THE WAKE LIVES!!!!!!!

   In the preceeding blog I mentioned a wake and a kerfluffle (sp?). To get the whole picture you need information I'm not at liberty to convey via the "blob-o-sphere" or any other medium other than:

              NEWS IN BRIEFS

             (or, read my shorts)

     Fear and Loathing--The Wake Lives

   Thinking the wake was dead, we'd thrown in the crates, hooked up the EGG, and were about to head home. Then low and behold, we learned early this AM that the "kerflufflette" had sorted things out, somewhat, and the wake lives!!! She's heading up this ashes- spreading confab and she said on her phone she's en route to Hunting Island,SC where she's AIRBNB'ed a house for us near-do-wells, and where our dear, dear friend is to have her ashes  spread.  

    I can't imagine how it's going to go down. Again....I'm guessing the dead lady---a sweet, kind, saint sort of a person---is watching and chuckling. More about this in the next blog.

     I've attached a couple of Low Kuntry photos. Glad we're too early for mosquitos and noseeums. That's why they call it the Low Kuntry--'cause when it heats up and the bugs get holt of ya, you be feeling mighty Low. 

Later.....

SHAKEDOWN CRUISE 2016

   Whereas, having spent far too much on the "Medical Conveyor Belt"...a spot ole farts unwittengly find themselves...being shuttled first to one doctor, then another, and still another ad infinitum, we cast ourselves off, threw some crates in the truck, hooked up the EGG and got the hell outta Dodge. (Note: there is no brake on this conveyor belt and the leap off can be deadly, thus placing one back on the belt) Alas.....

   So here we are at Edisto Beach, SC. Temp. 65, NE Wind 15-20. Invigorating for beach walking but a small price to pay in that one forgets Donald Trump, all goofy current events, and dwells on subjects like: Where is the good seafood? I asked a park dude raking the sand (for some reason) and he said, "You go out the gate, take a "rite", go for 7.2 miles, and thar's this seafood shack that cooks out back on Thurs. & Fridays. You gotta set at a picnic table though, but it's the best seafood in these-here parts."

We're gonna check it out, but first a good long walk on the beach to work up an appetite.  More later about this.

   This Sunday, we're supposed to tag a friend's wake on to the end of our stay here at Edisto Beach. It's to be held at Hunting Island State Pk, SC, but it seems to have morphed into a kerfluffle and my not occur. I'm guessing the dead person is having a chuckle over it all. What a dear soul she was & like us all, soon to be lost in the vast expanse of time. Pardon this Billy Shakespeare quote, for I use it a lot, but as he put it: "We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and oue little life is rounded with a sleep."

Later.....

Gettysburg

Final Photos

GETTYSBURG & LA QUINTA

     It was the "Unknowns"---the hundreds of "Unknowns" with  brick-shaped, granite markers and a number---like maybe 251 or 310. That's all that's left to note their existence.They were mostly young lads---many having been misled about the value and length of what was to be a 620,000+++++ casualty bloodbath.  Chaps with their lives ahead of them--- but now lost in the vast expanse of time. What I'm talking about is the mammoth Civil War cemetery at Gettysburg.  Can't seem to shake it the feelings it gave Ann and me.     

     Left Gettysburg KOA early, this AM and made it to Salem, Virginia's La Quinta Inn, bought a 6-pack of Miller Lite and headed for the pool. It was just 2:00 PM, but too far from the crib to do in one day (by our standards).

                   ***********************

     Some stream-of-conscious thoughts from this EGG trek up through Pa., upper N.Y., New Hampshire and Maine are: 

     The old, old buildings and churches and graveyards---huge graveyards because so much time has passed and  so many people have up and died. The            old, old homes, and skinny streets, and lush, lush flora---due in great part to the record amount of snow melt. The beautiful  wildflowers---many the same as down south, but healther-looking. The lack of tacky billboards, the cool, clear air; the seeminfly endless forests in more places than I had imagined; the large numbers of churches---some 200 yrs or more old---all painted white, with neatly groomed yards; the stretches of awful roads---expanding in the summer, and then buckling up in the sub-zero winter.  Met a nice fellow from Vermont who went through 8 chords of wood "...plus I ran the furnace most mornings.  Had about six weeks of -25 below."  Then, there was the very dandy haddock burger up in northern Maine at Beales---a feast in a big basket, with fries, tarter sauce and a side of purple cabbage slaw---all eaten right next to where the lobster and fishing boats dock up and  the sea breeze was a- puffing and everybody laughing and stuffing their face.    

     Home to the crib manana---(knock on  the simulated wood bedside table here at La Quinta.)

     Here's wishing you peace and happiness.

    Oh yeah, perhaps you'll want to check out www.richarddavidrandall.com. The book, Oh, Nelly! , was just released. A second book will be coming out late this fall.     

     Later........

              

     

Assorted Remaining Pictures

Gettysburg, Pennsylvania & Misc. other Stuff

     On the Interstates. Whoa unto us. Tks. to Dwight Eisenhower's Interstate Roads Program, for the most part, they get from point "A" to point "B" quicker than the red roads. Seems like we take the red roads to a destination and the Interstates home.  Humm....

     Last night, in N.Y. KOA, way the hell down many, many twisted, "Blind Curve" roads--- my horror being a  dead end road with no place to turn a trailer around. This is the firery pit for a trailer'er. But there it was. And there was a  hardy, 18 year old Croatian fellow with a chain saw, cutting a stump next to our site. Having driven 4 hrs., I wanted to rest a bit, have a suds, and chill. It had a happy ending... and it led to our meeting the 

owner of this, and other  

 KOA's, a ranch..homes here and there...the whole works. BUT he was dying, and addicted to morphine. A  handsome, charming, 49 yr. old fellow with a beautful wfe and children. It all stems from three, simultaneously ruptured discs in his spin, which led to a wire mesh around the discs, through-bolted with ss bolts. The morphine (doctor's orders) has rendered his colon disfunctional. The upshot is that he's dying & he's trying to fathom what this is all about.  Alas......

                    ****************

    At KOA, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Going to see what this is all about. Both Ann and I having kin who fought in the Civil War. We were a couple of hrs. away, and couldn't pass it by.

    My Great Aunt Jenny B. Crane, who lost her fiance during the siege of Richmond and intentionally remained a widow, thereafter put it, "I was 18 years old before I learned that damn Yankee was two words,"

     I'm going to try to put a bunch of non-published  photos from Acadia and assorted other sites during early stages of trek home.

     Later..........