D.C. Diary

They're back!

  

So I'm sitting here at my desk, with the windows wide open and the sunshine streaming in...and the first mosquito of the year buzzes in to ruin my day. It's only May 20th and my summer is over. These guys are man-eating monsters.     

Backyard Crawfish Boil

 

Much as we would love to visit all 50 states during our 4 year stay in the US, we know that it might be tough going. So we were delighted to receive an invitation from some friends to attend a 'Backyard Crawfish Boil' which would permit us to sample the culinary delights of Louisiana without having to travel there. It seems that crawfish is a big deal in Louisiana. According to www.crawfish.org, it produces over 90% of the nation's domestic crop, and the crawfish industry is worth approximately $120m per year to the state. In recent years, a significant trade has developed in distributing live crawfish throughout the US (with 'shipping and seasoning included'). 

      

The idea behind a Crawfish Boil is simple:

1. Take receipt of several hundred live crawfish, shipped via Fedex.

2. Don thick rubber gloves.

3. Put a couple of metal vats of water on to boil.

4. Place the luckless crawfish into the boiling water.

5. Drink a Louisiana beer.

6. Remove the cooked crawfish from the water and place in piles on a trestle table.

7. Grab a crawfish, pull off its head, remove its tail and shell.

8. Admire the miniscule amount of meat that remains.

9. Eat with boiled potatoes and corn-on-the-cob.

10. Repeat.

It really was great fun (apart from the bit where the live crawfish met their fate) and the crawfish-spuds-corn combo was absolutely delicious. The whole exercise is fairly labour-intensive - a good five minute's work nets a tiny amount of crawfish - but the advantage of this is that it gives you more time to chat and drink beer. The only trouble is that we enjoyed ourselves so much at today's taster that we now feel compelled to visit the Pelican State in person after all...

        

We've got a long way to go and a short time to get there...

We've got a full tank of gas, 800 miles ahead of us and our very own theme song. Lyrics here for those who fancy a singalong. We're East bound and down, loaded up and truckin'...

And there will be an update soon on yesterday's exploits - featuring Mammoth Caves and Giant Burgers - just as soon as I've caught up on some sleep...

Shakers, sunshine and storms

Today was a mix of sunshine and storms. On the plus side, I had a very enjoyable day educating myself about the Shakers of Pleasant Hill, Abraham Lincoln's childhood and the Kentucky bourbon industry. However, I also managed to run my car aground, was marooned in a thunderstorm for 45 minutes and (worst of all) was forced to eat in Pizza Hut for the second time this week.

The highlight of my day was the tour of the Shaker Village at Pleasant Hill, seven miles from Harrodsburg. I knew very little about the Shakers except for the fact they made good furniture - so found the visit very interesting. Officially known as the 'United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing' (no wonder they were given a nickname), Shakers were labelled as such because of the fevour with which they worshipped - with jumping, clapping, speaking in tongues, dancing and 'shaking' all part of their worship tradition, which was unheard of in the Protestant Church of the day. The Shakers were founded in 1747 by Mother Ann Lee, whom many of her followers believed was the 'Second Eve' and embodied perfection in human form. Eventually fleeing England to escape imprisonment and persecution, a group of Shakers, including Mother Ann, arrived in the US in 1774 and originally settled on the East coast.

In the early 1800s, during a period known as the Kentucky Revival, a group of Shaker missionaries came to Kentucky and succeeded in converting three local citizens, who founded the community at Pleasant Hill in 1805. All land and possession were pooled and given over to the community. Their numbers grew rapidly over the years, numbering almost 500 people at one time. The Pleasant Hill Shakers lived in communal houses - divided into male and female accommodation - and worked hard to establish their village. Everyone had a role - be it farming, cooking, cleaning, sewing or educating the children. Unlike other religious groups, the Shakers were keen to embrace new technology (such as sewing machines or agricultural machinery) and developed new techniques for furniture making. They sought to worship God through striving for simplicity and perfection in all they did - creating beautiful furniture and simple, attractive buildings and houses.

Shakers do not believe in the Holy Trinity (Father, Son and the Holy Spirit), but instead believe in a dual male and female God - because of their literal interpretation of Genesis 1:26: “So God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him, male and female He created them”. They believe that men and women were equal and advocate freedom from prejudice on the grounds of gender, race or wealth.

Mother Ann taught her followers that sex was the cause of sin and that all Shakers must be celibate. As the Shakers families were therefore forbidden to have children themselves, they had to rely on new converts and adopting children to grow their numbers. Over the years it became more and more difficult to sustain the Shaker community at Pleasant Hill, which by the 1880s primarily consisted of the very old and the very young. The community officially closed in 1910, with a few remaining Shakers remaining in the village until the last believer died in 1923. Although the Kentucky Shakers are no more, Shakers are still present in the US today. The Shaker  community in Sabbathday Lake, in Maine, has four members.

I also found a spirit of harmony and cooperation amongst modern day Kentuckians today - upon whom I had to prevail to help me out of a hole, quite literally. I had somehow stupendously stupidly managed to drive into a ditch when trying to execute a rapid three point turn (how was I to know that the grassy verge to the right of the concrete driveway was actually a cavernous trap?). However, my brief interaction with the local Dodge drivers confirmed that all humans in Kentucky are wonderfully helpful and friendly people. As was the mechanic at the local garage who got down on his knees to confirm that there was (miraculously) no damage to my car.

It was a shame the weather wasn't quite so cooperative. I spent 45 minutes this afternoon marooned in an elementary school car park in Loretto in the midst of an incredible thunderstorm which was so heavy that it was impossible to drive in. It was a long day on the road today.

In summary:

Weather today: Sun, thunderstorms, torrential rain.

Driving time today: 3.5 hours (plus an extra 45 minutes sitting in the elementary school car park waiting for the thunderstorm to pass).

Radio station of the day: WYLE 94.1 FM - Real Country. (I particularly enjoyed the 'Stars and Legends' segment this afternoon which introduced me to a whole new musical genre: trucking music ).

Distinguishing features of town: Munfordville was founded in 1816 and was a site of key strategic importance during the Civil War, with the Battle of Munfordville being fought here in September 1962.

Local places of interest: Kentucky Stonehenge, Mammoth Caves, Munfordville battlefield

Fine dining experience: Pizza Hut (yes, again)

Luxury accommodation this evening: Super 8 Munfordville

Weather forecast for tomorrow: Sun and showers

Am totally exhausted this evening - and that's without cycling 97.5 miles. But the good news is that we gained an hour this evening by passing into Central Standard Time (how very confusing it must be to have two different time zones within the same state), so we all get an extra hour in bed tonight. Hurrah.

A City of Firsts

Today was great. I needed to use my sunglasses for the first time this week, the Kentucky scenery was beautiful and we are staying in a lovely old (for the US, anyway) inn this evening. And there are no chainsaws in sight.

This morning, a short drive from Campton, I passed through the heavily forested Natural Bridge State Park, which was stunning, if a little less colourful than the picture here. (Olly and Simon, who had the camera this morning, managed to spectacularly bypass the State Park altogether, so this image comes courtesy of Wikipedia). I followed the mountain road down through the Daniel Boone National Forest and the little towns I encountered on these rural back routes added enormously to my enjoyment of the journey. I couldn't help but wonder if the cartographers who originally documented this area had been tucking into the Kentucky bourbon as amusing placenames abound in this part of the world: I passed through Torrent, Paint Lick and Fixer and only wish I had had time to detour through Stay, Grannie, Mummie, Drip Rock, Vortex, Shoulder Blade and Kerby Knob.

I caught up with the boys on a busy highway and, after feeding them lunch from my well-stocked supply wagon, I headed off for a spot of sightseeing in Danville - a university town which styles itself as 'The City of Firsts'. This nickname apparently refers not to the academic prowess of its local students at Centre College, but to the many notable historic events that have occurred in the city over the years. To be honest, laying claim to the first courthouse in Kentucky and opening 'the first U.S. Post Office west of the Allegheny Mountains' is all very well, and Kentucky's first recorded hemp crop in 1775 was doubtless a very big deal at the time, but these achievements are nothing compared to the notable firsts that I experienced in Danville today. For, in this fine city, I sampled the first decaf cafe latte I had seen available for purchase for 600 miles, browsed in the first bookshop I had seen west of the Allegheny mountains and tasted my first homemade soup in four days. And I saw the first bicycles whose owners are not known to me personally since leaving D.C. - very quaintly lined up outside student dorms.

Then it was off to Perryville Battlefield, site of the largest battle fought in the state of Kentucky during the Civil War. The close-fought battle on 8th October 1862 resulted in a Union victory, but at great cost to both sides. More than 4200 Union troops and almost 4000 Confederate casualties were sustained here. Worse still, as the Confederate troops beat a hasty retreat to Harrodsburg they were forced to leave behind 900 wounded men on the battlefield, along with their dead comrades. Like many memorials in the US, the war monument at Perryville carries a verse from Theodore O'Hara's haunting poem, 'The Bivouac of the Dead'. It  seemed particularly apt that the verse should be inscribed on the Confederate memorial here: O'Hara was a native of Danville.

  

Today's summary:

Weather today: Sunshine and showers

Driving time today: 5 hours (plus an hour lost outside Richmond)

Radio station of the day: King of Kings Radio ('Serving You 24 Hours a Day')

Distinguishing features of local town: Harrodsburg, founded in 1774, is the oldest city in Kentucky.

Local places of interest: Perryville Battlefield, Shaker Village, Bourbon distilleries galore.

Fine dining experience: The Old Owl Tavern

Luxury accommodation this evening: The charmingly comfortable Beaumont Inn - a former 'School for Young Ladies', founded in 1845.

Weather forecast for tomorrow: Rain, thunderstorms.

No Chainsaws in Rooms

The boys seem to be coping fine with cycling over 100 miles per day in the pouring rain. I, however, am starting to see side-effects from five days of no exercise, terrible food, terrible weather and depressing motels. My average day this week looks like this: Wake up, look outside to check it is still raining, eat breakfast, do 3 hours study/work, pack up car, drive 3 hours, try to find boys, get lost, find boys, drive on to next destination, realise it is still raining, locate nondescript motel by side of busy highway, discover there is still nowhere to go for a walk, do some more work, wait for boys, eat in a dodgy diner, go to sleep.

This evening's motel, in Campton, Kentucky, is particularly awful. The sign on the lobby door reads ' NO ChAINSAWS IN ROOM'S ' (incorrect punctuation seemingly obligatory in this part of the world). The 'non-smoking' rooms smell of stale cigarette smoke, guests are handed the remote control to the TV in their room upon arrival (why? do people really steal them?) and everyone else who is staying here arrived in a large truck. I am beginning to see why there are so many suicides in motels.

I'm also finding the rural poverty we are travelling through quite depressing (I think the rain makes it all seem more grey). It is not only the terrible state of some of the houses (very few of which are brick - most are wood and some are just trailers) that has shocked me, but the obvious lack of viable businesses and employment opportunities. The supermarkets are all called things like 'Dollar Discount Store', there are very few places to eat apart from fast food joints and, when looking for somewhere to grab a coffee this afternoon, I realised today I haven't seen a Starbucks since Washington. I guess $4 for a latte is just out of the question in this part of the world. It is parts of America such as these that suffer acutely from the lack of social safety nets. At one of the run-down small town 'grocery stores' I stopped at (it sold guns, cigarettes, alcohol and not much else), there was a plastic sweet jar on the counter with a handwritten label taped onto it: 'For Mike, who has cancer and no medical insurance'. There were a few dollar bills in the makeshift collection box - a paltry substitute for an equitable national healthcare system.

Here are some of the images from today's drive through western West Virginia and eastern Kentucky:

   

Several of the small towns I drove through were completely deserted. The only sign of life in this place just outside Kermit, on the West Virginia/Kentucky border, was at a dilapidated petrol station, which is now being used by a local farmer to sell fruit and vegetables. I bought some strawberries which were absolutely delicious but, at $3 a pound, I can't imagine this guy makes much money from plying his trade.

   

Today's summary as follows:

Weather today: Rain.

Driving time today: 4.5 hours

Radio station of the day: West Virginia Public Radio. The Writer's Almanac (Motto: 'Be Well, Do Good Work and Keep in Touch') was a bit of a discovery and really brightened my day. Well, at least until the daily poem which began "Death waits inside us for a door to open. Death is patient as a dead cat. Death is a doorknob made of flesh. Death is that angelic farm girl gored by the bull on her way home from school, crossing the pasture for a shortcut...".

Distinguishing features of local town: None

Local places of interest: The Natural Bridge State Park, Red River Gorge

Fine dining experience: El Cancun Authentic Mexican Restaurant in Campton (which actually was pretty good). I vetoed the only other place on offer: Arby's.

Luxury accommodation this evening: Campton Parkway Inn

Weather forecast for tomorrow: Rain

The good news is that Campton is within a short drive of the Daniel Boone National Forest so, weather permitting, I may actually be able to go for a walk tomorrow. And at least I haven't got a bruised bottom from being in the saddle for 13 hours today. And I just took a sneak preview at tomorrow's poem from The Writer's Almanac - it is entitled "On a Perfect Day" by Jane Gentry, from A Garden in Kentucky. Things are looking up.

Chapmanville, West Virginia

Greetings from the utterly unremarkable town of Chapmanville, West Virginia. It is a measure of the historical insignificance of this place that it was named after the local postmaster. That was in 1800 and it appears that very little of any note has happened in the vicinity since.The drive here from Summersville was pretty uninspiring - the landscape comprised coal mines, slag heaps, industrial wastelands and depressed, run-down towns. (The only exception was a brief stop in Gauley Bridge, West Virginia, a beautiful little spot at the edge of a lake, with a backdrop of tree-covered hills). It rained all day, I lost the boys, had no mobile phone reception for the duration of the journey and managed to hose petrol over my shoes at the gas station. To make things worse, the wonderful Allegheny Mountain Radio was replaced on the airwaves by the religious Fundamental Broadcasting Network (Slogan: "Broadcasting Eternal Good News"). I hardly know how to describe the unique appeal of this station but you can listen to it online here. If you're lucky you might catch 'The Sword of the Lord' or the 'Fisherman's 5 Minute Look at the Book'.

In summary:

Weather today: torrential rain.

Driving time today: 3.5 hours (plus an extra hour searching for the boys between 6pm and 7pm when I became slightly alarmed at their failure to appear and started to imagine they had been severely injured/kidnapped/washed away).

Radio station of the day: Fundamental Broadcasting Network

Distinguishing features of town: None

Local places of interest: None

Fine dining experience: Pizza Hut (this was the best option on offer by quite some margin)

Luxury accommodation this evening: Best Western Logan Inn

Weather forecast for tomorrow: Rain

The good news is that the boys got here safely and in good spirits, despite cycling 120 miles in the rain, having been run off the road by a stream of bearded West Virginians who clearly lacked a certain appreciation for le cyclisme, and Simon skidding across the road on his side. Suddenly my day doesn't seem so bad after all.

Allegheny Mountain Radio

We stayed last night in a delightful little place in Warm Springs, Virginia. The Inn at GristMill Square is a converted water mill complex and Olly, Simon and I were housed in the Tower Apartment. It would have been even more memorable had the rain let up for long enough for us to admire the view. The local attraction is The Jefferson Pools, where the great man himself was said to have come and taken the waters in 1818. Olly and Simon decided that they had taken enough water over the past 48 hours and passed up the opportunity of a soak in the legendary hot springs on this occasion.

The boys and I have slightly different versions of today's events. They set off several hours before me and rode through rain and drizzle for pretty much the whole day. By contrast, I basked in two hours of beautiful sunshine as I meandered along the mountain road through the Monongahela National Forest.

 

I enjoyed my drive today - not least because I discovered a wonderful radio station to accompany me on my journey. (There are only a certain number of times one can listen to the entire soundtrack of 'Les Mis' - I learned today that my limit is 4). I was initially puzzled that I could only find one station on the radio, a fact now explained by the discovery that the area around Warm Springs is in a National Radio Quiet Zone. The only permitted station, Allegheny Mountain Radio, has no set format and is staffed by a mixture of regular DJs and volunteers. This results in a fabulous mixture of eclectic music, interviews with community members, live coverage of local sports matches, travel and weather updates and local and national news reports. I consequently heard about the flood warnings in effect in Hot Springs, a message from the Presbyterian Church Pastor of Upper Pocahontas County, some toe-tapping bluegrass music, an update on the international Swine Flu situation and a review of a performance of the school band at Bath County Middle School. And apparently I'm not the only fan - this article sums up the charm of AMR perfectly.

Today's highlights:

Weather today: Sun for me, rain for the boys

Driving time today: 4 hours (including numerous stops for scenic photos)

Radio station of the day: Allegheny Mountain Radio ('The Little Radio Station with the GREAT BIG Sound")

Fine dining experience of the day: Applebees (it was a close-run thing between that and the 'Smoker Friendly Drive-Thru' opposite our motel)

Luxury accommodation this evening: Summersville Sleep Inn

Weather forecast for tomorrow: Rain

A Moment to Remember

The DCtoAfrica Duo arrived safely in Luray last night after an eight hour ride and only two emergency visits to bike shops. You can read about their day here. The Cardinal Inn was all we had hoped (and more - the lurid green and pink bathrooms certainly added an extra dimension) and we arrived in time to watch the Kentucky Derby from the luxury of our moderately-comfortable motel room.

  

As the boys were keen to load up on some carbs this evening, we chose an 'Italian' restaurant from the list of local eateries provided on a helpful list in our room. Appealing called 'A Moment To Remember', we were somewhat surprised that the menu was as follows:

PORK

Schnitzel Vienna Style $15.95

Jaeger Schnitzel $ 16.95

Schnitzel Bavarian Style $ 16.95

Rahm Schnitzel $ 16.95

All Schnitzels are served with Spaetzle and red cabbage

German Sausages:

Bratwurst (2 all beef) $ 13.95

Weisswurst (2 veal) $ 13.95

Frankfurter (2 all beef) $ 9.50

Wurst Sampler - 1 each Bratwurst, Weisswurst and Frankfurter  $16.95

All sausages are served with potato salad, or Spaetzle, or Potato Dumpling and Sauerkraut.

BEEF

Sauerbraten $ 16.95 - Served w/Spaetzle or potato dumplings

CHICKEN

Black Forest Chicken  

$ 16.95

Chicken Schnitzel $ 13.95

All chicken dishes are served with Spaetzle and a House Salad

Whilst definitely the most unusual Italian menu we had seen in a while, the food was suitably filling and the beer good.

It was then back to the motel for a spot of route-checking and blogging. Witness Olly's delight when Simon finally relinquished the laptop...

   

Weather forecast for tomorrow: Rain.

And they're off...

         

 

 

 

 

 

 

The DCtoAfrica team left DC bright and early this morning, with a 100 mile warm-up ahead of them today. The Day One Destination is Luray, Virginia (population 4871), a little town nestled in the Shenandoah Valley and home to the famous Luray Caverns. Our accommodation this evening will be the glamorous Cardinal Inn, advertised enticingly on their website as 'The Most Favorite AND Cleanest Place in Town'. My job as support crew today involves driving a vehicle full of gatorade, spare types, a bike pump, extra vaseline, an emergency tent, several hundred bananas and two small lycra-filled rucksacks to our destination. And then eating dinner with the boys. It's going to be a tough first day, but I've been in training for a couple of weeks now and I'm pretty confident I can make it.