palmetto, Florida, for our winter stay) we thought it might be of interest to you to see the breakdown.

We have pretty exact costs because, first, we budgeted what we expected to spend and, second, we track every expense with Quicken on the computer.

This accounting does not detail costs of eating since we would eat no matter where we are. We do delineate the costs associated with campgrounds for overnight or longer stays.

Repairs were hard to budget - but we guessed we would face fairly extensive costs because we have a 12-year-old rig. I had actually budgeted $2,500, so we blew that budget because our repairs were a bit more extensive.

Travel, by the way, includes loading our rig and car and ourselves aboard the Alaskan ferry system. It also includes costs associated with repairs when we had to leave our rig overnight and take a motel room. It also includes costs of travel to Mayne Island, off Vancouver, when we visited our friends from Namibia.

The cost per mile is the simple calculation of dividing the total expenses by the number of miles driven. I did not attempt to calculate the miles per gallon because it is impractical. When we dry camp we run the generator and that uses gasoline from the fuel tank. So any calculation of mileage would be incorrect because that unknown amount of fuel cannot be deducted from the amount used to drive the rig. I might mention that, in addition to the cost of the gas for the rig, we also bought $330 worth of gas for the car. And we drove 2,500 miles in that car, separate from all the towing miles which, happily, do not register on the odometer. Only the tires and the dings on the front of the car show the real wear and tear on the car.

Journey to Alaska Costs
Gas $4,741.04
Overnight $2,594.94
Repairs $4,829.94
Propane $166.86
Tolls $37.25
Travel $2,735.78
Other $41.67
Total $15,147.48

Miles Traveled 12,413
Cost per Mile $1.22

On the Home Stretch

There is nothing quite so pleasurable as stopping and resting after a voyage of many months. And so we are. We have been languishing in Vermont with daughter Stephanie and her family. We're parked in their side yard and at last have found a mechanic who was able to diagnose and order the parts to repair the emergency brake system on our RV.

The miracle, to me, is that I have been able to nurse this rig across the whole of north America, from Haines, Alaska, to here in Colchester, Vermont. It has meant many stops and much scrunching under the rig, pouring transmission fluid into the emergency brake reservoir. This allows the dying pump to activate and release the emergency brake when I put the rig into gear. Without that fluid, the pump would be unable to disengage the brake. Now the parts are ordered and will be installed next Wednesday. Then we'll head south to daughter Lynn's house in Kent, Connecticut.

While we've lingered in Vermont, we have celebrated birthdays of our grand kids, as well as Stephanie's mother-in-law and ourselves. I took our grandson, Graham, to see comedian Bill Cosby at the state fair last Sunday. Graham is a huge fan of the reruns of the Cosby Show. The comedian now is 73 and, as Graham noted, “he's pretty fat.” I enjoyed the show much more than did he because Cosby's 90-minute live show is nothing like his old TV show.

Graham Bertoni (right)
He is a master or the pain of growing up – at least, what growing up was like 60 years back when parental brutality was more the accepted norm. This is so far outside the understanding of an eight-year-old boy today and Graham sat with an unknowing smile on his lips while we watched Cosby's riff on parental beatings, teacher beatings, and assorted other abuses of small people. It's a different era.

Isabella, who has just turned 12, is an aspiring and talented singer. She presented three half-hour concerts at the state fair in which she sang and played her keyboard for the entertainment of the general public. Imagine the excitement when a woman approached after a performance and asked for her autograph.

Isabella

Jo has been sewing, as well as practicing her portable spinning wheel. And she knits like Madame DeFarge, creating socks in many splendored colors.

We spent a wonderful time in the middle of Michigan with two people Jo and I have come to cherish. Mary and Merve Parsons live in our RV Resort in the wintertime. But they scurry north each year and set about tilling their garden. They raise an astonishing range of crops - from potatoes to beans, to tomatoes of all varieties, to Indian corn, peaches, apples, cherries, squash, watermelon, carrots, beets. And the list goes on. Mary then cans much of this so they have a year's supply of food. Their knowledge base of this natural world is both inspiring and quite awesome. It reminds both of us of the very best of America. They embody that take-care-of-yourself ability that is sliding away with the years.

Then we passed back into Canada one more time to visit with my sister, Rose. She was widowed a couple of years back and it was heartening to see how she is reinventing herself and coping with her new world.

Our journey to Alaska will go down as one of the great adventures of our lives. It was hard work and it was physically challenging for us both. But we are so glad we persevered. We will never forget the encounters with grizzlies, bald eagles, orcas, humpback whales, wolves, caribou, moose, Dall sheep, goats, and a dozen other creatures great and small. But, as inevitably always is the case, it was the people with whom we interacted that leave the lasting memories. So many native Americans, the Russian Orthodox priest, so many settlers who have carved their spot in the wilderness, so many people who lent us a hand of friendship both on the land and aboard the ferries on our way south.

We have another 2,000 miles ahead of us before we park our rig on Florida's west coast for the winter months. So the potential is there for more adventures. But we are already thinking about 2011.

Thanks for coming along with us on this adventure. We hope you have gotten some unique glimpses into a rarely visited land.