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Out of town

"So, how long are we in this hellhole?" Oz asked.

Hah. Hah. We were at the Hilton in Old Town Alexandria. A three-star hellhole with fluffy towels, superb air conditioning, and Starbucks in the lobby.

I may be taking a job up in Alexandria soon, so this was a preliminary exploration of the area where I'll be living and working during the week. Weekends will still belong to my beloved Church Hill, where Oz will be holding down the home front and the cats.

I have to say, I hope this Richmond trend of neighborhood blogs catches on in Alexandria. I went googling around and all I found was the Del Ray Sun, which simply does not compare to the Church Hill People's News. I'm longing for a crime map. None of the leasing agents will give me a straight answer (even when I say, "Really, I live in the 'hood back home. I'm just wondering about the break-in frequency around here … ") and without being intimately familiar with the area, it's hard to evaluate a prospective block.

We did find great Lebanese food in Old Town. I discovered that the neighborhood where I'll be working (and possibly living in the "luxury" apartment building right there) looks really post-bio-warfare on the weekends. No people. Just tall brick and stucco buildings. Pretty much like Trani's vision for downtown Richmond. Creepy.

Then our local friends took us out for Indian food and ice cream in Del Ray, the tree-filled residential area on the other side of the tracks, complete with Subarus, Birkenstock-wearing professionals, and cute cottages which I would totally buy if I had a spare half-million in the bank. I have discovered a few affordable rentals in that neighborhood. We may be going back up again soon, if only for the ice cream.

Zoologically

Llamas at the Natural Bridge Zoo

I've been messing around with our vacation pictures and put some of them up in a set. Not a lot of excitement there, but then we are not the most exciting people.

One of the unexpected treats of our trip to Natural Bridge was the Natural Bridge Zoo. It's not a big operation, but they have a nice mix of animals. Cute baby animals too, like a baby tiger, a jolly, bouncy baby bear, and a flirtatious, soft-nosed baby camel. I think this is the first zoo where I've seen giraffes from the right angle. Usually giraffes are kept in the deep pits (or so it seems) so that the viewing humans' heads are at about the same height as the giraffes' heads. That's just wrong. Here, we were standing on the same level as the giraffes with only a fence between us and we could get right up close. Wow! Giraffes are big and meaty-looking (hey, we're predators, we notice) when they're not foreshortened.

Another thing, I've never been in a zoo where the animals were looking at me as closely as I was looking at them. This was in part because the zoo let you feed some of the animals. But not the gibbons, who started showing off as we walked up and whooped conversationally. I whooped back, and the whoop exchange went on for a while as the gibbon brachiated around and rattled the cage every time we tried to walk away. I wonder what I was saying.

Okay, so the flamingos ignored us. I took their picture anyway and now I have a new banner graphic. Once upon a time, I had this idea that I would change my banners seasonally, but it's been kudzu all the way. The flamingos are perfect for summer. They'll probably end up being perfect for fall and winter too.

Into the mountains

Natural Bridge, Virginia, through the fisheye

We spent a couple lovely (but really hot) days out in the Blue Ridge Mountains. We stayed in Natural Bridge and did not quite all the touristy things, but most of them. As you can see, Natural Bridge is super gorgeous and impressive. My family came here once when I was maybe nine and at the time, I really wanted to go up on the bridge, not just walk under it. You still can't go up on the bridge, but I'm more mature now and better able to appreciate all that beautiful natural scenery from all the way down at the bottom of the ravine (which would look awesome from up high, I'm sure). The Cedar Creek Nature Trail, which runs under the bridge and 1500 yards back to a pretty waterfall, is worth the walk. And if you're not into hiking, never fear. This is basically handicapped-accessible hiking and there are lots of benches along the way. Supposedly there are also rock-dwelling poisonous snakes, or so we were told, but we suspect our young informant was bullshitting us. We stayed in the hotel across the way from the bridge entrance and the morning we took the hike, we watched a huge cloud of mist boil up out of the ravine to obscure the mountains. Spooky! The mist was all gone by the time we got to the bridge. Oh well, that's the price we pay for waiting till it opens.

However, the real point of this exercise, even more than the bridge, was Foamhenge!

We saw Foamhenge in a brochure of Virginia attractions and I decided that we had to see it. It's more convenient than Stonehenge, that's for sure. Also, it is fun to say "Foamhenge" out loud and frequently. One might even say it is addictive, but we'll be getting over it any day now. No need for an intervention.

Foamhenge, on Route 11 just north of Natural Bridge

We missed the solstice by a couple days, darn it. I wasn't thinking when we planned our trip. Still, Foamhenge was everything we imagined. Big, foamy, and it had a nice view from the hilltop as well as a fiberglass druid. Unfortunately, due to some cowtippers thinking outside the box, a few of the megaliths are missing. You can see Foamhenge from Route 11 as you're heading south. By all means, pull into the parking area and take the short walk up the hill. We were there at dusk and took the opportunity to play with my lighting gear. We now have lots of pictures of ourselves in silly poses amid the megaliths. No, I'm not posting them publicly.

Oh, and Happy Solstice, everyone.

I went back to Ohio

Now I'm back in Virginia. One of my cousins got (re)married last week so it was a perfect opportunity to visit the extended family in Dayton and its environs. Most of my relatives live in Centerville, also known as "White-ville" according to another cousin's coworkers. And, I have to say, we are so white, it's ethnic. This possibly even applies to the non-white family members.

They sure are Northerners. The weather was pretty nice the whole time, low 80s and not very humid. Paradise by Virginia standards, but every time the Ohioans walked outside, they said, "Ugh! It's hot!" They got laughed at.

Since I've been back, I've been slinging wedding pictures onto CDs, printing a few copies of the choicer ones, and writing little notes. I have to say, we are a good-looking bunch. Or, at least, they are. I'm not in any of the pictures I have. I notice that I seem to have a lot of shots of relatives horsing around. Just what every wedding album needs.

Ah, it was a nice visit, but it's also nice to be back. Oz says that the cats really missed me.

Learning the language

On our trip to the Eastern Shore, we were privileged to share a veggie combo pizza with some three-year-olds.

One of them pointed to a black olive and said solemnly, "I don't eat these."

I said, "Too much flavor, huh?"

He said, "Yeah. I don't eat flavor."

Now I'm wondering. I should have asked him what "flavor" is.

Our little getaway

There's nothing quite like a long weekend on the Eastern Shore to drive all those half-composed blog posts out of one's head. It's all coming back to me now, though, so I should get cracking.

We went back to Chincoteague, of course. We'd been planning to go back in the fall, but we bumped up our visit after we found that a high school friend of mine is living there now. (I need to think of a pseudonym for her, or ask her to pick one.) We've always wanted to have friends come with us to Chincoteague. The only thing that could make a relaxing barrier island vacation better would be to have friends along. Alas, whenever we've broached the subject, our friends say, "Uh. Well, we've been there already and there's nothing to do." And we say, "Yes! That's the whole point!" We were delighted to find that the perfect person was there all along. As well as her two adorable three-year-old kids and her retired parents living just up the street.

Her parents who are, like, the Nicest People in the World®, stopped by to say Hi. When I said how I was happy to find that they'd retired to my favorite place, they said, "Isn't it great here? There's nothing to do! We've even started watching birds." I said, "Yeah, and the birds here are really large and easy to identify." [I'm myopic. Bird-watching is not my thing, but even I can handle herons, ducks, and egrets.] Later, her mom sent over crab dip. My friend told me, "You rate! I don't get crab dip."

Our nothing-to-do was the usual. We made trips out to the wildlife refuge, engaged in a little fruitless pony watching (ponies not in evidence!), identified the large, easy-to-see birds, and spotted a muskrat, possibly an otter, and one of the endangered fox squirrels. One night we got up in the wee hours to watch a rocket launch from Wallops Island. We didn't see anything because (1) we were looking in the completely wrong place and (2) NASA missed their launch window so no rocket anyway. We were feeling kind of foolish till we learned (2) from the Wallops web site after we got home. I told Oz, "Hey, they're trying again tonight." "Want to go back?" "Tonight? It's in three hours."

Now he wants to plan our next trip around the launch schedule.

Somehow I don't think we're quite back in the real world yet.

We are on vacation

Our hotel is hosting an Elder Hostel this week. My grandparents did lots of Elder Hostel back in the day and loved it.

I told Oz, "Ooh! All those people are here for Elder Hostel!"

He said, "Elder Hostile?"

"Yeah, Elder Hostile. It's like Fight Club for old people. You know, the first rule of Elder Hostile is 'You don't talk about Elder Hostile.'"

All the Elders break this rule.

By odd coincidence, it is also the tail end of DelMarVa bike week and flocks of Harleys are roaring down the quiet streets. One can look down a row of hotels and restaurants and see signs saying "Welcome Bikers" right next to signs saying "Welcome Elders."

Our hotel looks out over the channel between Chincoteague (yes, we came back). This morning I stepped out onto the balcony and saw not the mainland. It's misty, as it should be, and the sky blended seamlessly with the water. The clouds were still pinkish with dawn and the water of the channel was smooth and cast up silky reflections. Then a school of dolphins swam up the channel in their photogenically synchronized way. Ah! Pretty.

Now the hotel is being buzzed by vintage aircraft.

The mosquitoes are awful, worse than what we remembered from last year. We didn't come prepared and paid for it by missing a perfect pony photography opportunity. At sunset on our first evening here, the wild ponies were right up by the road, prettily backlight with white herons perched on their backs. We only got a couple shots before the bugs drove us away. We had to enjoy the nature refuge from the car. "Oh, nature is so nice to drive through with the windows down."

Another day passes.

We still run into flocks of Elders about town. They travel in a chartered school bus, so we know they're there before we see them.

Monday: We went to the lighthouse, after running to the supermarket to get the magic of Deep Woods OFF and some handy DEET wipes. We saw the ElderBus in the lot, but we were alone on the trail, except for a million frustrated mosquitoes who would fly up to us, retch, and fly away. Then they'd come back because they're bugs and they don't have much in the way of long term memory. The lighthouse came into sight, then we stepped out of the woods and into a flock of Elders spraying each other with DEET.

In the evening we went back out to the wildlife refuge, applied more OFF, and took a short walk on the wooden walkways around the Toms Cove Nature Center. Down on the sand, two brown rabbits nibbled on salty grass and kept one eye on us. A woman with two little boys walked up and after an initial cry of "Bunnies!" the boys piped down and watched, with only occasional whispers of "They're so cute!" They found another bunny further along the walkway.

Today is Tuesday. We waited all day for the rain, we drove around and looked at things. We found the giant Viking and Beebe Ranch, where they have stuffed Misty on display. I had been planning to check out stuffed Misty (grossed out by the whole concept, Oz had been planning to wait in the car), but I missed my chance this year. They closed for the season the day before we arrived.

Toad massacre! In the evening the toads hop onto the road through the wildlife refuge. We can see them by the light of the headlights. They mostly look like pale little lumps, almost like pieces of gravel, except when they hop (sometimes under the wheels). The rain brought out extra toads who fling themselves into the path of the car. I'm hoping we're missing them, but I actually hear when the wheels run over a big one. Euw! Oz says, "Don't worry, the rain will wash the toad guts off the car." I say, "I'm not worried about that, I'm worried about the toads."

Wednesday: Cold pushy Canadian air followed the rain and brought in perfect autumn days. Evidence of the toad massacre has been washed away by the rain. But the toads know the real story. Thanks to the sudden temperature drop we are safe from toad revenge. For now. A couple days later I found a squashed baby turtle by the road, but we are totally not responsible for the turtle.

There are Mennonites in town. (Not that I could recognize Mennonites specifically, but I assume they are. These folks are members of one of those German religious sects which have clothing rules where the guys can dress like regular guys, but the women have to wear odd-shaped homemade dresses, specific hairstyles, and little white caps or veils.) We saw some of the women, in their billowing pastel dresses and little caps, on a bicycle built for four ride up to the causeway to the wildlife refuge. They pulled out fishing rods and a net and proceeded to lay waste to the water creatures while talking on their cell phones.

We took sunset pictures. A great blue heron hangs out near the Toms Cove nature center and I took lots of poorly exposed pictures of it. I then mucked around with metering settings and got a few pictures that might do. I did catch a glimpse of the bunnies again. And this time I had the big lens on the camera and the tripod. The ponies are not so forthcoming as the bunnies and waterfowl. The ponies, they mock us.

At night we went out to the beach on the wildlife refuge to look at the stars. We could see the Milky Way (which never fails to amaze me) and lots of Dippers (all constellations look like dippers). We saw a total of three shooting stars and lots of planes tooling up and down the Eastern Seaboard.

[Each day is broken up into interludes of napping, eating fried foods, reading books, and tourist stuff. The hotel's internet access isn't working and I am not motivated enough to take the laptop out on a quest for wireless.]

Thursday: We got up insanely early to do a light hike before the sun got too high. The view from the pony overlook did not have much in the way of ponies. Damn the ponies! In the woods we saw deer and birds and interesting fungi, or at least fungus-looking things. Oz called one type "Dead Man's Tulips" ("Dead Man's Tulips! You didn't touch it, did you? Better get to the emergency room so they can amputate your finger. Might save your life.") The landscapes on Assateague appeal to my monkey brain, that layer of cortex laid down as our ancestors stepped down from the treetops and walked out onto the savannahs. Broad expanses of grasslands and scrubby shrubs, tall stands of pine trees in the hazy air, and ponies in the distance. Birds and deer walk around and pose. Bunnies sit up and look at you when you say, "Bunny!" A raccoon bustles by on his raccoon business. Admittedly, our ancestors saw a lot more in the way of large carnivores and considerably less in the way of cute furry creatures.

Friday: We climbed to the top of the Assateague Lighthouse this morning. The volunteer at the top gave us stickers to prove it. Unlike other lighthouses I've climbed, this lighthouse is very airy. The double-walled structure provides room for airshafts in the walls which keep the inside cool and breezy, except for the glassed in bit at the top. We could see across Chincoteague to the mainland and all over this end of the refuge. If we wanted to spend three hours sweating under the giant lenses, we could sit up there tomorrow and watch for a rocket launch from Wallops. And that's about all we did today. We photographed ponies eating grass. Ate lunch. Read. I've almost run out of books, so it's just as well that we're heading home tomorrow.

In order, I've read Fly by Night by Frances Hardinge, Bridge of Birds by Barry Hughart, Stolen by Annette Lapointe, Thud! by Terry Pratchett, and Assassination Vacation by Sarah Vowell. That's about a book a day, a normal rate for me when I have neither work nor internet access.

The hesitation

So after all that. All the shopping, the perusal of bridal magazines, the trip to New York, the hoisting of fifty pound dresses over her head, the offers to customize the design …

The princess emails me and says, "I'm thinking about changing the color from white to ivory. I'm thinking maybe that other dress. I need advice from someone sensible. What do you think?"

Oh, princess! Get whatever you want!

That is basically my advice, but I used more words and told her that she couldn't go wrong because both the dresses looked wonderful on her. (Which is true.) (In case she's reading this, but I don't think she does.)

When my cousin got married, she rented the dress and the bridesmaids' dresses were rented too. I think she saved herself a lot more than just money. I bet when you rent a dress, you can second-guess yourself and change your mind for months …

Hmm. Maybe that's not such a good thing after all.

The plunge

Back to the story of the trip to New York and shopping for wedding dresses with the princess, who is a friend of mine, not my daughter. I am childless, though I am old enough to have a child of marriageable age. I'd be screeching, "No! Are you insane? You can't get married before you're thirty. Go to your room!" I'm really proud of myself for not screeching that at my various classmates from engineering school who did that idiotic thing where they graduate, move, start a proper job for the first time ever, and get married in the space of three weeks, because that's some serious insanity there.

Where was I? The princess, yes. Okay, the princess is an actual grown-up and is paying for her own dream wedding, and she dreams big. I doubt I'd even consider buying such a big fancy gown for myself, but I'm happy to see what it's like. Actually, a story about the dress buying part of the industrial wedding complex would be pretty interesting. The Washington Post just ran an article about wedding dress clearance at Filene's, which is all about how to get that US$5000 dress for $500. The process of getting a bargain dress is much more stressful than when you pay full price.

First of all, you don't make a mad dash, you make an appointment.

The princess's plan for New York was to attend two trunk shows (I saw no trunks), where if she purchased a dress she'd get a 12.5% discount. The first was at Reem Acra's salon in midtown, the second was at Kleinfeld, a bridal shop in Chelsea which carries dresses from many different designers. At both places, the designers were present and schmoozing with the brides. The schmoozing was rather nice. At first the designers only introduced themselves to us and mingled elsewhere while the princess tried on dresses. Once she found a dress that looked really fabulous on her, as opposed to simply great, the designers swooped enthusiastically, calling for veils and playing with her hair to show her how it would look best with the gown.

"And you will wear your hair down, see?"

"Actually I was thinking of wearing it up …"

"No! It is your feature. You must wear it like this, so that it frames your face, yes?"

Also at both places, and maybe wedding dress shops in general (I don't know), the staff all dressed entirely in black. This sets up some interesting visual contrasts, which is why I was disappointed I couldn't take photographs. You have this soft, flattering light, tall mirrors, and a row of happy, excited brides standing on podiums and attended by black-clad women who are fussing with the trains, adjusting the clamps on the backs of the dresses, and crowning them with veils and tiaras.

The deal with the clamps is that there is only one sample dress. All the brides are different sizes, so the attendant uses the clamps to snug up the dress on the small brides. For the larger brides, the dress doesn't get zipped up in back (I forget exactly how they hold it somewhat closed) and a piece of satin gets inserted in the open spot.

Another interesting visual that I wish I could have shot was the plunge into the dress. The princess was trying on strapless gowns with huge skirts puffed out by yards of crinolines. These dresses are heavy and nearly impossible to put on by yourself. You can't step into it because there's only the one sample and they don't want you stepping on it, or tripping and tearing it. So the attendant, all in black, hoists the dress into the air and works her hands in from the bodice to open a path through the inner slip. In profile one sees the layers of the dress constructed like a huge, complicated flower: the slip, the burst of crinoline, the sleek, heavy folds of the skirt. Before all that stands the bride, clad only in a longline bra, her underpants, and high heels, with her arms raised over her head, poised as if to dive into a pool.

One thing I wasn't expecting was the social aspect of the process. Most of the brides have a friend or some family along to help. After seeing what's involved, I can't imagine going through this alone. There's so much emotion and fantasy for the bride, plus the sales attendant who is helping you find the right dress (but she is also trying to make a sale), that it's a good thing to have a companion present to diffuse the focus of the sales pitch and to ask questions and make observations that are impossible for the bride who is sort of oxygen deprived from being clamped into a big heavy gown, like "Yes, that embroidery around the bust is rather enhancing, but it also looks too much like a brassiere." It's even better for the bride if her companion is approximately her same size and height.

For example, I am the exact same height and about the same size as the princess.

At the end, once she'd narrowed down to two dresses, one with the perfect train and one with the perfect bodice, she had me try them on. So I too experienced the plunge through the tunnel of gown, the clamping, and the oxygen deprivation. The skirts of a satin ballgown are so heavy, I can't imagine why she'd want to drag them around for a whole evening, but she's the princess … And I observed that, damn, but when you have the dress on, even with all the mirrors, you totally cannot see how it looks on you, especially from the back. You can see the edge of the train and that's about it.

I also got to experience the transient micro-community that forms around the bride when she has on a good dress. These ladies who were there with another bride drifted over to both the princess and myself to tell us how lovely the dress was and how good we both looked in it. In fact, the princess looked fabulous in all the dresses she tried on, she only had to select the one that made her happiest. Not as easy a choice as you might think. The designer's assistants bustled around, addressing the princess's concerns about how the train was not quite fancy enough. "Oh, we can make it fancier. How about some scalloping? Shall we draw you a sketch?" Neither the princess nor I can draw, so we were disproportionately impressed by the instant sketching.

The micro-communities are interesting. They're dress-centered, and you have the phenomenon where a dress looks great on one bride and all the other brides want to try it on, and then you have the phenomenon where the brides who are getting the same dress bond momentarily over the dress. At the Reem Acra boutique, we met a bride with her mom and sister (also a Reem bride) up from Atlanta who was getting the dress that the princess almost got. Happy past brides make excellent sales pitches. I got to take their picture (with their camera). Now that I think of it, bridal salons should have someone on staff with a good camera to take pictures of the brides. I took pictures of the princess with both my Nikon and her point-and-shoot, and according to the princess, my pictures are "so much better."

It's not necessarily all sweetness and joy at the bridal salon. I mostly saw happy brides, but I'm sure that dress-related conflict arises. We saw some brewing. At Kleinfeld we noticed a dreadful dress on a mannequin, it was a translucent, lacy corset-with-a-skirt thing and our reaction was "Who would want that?" Later we saw someone actually trying it on! She was there with her mother and grandmother, who were sitting on a sofa and circumspectly averting their eyes and remarking, "I don't know. I don't think I like all that ruffley stuff on the skirt." As opposed to screeching, "NO! Are you insane? You are not walking down that aisle in a merry widow, skirt or no!"

And that is the fancy bridal shop experience.

Another excellent argument in favor of elopement?

It depends on the bride, of course.

I had better do some writing

Snakes on a pediment, at the Coca-Cola Company, 711 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY

I've been working and messing around with pictures. Surprise, surprise. Not too many of the shots from New York turned out, what with this not being a leisurely photographic tour, but I'm pleased enough with the ones that did. They're in the Big City set. This "snakes on a pediment" picture of the Coca-Cola doorway got linked up by another blog, which must get a lot more traffic than mine, because this image has gotten more views in a day than any of the rest of the pictures in my photostream since I started messing around on Flickr.

Oh, the work? I seem to be done with the huge mass of patents for litigation, which has been keeping me busy for the past few months. Right now, ah bliss! I have no work scheduled for next week. I'm alternately planning chores to do, imagining being lazy and doing none of them, and having little attacks of "oh no! I'll never work again!"

Odds are I'll work again. Odds are pretty good I'll work again next week, especially if I plan to go shop for a new shower enclosure for my bathroom.

Today we expanded our carbon footprint a little more and drove up to Fredericksburg to see if we could find a chest of drawers in one of the antique shops on Caroline Street. We didn't, but Oz found a very stylish Italian hat which looked awful on me. It really belongs on an Italian lady. While I was sitting on a shady bench out on the sidewalk and waiting for Oz to finish up in one store, I saw a flock of Red Hat Society ladies, all in purple and red hats, descend on an ice cream store. They were moving too fast for me to get a picture, but they were carrying digital cameras. I guess they've got the photographic documentation covered for themselves. At a stationery store we acquired little fancy-pants notebooks and disposable fountain pens. We're so literary. Next thing you know, we'll be hanging out in cafes and pretending to write poetry.

Girly weekend

Cartier, East 52nd Street and Fifth Avenue, New York, NY

That was a whirlwind sort of thing. I'm still processing it all. The princess and I caught a midday train at Union Station in DC and she was trying on wedding dresses within a couple hours of our arrival in New York. The shopping was the whole point of the trip, so I didn't get to do a lot of photography because we had important things to do. Also, the princess set a limit on how many times she'd hold my coffee cup while I took pictures of fancy doorways.

Would you believe? They won't let you photograph the dresses until you agree to buy one. It's a pity too, because the whole process inside the dress shops is really interesting and allowing me to shoot would have (almost) made up for the soundtrack, an endless loop of the mushiest pop songs of the last thirty years.

Our mission was ultimately successful. Even better, the princess may be having her fittings done in New York too. Not that we'd need an excuse to go back.

Now everything is upside down

My fingers are hurting (too much typing). I was dragging my heels through the current job today when I got a phone call from a friend. The princess, who's been planning her wedding since the third grade practically, is planning in earnest now. I get to be a bridesmaid, which means I don't have to worry about (or even be scared of) what to wear, oddly enough, because she has a particular aesthetic sense. For example, she rejected the Willard as a reception venue because the very gorgeous hall was too green.

But anyway, she wanted to know if I'd like to run up to Manhattan with her this weekend. She has an appointment at a chi-chi wedding dress place.

Yes! And we will have tea somewhere. We commiserated at missing the chance to have tea at the Plaza, which is now being turned into condos, but maybe the restaurants will stay open.

I will bring my camera and take pictures of the dresses, if they'll let me. The princess tells me that trying on dresses involves something called "clamping." I'm sure it's not as kinky as it sounds. I told her, "You know, what with my current haircut, at this place they might think we're together." She said, "Oh, you don't look like a boy." That's not exactly what I meant …

Oz is unnerved by all this dress talk. I said, "You don't think I'm going to get bridal-envy, do you?" He said, "No, but it's just so Doris Day creepy!"

Eavesdropping

Again with the Chincoteague, because all I did today was translate a patent and do laundry, neither of which bear writing about.

I don't have kids, but I eavesdrop on people who do. It's a vicarious thing, which is about as much as I can deal with.

At an all you can eat seafood place, a family of four (two parents, two teenaged boys) come in and sit down. A waiter turns up.

Dad: You remember when we were here last July?
Waiter: Uh, sure? (I mean, really, be reasonable. Could he?)
Dad: We sat over there and we got eighty crabs.
Waiter: Oh, yeah. I remember that.
Dad, pointing at one of the kids: Well, this one wasn't here then, so tonight we're going for a higher number.
Waiter: Okay, I'll tell them in the kitchen.

And we stayed at a different hotel this time. This one had not such a good view, but a pony glimpse from the balcony. Across the street was a pen of ponies for sale. On Sunday morning, we were sitting out on the balcony when we heard a loud howling. We both assumed it was a dog in some great distress, but then the howl resolved into words:

"Iiiiii waaaaant thaaat poooonyyyy!"

So that's my new mantra whenever I'm in a whinin' and moanin' kind of mood. Oz's response is "You can't have that pony."

Open house at Wallops

One of the reasons why we went back to Chincoteague this past weekend, entirely apart from Oz's obsession, was to attend the Open House at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility. This was so much fun—almost as much fun as working there, maybe. We got to ogle aircraft, see exhibits and poster sessions about different projects, collect swag, and tour some of the facilities and a mobile command center. It seemed that many of the people in attendance were connected with the facility in some way, either they worked there and this was an opportunity for them to bring their families on campus or they were retired from there and this was an opportunity for them to lord it over their former minions.

Our swag collection consisted of stickers, a poster about ice (I didn't manage to snag a "MARS: Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport" poster, which is too bad because they were really cool), more stickers, bookmarks, a lanyard, a pin, a magnet, two collapsible Frisbees (when I was using one as a fan on one of the shuttle busses, the lady behind me tried to give me a fan from the balloon project), and flyers from NASA branches and contractors who are probably not hiring.

The Control Center was open for a presentation about what the WFF is all about. The big screens on the walls displayed control-center-y images, old launch videos, and a really old black and white video about the facility that must have dated back to the 1950s (and featured a clip of well-muscled, shirtless, perspiring engineers assembling a rocket under the noonday sun).

We also got to tour the machine shop where they make rockets. The rockets are made out of big aluminum tubes, so we saw lathes and other metal shaping equipment. I am so not a mech-e, big machines are not my thing, although one machine was pretty neat. The new computer-controlled water jet cutter was demonstrated for us by a guy who hadn't been trained on the machine yet, so he'd been teaching himself to use it by cutting metal into pretty bits shaped like flowers, F-15s, fish, and a bowl full of rocket-shaped keychain fobs. For the little kids in our group, he offered to cut out some F-15s. One asked, "Can you do a Stealth?" "No, I don't have a Stealth programmed in there. But I can do an F-15," he said, but only got a noncommittal "Oh" in return.

And, by the way, our tour group included a lot of little old ladies who asked sharp questions about rockets. I found this surprising, because most of the little old ladies I know are mainly interested in sewing and doll collecting. I hope someday I'll be the little old lady who elbows her way, gently but firmly, to the front of the crowd to press her nose against the plexiglass and watch plates of metal being sliced apart with jets of water and sand, or whatever they're using to cut metal in forty years.

After the pieces parts of the rockets are made, the rockets are assembled and tested to make sure they won't fall apart when they're launched. One of the things they do is spin the rocket to make sure it's balanced. The rocket spins for stability when it flies and, just like a washing machine load, it needs to be balanced if it's going to fly straight. Not that a washing machine flies straight or otherwise, but if the load is unbalanced it will dance across the floor. Anyway, there is a big machine that spins rockets. It's so old it has vacuum tubes in it.

In the testing area, industrial fans pointed at the ceiling and parachutes floated up and down above them. A really big scale subtracted twenty-five pounds off my weight (it must have been zeroed to a twenty-five pound tray). The building had a tall, narrow doorway especially for rockets.

We had fun. Can you tell?

Seeing by starlight

Since Oz now adores Chincoteague to the point of obsession, we went back this past weekend. This time, we took advantage of one of the greatest benefits of a lack of development: darkness. In the evenings after night fell, we went out to the beach in the wildlife refuge to stare up at the sky. If we'd been thinking ahead, we would have brought the telescope.

You forget, living in the city, what the night sky ought to look like. You hear the old saw about counting the stars and laugh and say, "Yeah. One, two, three … Okay, we're done." It's easy to pick out Orion, the Big Dipper, and the Pleiades because those are almost the only stars bright enough to penetrate the orange, sodium vapor morass that is the urban night sky.

But out on the beach, we saw the Milky Way and so many stars I could hardly find Orion. Too many stars to count and two shooting stars (quite countable, that).

Apart from the whole "Wow! That's a whole lot of stars!" thing, I was amazed at how bright starlight actually was. There was no moon in the sky and the only sunlit chunk of rock was Mars hanging low on the horizon, but we could see each other, the car, the beach. It was too dark to differentiate colors, but only just so. Admittedly all that reflective sand probably had a lot to do with the light level, we might have been in the dark if we'd been standing on dirt. The only time we couldn't see was when some other vehicles drove by, trucks with coolers and fishing poles in racks on the front, and headlights that stole our night vision and left us in the dark.

Twirling

Chincoteague drawbridge, open to car traffic
Where do you think it is?

This was the view from our hotel room balcony. Pretty cool, huh? We've got wetlands, boats, and the drawbridge. And a hotel, but we could ignore that. The only thing missing was a hammock. These photographs were taken by Oz, who seems to have some of the same problems with keeping the camera level that I do.

(Yes, two entries in a row about translating and proofreading are enough. Today I had to use the non-word "variablized"—had to, no choice whatsoever—and the good English fairy that lives in my brain stem nearly clawed a bloody passage out through my left eyeball.)

When we arrived on the island, we were so excited about getting out of the car that we didn't really pay attention to the drawbridge. If we had, we might have noticed that it wasn't the up-and-down kind.

Chincoteague drawbridge, open to boat traffic

It spins! I've seen drawbridges before, but never a spinning one. I tried to find out a little more about it, but all I found was that it needs to be replaced. We actually got caught in the backup that is mentioned in the article and saw the ambulances go by. That's too bad, I hope they get the funding and that the replacement is just as neat.

While I was googling on the drawbridge, I also found an article about Chincoteague in the Washington Post's weekend section from back in May. It seems there is an English tea on the island and I didn't know about it. Next time…

Out of place

Viking overseeing the Kiwanis Flea Market
East Side Road, Chincoteague

When we saw this guy, we started singing, "Footless, footless, Everybody get footless!"

RoadsideAmerica has a photograph that documents the presence of one foot, but you can't tell from this picture and we didn't get out of the car to verify. Obviously there is no flea market happening today, but someone who attended one in 2004 has an account of their experience, including a picture with the Viking's foot.

Roadside Architecture has a little bit about the Viking's history (you have to scroll down because they didn't have relative links). Rumors abound.

This fascination with large fiberglass figures is not uniquely American, I'm happy to note, but I'm glad to see that the Viking, through his unwieldiness, has not driven anyone into a life of crime like Peko-chan has. Though I didn't write about it before, I picked up a story about the busting of the Peko-chan theft ring for my ever-growing, mental (in many ways) Japanese crime log, which is going to need its own category soon.

Love and rockets

Rocket!
Wallops Flight Facility Visitor Center

Because I'm not just a girl (I'm an unemployed engineer and former NASA intern), we had to see more than ponies. Besides, Oz broke the NASA badge holder I got him from Langley and needed to replace it. There's not a whole lot at the visitor center which, I must say, has quite a lot of space which could be used for more exhibits. They do have a movie theater where they show a film of astronauts having fun in the shuttle by playing kids' games in zero gravity: yoyos, jacks, marbles, and more! The static exhibits deal with the WFF projects like rockets, giant helium balloons, and other basic research. One section dealt with Sam the monkey and his trip into orbit. Oz was a kid when Sam got shot into space and remembers how he was jealous of the monkey, because he'd had a picture in his head of the monkey in a space suit getting to fly the rocket and do experiments.

Another non-pony activity was eating ice cream.

Mister Whippy
Maddox Avenue, Chincoteague

Oz loves Mister Whippy, although I think half the appeal is saying "Mister Whippy!" Try saying it out loud a few times and you'll find that you start speaking in a falsetto. It sounds kind of cute, but slightly naughty. They have chocolate, vanilla, or chocolate-vanilla twist, and various sundaes and shakes. The hot apple sundae is pretty good. Next time I'm going to give the brownie sundae a try. We actually ended up scheduling meals around Mister Whippy. That's harder than it sounds, because if you fill up on great seafood then you don't have room for ice cream, even if it is "97% fat free."

At this rate, the write-up will take longer than the demi-vacation did. It's just as well, because I have so much translation work that I won't see the light of day till the end of the month and the WFF Open House.

Ponies!

Vorpal pony at the Chincoteague Pony Centre
Chicken City Road, Chincoteague, Virginia

The real reason why we went to Chincoteague was the confluence of a beach and the pernicious influence of Misty of Chincoteague. When I read it as a kid, I had to check it out from the library because my parents wouldn't buy pony books (as if I hadn't figured out that I wasn't getting a pony). And I always wanted to go to Chincoteague, but instead we had to go to the Everglades and walk around in the marshes. Well, fooey on my parents! Chincoteague has marshes too and you don't have to drive two days to get there.

Anyway, I was all excited about the ponies because of this childhood wish fulfillment thing and Oz was busy containing his enthusiasm. At least until he saw some ponies and all the warning signs, which came as a bit of a surprise to me, because I don't remember anything about carnivorous, biting ponies from reading Misty. Okay, so the ponies don't actually eat people, they just bite people who piss them off.

Another pony at the Chincoteague Pony Centre
This one looks like a biter

While we were hanging out at the Pony Centre, two sets of parents with tiny boy children arrived for pony rides. These children were maybe three years old and the stirrups couldn't be shortened enough for them. The pony ride was very sedate: the non-biting pony was led demurely around a pen while a parent walked alongside, holding the child on the saddle. One little boy had come every day of his family's stay on the island and he knew all the ponies' names.

I didn't get a pony ride, but Oz bought me my very own copy of Misty and a plush toy pony. The gift shoppe had quite a selection of pony toys, even a white plastic pony with a princess painted on its side. They sure know their customer base.

After we saw the tame ponies, we went out to Assateague where the wild ponies are, along with more signs: "Do not feed or pet ponies. They may bite."

Wild ponies on Assateague
Yes, those brown and white dots are ponies.

I guess the signs work, because the ponies don't hang out anywhere near where they could cadge snacks. We did learn, at the pony view (Hah! You can't hardly see the ponies from there!), a bit about the ponies. Like, why they look fat. They retain water because of the salt in the marsh grasses they eat. If I were that bloated up, I might bite too.

Now advanced pony-spotters, we saw even more ponies on our random circumnavigations of the island.

Ponies at the Volunteer Fire Company pens
Main Street

These ponies were just hanging around being cute. No warning signs, but then they were penned up behind a tall chain link fence and they probably can't bite through it. I really don't know what they were doing here, because the annual pony swim (they round up the ponies on Assateague and make them swim over to Chincoteague) and auction is in July.

I found out, while looking for pony links, that we missed the most unusual pony spotting opportunity, stuffed Misty. Yes, Misty was a real pony and when she died, they stuffed her! I told Oz how next time we have to see stuffed Misty, but he said, "No! That's gross… Like Trigger and Bullet. Hey, we could start a website about dead stuffed animals." He sure got his brain around that idea fast. But Roadside America has beat us to it.

Baby steps

Backyard fence
Near Cleveland and Main Street, Chincoteague

The first thing we did when we got to Chincoteague was lie around in the hotel for a while. Our balcony overlooked the bay, wetlands, ducks, fishing boats, and the drawbridge, so we could do some sightseeing without going out at all. Oz got action shots of the drawbridge, I'll post some once he downloads them from his camera.

Eventually we walked down Main Street, looking in shop windows and scoping out possible dinner spots. Some of the shops were closed. One had a sign out saying "Closed till October 1" with the subtext being "so if you want to buy a little sweater for your concrete yard goose you're SOL." We saw a lot of bookstores, two or three, in the space of as many blocks, but didn't go in. Next time. This is where we saw the picket fence festooned with baby shoes.

After dinner (Fried oysters! Steamed shrimp! Beer!) we drove over to the Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge and watched the sun set from the beach on Assateague, which we ended up doing every night. And then we drove all around Chincoteague Island to find what we wanted to do the next day and eat ice cream.

The beach on Assateague Island, with the setting sun at our backs

Road Trip

Big Chicken
State Route 13, a few miles north of Exmore, Virginia

We just spent four glorious days in Chincoteague Island, Virginia. We are reluctantly back, but already planning our next trip out to Virginia's Eastern Shore.

Getting there is half the fun. Once you get through Norfolk and onto the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel, you're already on vacation. Read the names of the towns and roads: Machipongo, Kiptopeake, Nassawadox, Wachapreague… Route 13 runs parallel to old train tracks that start at Cape Charles and is lined with crape myrtles. We figured that the counties must have gotten a deal on all those trees and, sure enough, we passed a crape myrtle nursery (probably the crape myrtle nursery).

We also passed lots of cornfields. And produce stands, seafood stands, and antique shops. Many of the antique shops are really honest. They have signs out claiming that they have "Junk and Good Stuff." Some places only have "Stuff." One place had "Visionary Folk Art," antiques, and bait. You can find bait most anywhere.

This chicken stood out in front of two metal industrial buildings. A Buick and some construction vehicles were in the gravel parking lot. The buildings were as unmarked as the chicken's sign. Presumably, this is a need-to-know kind of establishment.