First Officer’s Log: 20-15-07-30. Mission Day: 67

I am not a happy camper.  The new air conditioner, ETA last Tuesday, then ETA today, has slipped to ETA next Monday.  

Maybe.

I cancelled it. 

Tomorrow we head for Newmar in Nappanee, Indiana, where I am sure we will be met with open arms, a big smile, and an unlimited supply of parts just waiting to be installed.

Right.  And pigs can fly.

We visited with my son Jef last night.  Had a nice time talking with him and his wife Jessica, daughter Veronica, and son Matthew.  It was nice to catch up a bit and see the grand kids again after way too many years. 

We visited the Hollywood Cemetery here in Richmond today.  It was named for the holly trees in the area long before tinsel-town, California was ever imagined.

The cemetery is chock full of beautiful old monuments and is the resting place of two American presidents, James Monroe, and John Tyler, and the president of the confederacy, Jefferson Davis.

It is truly beautiful.

That’s about all my mood will allow me to write right now.  Maybe I will write some more later.

Here’s the captain.

Captain’s Addendum: After visiting “Hollywood,” we stopped at Lee’s Famous Chicken joint for some “Southern fried,” baked beans, smashed taters and spiced apples. Those vittles had to be the best we’ve ever tasted from a fast-food restaurant. Each lunch meal had two wings and a breast. We had enough left over for sandwiches for supper last evening.

We tromped around Hollywood Cemetery for at least two hours, driving from place to place in the Smart Car. I found an online “highlights” tour to lead us to the various areas with very understandable and complete directions. Each stop on the online tour gave descriptions of what we were seeing.

The first stop was the black iron dog guarding the grave of a little girl who died of scarlet fever. She had loved her granddad’s statue of the dog at his home, so he moved it to be beside her tiny grave. During the Civil War, the dog was in danger of being melted down for military use, but no one had the heart to remove it from the little girl’s grave. To this day there are many tiny gifts left on her grave by visitors. 

The second stop took us to a 90’ tall pyramid in memory of all the Confederate soldiers who died in the Civil War. Here’s a link to more of the tour: http://tour.hollywoodcemetery.org/#e%3Ddbbf452f-629c-4225-a485-fe629d49046d|

Tonight (Friday 07-31) we’re planning to stay in a small RV park in West Virginia.

First Officer’s Log: 20-15-07-29. Starday: 62

We are in Ashland, Virginia, just a few miles north of Richmond, VA, at an RV “Resort”.  I put quotes around “Resort” because it is a descriptive term that is being used, overused, and abused in the RV Park industry.  

Anyway, let’s talk about our Sunday on the water.  The plan was that Brother Scott and Linda would bring their little boat (they have two, the big ‘un, and the little ‘un) down to Kim’s Hobo Palace on the Potomac River.  BTW: The little ‘un is bigger than any boat I would ever have.  At the same time Brother Guy would bring his boat (another twin engine big ‘un) down river to Gilligan’s Restaurant.  We were to ride to Gilligan’s with Scott and Linda and Kim was to follow in his boat.  His boat is a little ‘un with a great big motor.  Along with all of that our friend Wayne (known as the seventh Del Monte brother because the bunch of us all ran around together) would also meet us at Gilligan’s.  And, if that’s not enough Guy’s daughter Terri and her boyfriend Todd were to also make the Gilligan’s rendezvous.  Todd has a GREAT BIG ‘UN.  (Boat that is.)

So, eventually we all had a great time meeting, eating, talking and drinking.  Yes, even me.  I drank a drink.

After Gilligan’s we boated up and went downriver to Rick’s Restaurant for deserts.  This time Cheryl and I rode in Todd’s boat.  Todd’s boat is a huge, beautiful twin engine racing boat.  All the other boats had left by the time we pulled away from the pier at Gilligan’s, and he passed every one of them before we got to Rick’s.  At one point we were doing 75mph.  At about three-quarters throttle.  In a boat.  On the water.  It was neat.

The other neat thing was that I sat in the boat while he drove it into a congested parking area, spun it around in its own length and parked that 42’ boat in a 43’ spot between two other big boats without touching either of the boats or the side of the dock.  Incredible!

When we left Rick’s each of us went our separate ways to our respective homes or RV parks.  We rode with brother Kim in his little boat back to the Hobo Palace.  This is where it got interesting.  We ran into rough water.

It was about 6 PM when we left Rick’s and although there was no bad weather to speak of, the water in the river was chopping up waves nearly two feet tall.  It practically beat us to death.  Kim was powering up, and powering down, and cutting in towards the shore, and then seeking softer water farther out in order to keep the wet side of the boat down and the dry side of the boat up.  He was fantastic.  I know nothing about seamanship and driving boats, but I can tell you that he did a really good job and got us to the Hobo Palace just fine.  The trip took twice as long as it should have, and he said the water was the roughest he had seen in his twenty years of living down there.

So, all’s well that ends well.  We are fine, and we have a scary story to tell someday.

Kim Del Monte's Boat at the Hobo Palace Dock

Frank and Scott Del Monte on the water Taxi at Gilligan's

Frank after Unloading his Triumph from the Newmar Garage

Guy Del Monte with Frank on the Water Taxi at Gilligan's

Kim, Guy, Guy Jr, and Frank on the Bike Ride to Colonial Beach

Frank, Linda, and Scott Hamming it Up at Gilligan's on the River

Kim's Dock at the Hobo Palace

Teri, Todd, Guy, and Wayne at Gilligan's

 We left the Hobo Palace Monday after calling the RV repair shop and being assured that the new air conditioner we need had shipped properly and the ETA was still Tuesday.  Then about an hour into our trip to Richmond the shop called and said that the AC had NOT in fact shipped on time as they had to upgrade the unit’s swizzleized ramifractioator up to a Revision C before it could go out and the new ETA was now Thursday rather than the next day.

You know, I didn’t even get upset.  Why?  Because I KNEW all along they couldn’t get the unit to the shop on Tuesday.  I KNEW it wouldn’t get there to at least Wednesday or Thursday.  And I also know two other things. 

1. It won’t really arrive until Friday, and they won’t be able to install it until Monday.
2. When they go to install it they will find that it is the wrong model, and it won’t fit our rig.

Other than those two things, everything is going well.

End First Officer’s Log

Captain’s Log

Today (Tuesday 7-29-15) left me with a totally different picture of Richmond, Virginia. I learned Richmond became the Capitol of the Confederate States of America because Virginia had delayed seceding from the union, but when they voted to secede, the capitol was moved there because it had the heavy industry to support the war effort.  

On an air-conditioned trolley tour around the heart of the city of Richmond I also learned that large portions of the historic neighborhoods are missing due to modern development. The state capitol, medical complex and university buildings have intruded on what used to be full city blocks with one antebellum home per block. Now the congestion in Richmond is such that sometimes it’s difficult to pick out the impressive memorials of George Washington and Jefferson Davis. Our trolley driver did an excellent job navigating us around the city in such tight quarters. 

Another interesting story tells of the Union Army’s march on Richmond when 1,000 of the city’s buildings accidently burned. Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee already had a plan in place to burn the four supply and arsenal buildings should the enemy take the city. Unfortunately, when the arsenals were fired, the exploding ordinance and flying shrapnel set the surrounding area ablaze and many historic buildings were lost. 

During our visit to the White House of the Confederacy following the trolley tour, our tour guide told us about Jefferson Davis’s wife, Varina Howell Davis. I had not read about her, and I now have a huge amount of respect for this president’s wife. Naturally, she served as hostess to the men invited to the White House of the Confederacy by her husband. During that era men and women usually held after-dinner discussions in separate rooms, but Varina insisted everyone sit together as she was a highly educated woman who could hold her side of any conversation on any subject with any man. This woman was way ahead of her time!

The White House of the Confederacy

 End Captain’s Log

Captain’s Log – Stardate: 20-15-07-26 – Starday: 59

Colonial Beach on Monroe Bay just off the Potomac River in Virginia holds a truckload of nostalgia for the FO’s brothers. By the time his five brothers were spending lots of time here, when their mom had a home in the area, the FO was away in Air Force tech school.  The three brothers we’re visiting with this weekend (Kim, Guy, and Scott) all have memories of the wide sandy beach, the marina, and the old hang-outs for teenagers that have long since disappeared from the scene. Nevertheless, this is a feel-good place to gather and share the kind of camaraderie only brothers understand.

Yesterday the FO, brothers Kim and Guy, along with Guy Jr. took off on their motorcycles to revisit the old stomping grounds around the town of Colonial Beach. They ended up at the marina where they ran into old friends who just happened to be in port. From all reports the afternoon turned out to be a relaxing one sitting in lawn chairs on the pier swapping stories.

Yours truly spent time blogging for a writer’s Word Press blog and taking advantage of the shady backyard on the waterfront of the Hobo Palace. It’s across the gravel RV Park track from our motor coach site, and it’s the home of the FO’s brother, Kim. While I was hanging out with the dogs over there I took a picture of a blue heron on a little spit of land a short way across the water, who was looking to catch his dinner.

Last evening Kim’s neighbor Eva made the most delicious meal for all of us! We enjoyed macaroni salad with bay shrimp, barbecued chicken and pork, along with grilled corn on the cob, baked beans and for dessert, German chocolate cake (all homemade!) We ate on the Hobo Palace’s deck and watched the evening breeze riffle the water in the bay and a momma duck and her ducklings swimming close by in anticipation of a handout.  What a perfect end to a day of kicking back in such a peaceful place. 

Today Guy and Scott and his wife Linda are motoring their boats down the Potomac to join us on the bay, and Kim’s boat is ready and waiting at the pier by the beach. It promises to be a great day on the water. We’ll keep you posted and add more pictures later.

End Captain’s Log

Photo Splash - Walnut Hills, Virginia 20-15-07-24

Lovely Out-of-the-Way Spot High Atop a Grassy Hill Above the Lake at Walnut Hills KOA in Staunton, Virginia

The View from the Coach Door Overlooking the Lake

Winter View Looking Up the Hill at Our Campsite at Walnut Hills (KOA Photo)

Our Summer View of the Lake at Walnut Hills

First Officer’s Log 20-15-07-23

Where to start?  It’s July 23^rd and I haven’t had or taken any time to keep up my personal reports. The Captain is on my a##, so I shall write what I remember.
 

The Norton Rally was great. We met and re-met multiple dozens of friends. The rally was the largest rally in the club’s history with over 525 members and close to 300 bikes in attendance. We did all the normal things, eat, walk, talk, ride the bikes, look at the bikes, show the bikes, and judge the bikes. I didn’t win anything which testifies to the workmanship, quality, and beauty of the bikes that did. We also took a couple of short breakfast rides on the way-too-uncomfortable-for-our-way-too-old-backs Café Racer Norton, the Starship Snoopy.

After the rally we drove the Starship Arrowstar up to my brother and sister-in-law’s (Greg and Betty) place in the Bear Creek Motor Coach Resort in Sparta, NC. He has a beautiful Allegro Bus diesel pusher coach on an acre of land on top of a beautiful mountain. Seriously, his land is on just about the highest point. He summers in NC and winters at his other place in FLA. I call it “Hobbing with the Nobs.”

I want his life.

While there I met a lot of other property owners. Most do the same as Greg, summering here, wintering there. They refer to themselves as “Homeless Millionaires.” I suggested that a Telethon might be in order to help them get the support they need.  I'm not sure they thought that was funny.

My youngest brother, Scott, and his wife Linda came down from Woodbridge, VA to join us. They have the floating version of a Motor Coach, a yacht. Greg and I ply the highways, Scott and Linda ply the waterways. We had lunches, and dinners, and went out, and stayed in, and talked, and talked, and talked, and talked, and talked, and talked. 

One especially fun side trip was to Mayberry, NC. Yes, of the Andy Griffith Show. It might have actually been another small town pretending to be Mayberry, but what the heck, it was close enough. 

(The First Officer forgot to say that on this marathon trip of ours he experienced two firsts. He took his first ride in a sailboat up at Port Townsend, WA, and he paddled a canoe down New River in Sparta, NC. The canoe trip was a very fun day for all six of us, Greg, Betty, Scott, Linda, Frank and me. The paddle trip ended with the FO up to his tush in the “drink.” Ask him about it sometime. End Captain’s Comment)

We left Sparta this morning and are in Staunton, VA. We will stay overnight (I am doing laundry as I write this) and be in Colonial Beach, VA tomorrow. We will visit over the weekend with two more brothers, Kim and Guy. After that we are heading toward the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan. Cheryl has been there before, but I have not. 

Hey, maybe they will have a penny press machine there!

End First Officer’s Log