48stateroadtrip.com

The US Marine Corps is just like Apple in that they are smaller and more agile than their competitors and have a killer brand. And, sort of like Apple, they *are* their brand — it’s not just the sum of logo and tag-line. Everything they do adds to the brand, whether intentionally or not. I mean, the Marine Corps had entire divisions (almost) wiped out in certain World War II battles and instead of burying that fact, they embrace it. It’s pretty amazing that getting killed can create positive associations with your identity.

Went to the Marine Corps Museum in Quantico. My favorite part was this:

Just step right up and…

It’s a drill instructor simulator. You step into the booth and DIs start yelling at you from every direction (well, seemingly — I think it’s only from four directions). The crazy part? You know it’s a simulator and that you’re just in a plastic booth, but your (my?) natural instinct is to do whatever they yell at you to do. I found trying to get my heels closer together, standing up straighter, and, well, worrying about whether or not I was then standing correctly. They kept yelling at me to grab a rifle, but that one was harder. I think I learned more about either myself or human nature in those 60 seconds than I have the whole rest of the trip combined. It was really eye-opening.

Just generally, the cool thing about the museum is, well, (1) that I know more about the Marine Corps than other branches of service so there’s more there that I’m familiar with in the first place, but more especially (2) that they make it really immersive with several “simulations” parked in strategic locations. They’re not high-tech simulators, but it’s enough to let you imagine you’re there if you want to. For instance, there’s a Landing on Iwo Jima simulator. It sort of makes it look like you’re on a Higgins boat and the walls and floor vibrate while you watch a 180-degree movie (actual Iwo D-Day footage) of landing. Then, once you land, some non-com yells at you to move out and the ramp in front of you lowers. (At which point you just sort of walk back into the main part of the museum.)

Also had a Chosin Reservoir simulator, in which they turn the temperature of the room down by 20 degrees (it’s still about 50 degrees warmer than reality, but, you know) and have not-quite-animatronic guys in a diarama get uptight about not having enough ammunition. They had a few other vibrating floors also (I think another landing craft, plus one helicopter), but, basically, they want you to feel like you’re there and that, well, death is imminent. I mean, that *is* sort of the Marine Corps brand, right?

It was cool.

I think they also have some late-mover advantages — the facade is actually *interesting* (whereas the more venerable USAF museum just looks like an airplane hangar — I mean, fittingly enough, but, you know).

The main atrium.

There are a few airplanes in the museum — maybe 15, but at least two of them are Corsairs. No Hornets, no Phantoms, no Ospreys.

Harrier taking off vertically inside the museum.

The other cool thing about the Marine Corps is that if you’re somewhat famous and say something positive about the Corps, they’ll memorialize you for eternity. Although I was surprised they didn’t have that Reagan quote engraved in the atrium — maybe he’s on the outs since he let Col. North take the rap for Iran-Contra. Oh well. (Apparently, I need to learn how to turn around when entering atriums.)

It was more fun than I thought it would be, entirely un-disappointing.

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It’s a pretty house, I learned that.

It’s maybe too centered in this photo? Whatever.

• The c in Monticello is pronounced “ch”.
• Thomas Jefferson was six-foot-two.
• He was pretty eccentric — more eccentric than I am even! — and didn’t seem to equivocate much, even when it seemed like he was wrong.
• It didn’t seem like his slaves were living as luxuriously as I might have thought.
• He was really good friends with James and Dolly Madison.
• They moved into one of the out-buildings (one room upstairs, kitchen downstairs) while the main house was still being built.
• Jefferson defied conventional wisdom by building the house on top of a hill.
• Most people in rural Virginia during Jefferson’s time had never seen a map before.
• Ronald Reagan’s library is more impressive than Monticello. Of course, it has the advantage of having been built as a museum rather than a house, but, inasmuch as you can compare a museum to a house, Reagan FTW.
• The Monticello tour is a little claustrophobic.

I think that’s about it. Or at least, that appears to be all that’s stuck with me over these two long days since I was there.

Jefferson seems to have planted corn and other crops in his front yard.

Also went to Appomattox Court House on Day 84. It was a little lame. Here’s a picture so you can see how lame it is.

I should probably just stop visiting Civil War sites. The photo itself probably doesn’t come off as all that lame.

And here’s what I learned there:

• Appomattox Court House was the name of the village where the armistice was signed. It was not signed at the courthouse (pictured above), but at some guy’s house (not pictured).
• The modern town of Appomattox moved closer to the railroad once the courthouse burned down.
• The guy’s house that is currently set up at Appomattox Court House is a re-creation. The real one was dismantled and taken to DC, where it disappeared or something without ever having been exhibited as planned.
• The guy who gives tours through the house is sort of cranky to people who don’t know they have to be led through it by him, even though there’s no indication anywhere that they’re not allowed to just walk into the house like they can every other house at Appomattox Court House.
• It’s hard to use three words in spelling Appomattox Court House.

I didn’t take the tour. It’s probably a fantastic site if you’re into the Civil War. They also had a guy dressed up as a union soldier who acted like he was stuck in 1865. It probably would have been more convincing if he hadn’t been ethnically Indian (from India). I mean — the illusion’s pretty well broken before he even tries to talk to you about how expensive the tavern is, which makes playing along sort of stressful. He also has all his teeth and lacks powerful body odor, which should probably also have been illusion-breakers.

Looking forward to kayaking around the Outer Banks. I think that’ll help.

Oh, and I also went to Chancellorsville, another Civil War battlefield. I took one photo:

Despite plenty of trees to hide behind, Stonewall Jackson died here.

But it was getting on toward evening, the rangers were closing up shop, and so I pressed on. The campground I slept at that night is probably one of the ones on the western part of the map in Fallout 3. At least, that’s what I’m telling myself. And I think I saw a super mutant while I was there — but, sadly, I found no jet, mutfruit, stealthboys, or railway spikes. They had a shower, though.

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Welcome to my world!

Otter Creek Campground, night. The orange spots are from the lantern off to the side of the camera.

Camping Sounds from Virginia

Click above to hear what Va sounds like out in the sticks at night. To complete the scene, figure there’s at least one of those insects that looks like a twig crawling on the picnic table and a daddy long-legs frying itself on the inside of your propane lantern (which is the white noise in the audio clip — sorry). And if you’re me, you can’t smell anything because you’re still a little congested.

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Ways in which Blue Ridge Parkway is different from Shenandoah National Park:

• It’s not a national park. It’s a road with protected lands on either side of it that is administrated by the National Park Service.
• It’s hills are 40% steeper than Shenandoah’s.
• It has lakes and rivers alongside the roadway.
• It’s further south.
• There are remnants of a lost civilization along the route.
• The locals have a much stronger accent.
• Way-cooler place names (“Peaks of Otter”? You can’t beat that.)
• It’s 4.5x as long.
• Better campsites.
• Lower visitor density.

Camped at the Beaver Creek Campground (so nicely creek-situated and wooded I’d have thought it was administered by the Forest Service) and went to the camp restaurant for food in the morning. Walked inside and the place is almost full with what appear to be locals. The six at the bar are engaged in a vigorous discussion over “red-eye gravy” and their drawls do not seem ironic. And with that, I realize that I’m in The South. Never been to The South before.

Blue Ridge Parkway, IMHO, > Shenandoah National Park by a good ways. The hills are more pronounced and interesting, the running water is a plus and gives you something to take a picture of if you have to, the abandoned hillbilly structures are kind of cool, and, like I said, there are fewer people. I only drove the Virginia part of it, though. I’m saving the state of North Carolina for another day (Day 88 actually).

Don’t remember the name of it and it’s not on the map, so there.

Sharp Top, one of the two Peaks of Otter. It’s near Bearwallow Gap. Man. And there was, in fact, an otter in the lake (which is not called Lake of Otter, sadly). (It would make the otter insufferable thinking it had been named for him.)

I think it’s called Abbott Lake.

Dismayed by yet another photo of a road with trees on it, the crows flee.

The valley below — this goes on for 460 miles or whatever.

What with the fence and all, it could pass for a Civil War battlefield.

Ah, fair Appalachia, long may your hills yet roll!

Mabry Mill, a “functioning” water mill (it functions in that water turns the wheel).

If a flume leaks in the woods and no one’s around, does it actually get anything wet?

Another day down. Blue Ridge Parkway has most of the same problems as Shenandoah — or at least, the one big problem: there’s nothing to do there but look at stuff. The Appalachian Trail runs through both of them, but apparently the AT is just a walk in the woods for not apparent reason — at least until it turns serious up in New Hampshire, I guess.

Based on perceived scenery, the PCT hasta be about 100x the trail the AT is.

Ah, well. I also remind myself frequently that the alternative is sitting in a gray-walled cube, at which point time spent in 2,000-foot mountain ranges without anything to do but drive and look start looking better. OTOH, what about the *opportunity cost*?! I should’ve spent another couple days in New England. Now I’m stuck taking that bitter failure to the grave. Eh — have to take something, I guess.

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A month and a half ago or so, it was requested that I share with all y’all how my rig’s outfitted for travel. Right after that, I shot this video. And now? Now I’ve bothered to post it. It’s from a while back and it’s kind of long (8.5 min.).

Ah, sweet memories of South Dakota. And by “Yellowstone”, I meant “Yosemite”. And the truck has never been that clean or organized in actual practice.

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(LMK if the video doesn’t work.)

Shenandoah is a National Park made for old people who don’t get out of their cars. There’s nothing to do there besides pull over and look out over the side and see the valley with farms and towns in it. Valleys, sorry. One on each side. They don’t change much.

Every quarter-mile there’s an overlook. And every overlook has this exact view (in essence).

But at least the old people are genteel. At least the local ones are. And with the photography, I just went with the old standby: leaves. I’m guessing Shenandoah is pretty brilliant by the end of October. Wasn’t as colorful as New England had been a week or two earlier, though. I suppose these things take time.

Another couple weeks and Skyline Drive will be on fire (figuratively).

I also sort of went on two hikes. The first was to White Oak Canyon, which my Reader’s Digest book suggests is the park’s scenic highpoint. To me, the highpoint of it was getting 2.3 miles in, seeing the first little waterfall, and having the locals there tell me it wasn’t worth it to keep going, because the rest of the waterfall was going to be even less spectacular. I guess it hasn’t rained much in Va.

But, whatever, there must be hike photos, so:

Trailside leaves.

Just after it occurred to me that this would be a pleasant enough place for turkey hunting with Sgt. York, I stumble onto these guys. Gary Cooper, however, did not make an appearance.

This is more stunning than the waterfall was.

Eh. It’s a bridge.

The couple at the waterfall also insisted that I should hike up to Hawk’s Bill Peak, the highest point in the park, so I did. It was a short hike. Here’s evidence it happened:

The compass tells you where the forest is on fire.

And then I headed south and out of the park, never to return again.

Somehow the yellow seemed significant at the time.

Just because you can’t see it doesn’t mean this isn’t a photo of a bobcat.

It really *was* a bobcat.

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No, they didn’t die on Day 81 of my trip. This trip is not that powerful or deadly. OTOH, the intensity of death per day at Antietam relative to size of the USA+CSA was 15,000 times the intensity of Iraq (I wrote about this once). Of course, Iraq is no Korea. Oh well. It’s a pretty battlefield. Antietam, I mean. Had to drive back into Maryland to get there, but it was worth it, I think. Nice skies, grain, fences, and a whole lot of dead people.

Civil War. It was a battle in the Civil War (the Battle of Antietam, sometimes referred to as Battle of Sharpsburg) and a fairly important one I understand. Somehow this sort-of win made Lincoln feel good about issuing the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing all the slaves except for those living in states that Lincoln was actually president of at the time. Well, basically.

This is the New York monument at the battlefield. I like the idea that the three people on the right are monks going to their, I dunno, holy obelisk. Makes it seem more like an Anton Corbijn-directed Depeche Mode video. If only it were in black-and-white.

Watching the approaching Yankees from the Rebel position.

I think this was the Connecticut monument. The guy on it looks like he’s 12. It’s situated alongside Bloody Lane, a sunken road that was sort of advantageous for the Southerners to be in until it wasn’t.

Bloody Lane.

Paved road, not bloody.

Clouds, plus one of those fences they always set up around Civil War battlefields.

So I thought it was kind of a pretty battlefield. Nice clouds, for example. It makes you kind of sad to stand there and think about it. I mean, that’s a lot of dead guys. And then I remember that my relatives left the country 15 years before the Civil War to see if they could get a better deal in Mexico. So that makes it only as sad as a horrible, bloody civil war happening in someone else’s country. Someone else’s country that had recently annexed you. It’s slightly mitigating is what I’m getting at.

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I used to love doing headlines. That seems like a long time ago. Now? I’m all about second paragraphs.

[Paragraph Redacted]

I dunno. Something about the Civil War, big armory, company town, Confederates making sure it was destroyed all the time, John Brown, railroads, a trans-continental canal, lots of floods, then someone deciding to move the town somewhere so that it wouldn’t keep getting destroyed all the time. Oh well.

Main Street.

Raised railroad tracks. No, really! They run between Main Street and the river. I think Shenandoah (River). Eventually they cross the Potomac (eventually = a few hundred yards later).

The scaffolding around the church tower adds a uniquely European touch to the scene.

Bridges have interesting lines.

Episcopal church.

Episcopal cloud.

It was a nice half-day place. Had lunch at one of the taverns or whatever in the non Parks Service part of town: pulled pork sandwich. Was pretty good, but hilariously overpriced. I also ordered (tap) water.

Also of note: the drive from my campsite in Western Maryland (nice showers!) to Harpers Ferry marks the last time I’ll use my GPS. Garmin’s not very good at giving directions. She dropped me off in the middle of a country road in Maryland and told me it was the Harpers Ferry Visitors Center in West Virginia. Essentially. Probably not as dangerous as the time she dragged me up into the maze of unmarked logging roads in pursuit of Mt. St. Helens, but still. Also probably not as bad as when she told me the speed limit was 70 when it was, in fact, 25. Or the multiple times she’s told me to enter the freeway via the offramp. Plus she’s so smug about it. But anyway. Hopefully REI will still take it back. I still have the box, I think. Moral: don’t buy Garmin.

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And, as such, five-eighths of the way there (in terms of states visited).

I’d call that wire coil wild and wonderful!

Right. This is actually a make-up photo because there was no welcome sign on the highway that landed me in Harper’s Ferry. It’s a convoluted little triangle there — maybe the absent sign was WVa’s protest.

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Another prime number — I can sleep easy once again.

I think “Virginia” is the bird’s name.

I was a little surprised to be in Virginia. I thought I’d be in West Virginia. But no: just normal Virginia for about five miles. It was pleasant while it lasted. I’d be back soon.

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