Up Mount Washington by the Skin of my Teeth!

A few months ago a friend of mine bought a motorcycle and asked me where he could find some nice winding roads like you see in the commercials. I shrugged, “Up the mountains…” I had forgotten this whole conversation when he asked me recently if I would like to join him for a trip into the White Mountains. Sure, why not. I didn’t ask what was in the White Mountains that was so interesting, I just assumed he wanted to go up Mount Washington… because that’s what everyone does. I should probably note, even though I live in New Hampshire, the three hour drive has kept me away from such a trip until now and… well…. I vastly underestimated a great deal of things.

I should probably mention yesterday was one huge clusterfuck from sun up to sun down and how I managed to get anything done is beyond me. I learned that morning, by randomly looking it up, that Mount Washington was closing for the season the same day I was going up it and also it closes at 4PM. And they stop allowing people up it forty-five minutes before closing. He showed up at 11ish. We had time…

After a minute talking I headed to the Prius to drive, he got on his motorcycle to follow. My GPS immediately decided to be an ass. It would NOT recognize Mount Washington Auto Road, no matter how many ways I tried to type it in. Eventually I had to just punch in 1 Route 16. This took way too long but we were on our way!

The GPS again thought it’d be hilarious to take some bizarre route… Clearly it was drunk today. None-the-less I drove until 1PM and then took an exit to find a gas station, as was the plan, but by this time I had already lost my follower. How I don’t know. I was trying to behave myself. He scooted off ahead and was several exits further than me so after a brief discussion we decided to just head north and try to make it, although by now we’d just be slipping under the radar. My GPS said I’d get there at exactly 3 but after several miscommunications, and taking a wrong exit, it was now reading 3:17. Crap. I had to put a move on. So I sped up, zipping through the mountains. It was GORGEOUS. Suddenly I was surrounded on all sides by vibrant oranges, yellows, and reds, every tree blushing as I went by. If I created the world this is what I would make it look like! The fall foliage made me skip for joy. And the mountains!

Forgive me for thinking so little of mountains in New England but I didn’t think the White Mountains were anything special… I mean I have been all through New Hampshire, Vermont, Maine, and Massachusetts, and although all these states have mountains they’re just cute little tree covered hills for the most part. But the White Mountains? They were proper mountains! They started to grow in size I drove closer and they took my breath away. They towered above me as I drove past all these places I had heard of but am yet to explore – the gorge, the White Mountains National Forest, the Basin… I will definitely be coming back!! This reminded me of my days out west when I was floored by the sight of the Rockies. These weren’t quite as grand but for New England they were still pretty impressive! I can’t believe this was hiding here all along. New England continues to surprise me and keep me in absolute awe.

Eventually I ended up close to the Auto Road but my GPS thought it’d be funny to drop me off in the middle of the woods… so I turned around two or three times trying to find this place. My friend had already made it. The gorgeous weather and the fact it was the last day to go up made the toll keepers more lenient. they were still letting people in but by now it was well past 3PM. I looked it up online – apparently the Glen House was near by. My GPS also didn’t know what the Glen House was and when I attempted to get navigation on my phone the internet kicked out. What can I expect in the mountains? I was irritated. Very irritated. And I had skipped lunch to race here.

Finally my GPS read “Approaching Mount Washington Auto Road.” I was ready to fling that piece of shit out the window… “WHY couldn’t you have told me that an hour ago?!” Low and behold there was the road! I drove in and went through. The guy at the gate told me I had ten minutes before they start shuffling people off the mountain. I smiled, forked over an outrageous $29 and continued on! I had my follower back, waiting for me just beyond the gate he drove up behind me.

I’ve been up and down mountain roads before. I’ve driven on narrow roads. I’ve even driven on roads with cliffs or embankments. I had no issue with any of this but I can’t say I expected this road to be like one of those death roads like you see in photos of South America. It was just wide enough to let two cars through, practically kissing mirrors as they passed. To one side was the mountain, no ditch or breakdown lane, just a wall of unforgiving granite. The other side of the road was a sheer cliff face – no guardrails, no nothing to catch you if you didn’t drive exactly where you needed to. It was a winding snake of a road with no room for error ‘least you wanted to topple off and die… and apparently people do… every year. Probably should have known that before I tried it. I was actually doing pretty well but it kept going… up and up and up… and then other cars started to come down and we both had to inch by each other going two miles an hour, a feet that the Prius was not really up for if I am to be completely honest. Prius has a habit of sliding backwards whenever I am going under 15 miles an hour…. so this was actually more difficult than just passing another car and trying not to die. It’s at this point I started cursing loudly and to myself. Then the car would pass and I would be OK again… until I glanced over to my side. I could suddenly see just how far up in the air I truly was and just how fucked I’d be if I messed this up. No room or time for stopping I just kept climbing! So did my friend on the motorcycle. I wondered at times if I was going too fast or slow for him… but he stayed back there.

This was the longest seven and a half miles I have ever driven. By the time I got to the top I threw the Prius in the first parking spot I saw and leapt out to kiss the ground. I MADE IT. And I couldn’t feel more invigorated or alive as I did just then. There, just beyond the ground I was so thankful for standing on, there was the most amazing view I have ever seen. Stretched out for miles and miles there were dozens of peaks and mountain tops all layered like cards in a deck. A raven flew on the currents as wind swirled and swooped. I couldn’t help but think of all the Nordic myths where their gods live at the top of the world, looking down.

“We made it!” I laughed.

“Yes. We did.” I think my travel buddy was a bit speechless. Turns out he had no idea what Mount Washington was and this was far more of a challenge than he probably anticipated when he got up this morning. Though he told me it was worth the trip next time he’d try the train. Good call. At least he was on a motorcycle… with a lot more maneuvering room… so there’s that.

There was remarkably little cloud cover today so I got a few pretty decent snaps. We were able to wander the summit w here there were a few tourist attractions – a building that I think was a restaurant, a gift shop, a train stop, the actual summit, a weather station… a little marker gloating over the record for the world’s fastest wind recorded here. It was 231 miles per hour if you’re wondering.

For years I had seen cars with bumper stickers reading, “this car climbed Mount Washington!” and I always thought it was some stupid gimmicky little thing but after doing it myself and not shitting a brick I felt I deserved a bumper sticker too. They were sold out as far as I could tell. Ah well…. it wasn’t meant to be.

This was the perfect time to come up the mountain because on the way down there was no traffic coming up it, being closed and all. This meant the trip down was a lot easier! I could glide down the middle of the road and be just fine! The rest of the cars ahead of me did the same and before I knew it the smell of burning breaks became all too apparent. There are many turn offs on the way with little signs alerting us to stop and let our breaks cool down. I saw many cars turn off… but the Prius is small and only smelled for a moment. I let it sit when I got to the bottom…

After this we drove into town, grabbed a bite to eat at McDonalds and talked for a bit. I asked if this adventure was worth it, feeling slightly bad it was such an extreme outing for the first time out. Although I felt exhilarated by the challenge, proud to have accomplished it, I am not so sure my friend here was experiencing the same high. Perhaps I am just too much for polite company. SIGH.

The drive home was three hours and twenty minutes in the dark. I cranked up the Led Zeppelin and enjoyed the ride. Life is good.

<strong> If you are enjoying Catching Marbles please consider adding a dollar or two to my limited gas money fund so I can continue going on adventures and sharing them with you! Thank you!

October 24, 2017 0

Fossil Fish Dig – Kemmerer Wyoming

On Thursday morning I was back at Ulrich’s Fossil Gallery to go out fossil fishing. I were guaranteed 6-8 full fish specimens.

I went out with a teenage boy, Dylan, whose summer job it was to work the quarry, and a friendly middle aged couple named Lynn and Bill. I drove in a beat up old truck up a dirt road that led straight to the center of the mountain. Let me tell you, the ride was steep! At one point we passed two or three antelope.

“What pretty animals.” Bill exclaimed, before asking if it was legal to hunt them. It was. Shame, they were very pretty. I refrained from asking what the little rodents dashing across the road were. I didn’t really feel like looking like an idiot. That’d be like someone coming up to me in NH and asking what the squirrels were.

Anyway! I came to the quarry, which was a small section where rocks could be seen piled up like sheets. I were given a hammer and chisel and given a quick demonstration before being given the opportunity to pick one of three spots. I chose the one I could climb on. It was the first rock I found the first fish, three actually, although two were “exploded” and could no longer really be identified as fish. Apparently not only full skeletons are preserved in the fossilization process, but sometimes piles of decomposed goo are as well. Decomposed goo or not I was proud of my first find, and the little skeletal fishy was perfect in my eyes. Besides, the exploded fish didn’t actually count as normal people don’t like to keep them…

It took a while but eventually I found a partial big fossil, a mioplosus, a somewhat rare find here.

After this the rock got real fragile. Apparently it had gotten wet at some point and some of the layers were flecking off like paper, revealing fossils that in no way could actually be preserved. This was frustrating, I dug through all of that and back down to the hard layers. Apparently the “18 inch layer” where all the commercial digging was done had the consistency of concrete. That’s where the professionals dug with heavy machinery and of course I wouldn’t be chipping away at that layer. I found the allotted amount of fish I was promised, in three different species, knightia, mioplosus, and diplomystus. All except the mio were a few inches in length and preserved wonderfully. I was very happy with the finds. Over on the other side of the quarry another group had found three monster fish, complete too. One had to be extracted with a saw. All this and I felt bad for the couple who was in our group who found substandard fossils, all tiny, many very fragile, and not a hell of a lot of them. They were such a sweet couple too!

Coming back from the dig was an adventure all its own. Imagine being in a beat up old truck going down such a steep hill that looking out of the back of it you couldn’t see the road behind you, just fresh mountain air. Now imagine going down that same hill knowing that the road was only vaguely the width of the vehicle you’re in and any mistake would result in you toppling off the side and rolling down the mountain. Nerve racking! I made it though, as Dylan told us why his truck’s roof was slashed to bits. “Some of the other guys up here sometimes get bored and test their new blades on the ceiling…”

I was super pleased with my finds. I wasn’t really expecting much. The trilobite dig was a lot of fun (and a completely different experience, being in different rock) but this had its own charm. I even found myself rather liking the little fish that once swam around here, eons before my existence. I was told of a dinosaur dig in Montana but the funds were running thin. Perhaps I’ll come back for that someday. Still, the fish quarry people insist that customers on the “fossil tour” (trilobite, fish, and dinosaur digs) said their fish digging was the best of the three. We’ll see!

If you are enjoying Catching Marbles please consider adding a dollar or two to my limited gas money fund so I can continue going on adventures and sharing them with you! Thank you!

June 22, 2011 0

Ulrich’s Fossil Gallery, Kemmerer Wyoming

After Fossil Butte I passed this sign that said, “Fossil Fish Gallery” and of course had to stop. It was someone’s house, granted it was a large one. Out front there was a huge set of dinosaur footprints and some petrified wood. This promised to be interesting.

Going in there was a huge slab on the wall with dozens of fish on it. I climbed the stairs into the shop and saw a teenage girl tending counter. There were fish everywhere, big ones, little ones, delicate ones, all beautifully displayed. There was an absolutely enormous gar, its scales still visible. Not long after entering another woman appeared and started talking with us. She had the brash fast-talking ways of a Yankee, but claimed to be homegrown here in Kemmerer. She told us that she grew up near here on a ranch and that she never knew what treasures she was sitting on top of, stating as children she would lob the fossils like Frisbees at each other’s heads. She claimed many thousands of dollars of fossils got ruined in this fashion. Now she made a living off them, saying her husband was part and partial to setting up Butte National Monument Park itself, and that is why they were allowed to keep the massive gar. (State legislations require all “rare” fossils to be surrendered to scientific institutions.) She was a funny woman, showing us around, and showing us the difference between the fossils in the “18 inch layer” and the surrounding layers. Then she told us she took people up to the quarry seven days a week, from 9am to noon to dig, for a fee slightly higher than that of Fossil Safari. She had nothing good to say about Fossil Safari. She brought us to her basement where she had a number of fossils dug up at fossil safari. Apparently a couple people had come in the day before with these uncut, mediocre fossils they had dug up at Fossil Safari. She said she wasn’t even sure if they provided tools for these people but they didn’t provide any means of cutting them down to size. The fish dug up here were in better condition, they were at the dead center of the ancient lake, and preserved by petroleum seepage. They did not look like the silhouettes of fish that were sitting sad and neglected in this basement, donated for the young children to find in the rubble pile out back.

Penny, the woman answering all the questions, turned to me and inquired if I was always this quiet. Pretty much. This should be taken as a compliment, I found the conversation hat fascinating. Before I knew it I was booking an appointment with “the boys” to go to their quarry. It was slightly more expensive but way more personal, with only four people going up with each guide. And to add to the charm I was put in a group without children as, “There must be a reason you don’t have children!” What a funny comment.

I had to wait two days for the appointment and after the dig I bought a little “grade A” kit from them. It contains a fish fossil so deeply embedded in a piece of rock from the 18 inch layer that it has to be neatly and carefully chiseled and scratched out to see it. This sort of tedious work has always relaxed me. I very much wanted to try it.

June 21, 2011 0

La Brea tar Pits – Los Angelas California

LA was on the list of destinations although I couldn’t figure out for the life of me why. It seemed like another stinking apocalyptic urban wasteland to me… It took me days to realize it was probably marked off because of the La Brea Tar Pits. I have wanted to see the La Brea tar pits since I was a tot. I drove in and found the tar pits parking lot. It was almost full with maybe four or five spaces that could only fit the tiniest of cars, not a bloated Jeep. I drove around in circles around and around until the parking attendant made us a spot that didn’t technically exist before. We thanked him and headed towards what looked like a park.

There were kids swarming everywhere but I couldn’t have expected any less. The whole place reeked, a stench like no other. It was the tar pits bubbling away. I walked over towards it. There was indeed a big nasty mud puddle of a pond, it’s top layer covered in thick black goo, and bubbles belching from the deep. It really did smell as bad as it looked. To one corner there was a recreation of a mammoth getting stuck, it’s little mammoth family on shore going, “Noooooooo!” I could tell the mammoth that was stuck was actually floating…

I went into the museum and was told I was getting free admission because it was the first Tuesday of the month. This explained why there were so many children. I walked in and was greeted by a giant ground sloth skeleton. He was a huge beast with very odd feet. I walked around and read the signs and looked at the skeletons. They had everything here from every type of scavenger birds to hundreds of dire wolves, saber toothed cats, jaguars, weasels, mice, amphibians, mammoths, and even one woman.

There was a large laboratory in the middle of the building surrounded by plexiglass so that visitors could watch the paleontologists do their work. There was a woman in there separating grains of sand, one at a time, with a paintbrush, picking out the most minute of bones. She had managed to find maybe four or five minuscule little mice bones. I moved on and saw a mammoth back on display. Poor dear had arthritis of some kind. There was another display showing a mammoth bone next to an Asian elephant bone. I had no idea mammoths were so much bigger!

I stopped to watch a 16 minute documentary that was playing in the theater. It explained how most of the bones came to be here, with one animal getting stuck and then scavengers and predators trying to eat the stuck animal while getting trapped themselves. It also had interesting little tidbits about what the tar pits actually were… raw asphalt basically. Apparently the local Indians used the substance to waterproof their living quarters.

I ended up in the gift shop and decided to buy a magnet. As I sat in line I watched a baby in a stroller play with a blob of black goo, apparently some sort of mock tar toy. I laughed as I said, “Watch her eat that thing.” There was jars of the stuff at the counter and I decided to look at it to see what it actually was. There was no ingredients listed, only a label saying non-toxic. There was a sample smushed in a petri dish with two little dinosaur toys stuck in it. I poked at it and a bored cashier came by and started talking. I don’t really remember what he said initially but someone asked if the woman was on display here. He said she was taken down seven years ago due to political strife from local Native Americans. Seems right.

If you are enjoying Catching Marbles please consider adding a dollar or two to my limited gas money fund so I can continue going on adventures and sharing them with you! Thank you!

June 7, 2011 0

Windsor Ruins – Mississippi

In Mississippi I went to the Windsor Ruins. Apparently this absolutely enormous building was built as the largest Greek Revival mansion in the state. It only stood for a few years before it burned from the top down leaving nothing but 24 eerie columns. I tried to go after dark (against park rules) but didn’t make it. Still it was oddly impressive, nestled in some rugged and wild country. It was quiet and so peaceful out there. The columns reached towards the sky with a little plant growing on one. Some of them were crumbled and I guess the metal stairway that was left after the flames was taken by a local church. It was a bit weird in the sense it felt like I was looking at a Greek ruin in the middle of frickin’ Mississippi.

As I left I noticed a dirt road, apparently going to nowhere. Seeing as the road I was supposed to take was closed due to flooding the decision was made to try this one. I travelled farther and farther down this road as it got increasingly worse. It got narrower, the path got more bumpy. It looked like the last travelers through here might have been in a Conestoga wagon. Then, as if I was on some sort of crazy safari I saw something dash across the road at such an alarming speed that I couldn’t even come close to identifying the wee beast. I turned around and took the path more travelled.

As it turns out I think I figured out what the strange blur I saw was. Apparently armadillos are a small, probably mythological, southern creatures with the armor of centipede and the speed of light. I had been wanting to see a live one and in all the photos they look so placid and even slow.. HA! Wrong! I also got to see two deer cross the road and it was broad daylight.

I took lots of photos of the scenery because it was just gorgeous down that way with gorges filled with greenery and vines wrapping around trees. It was a strange landscape. On my way out I came across yet another roadblock, this time on a main highway. I stopped and a very young officer asked, “So where y’all trying to go?” Apparently, “I don’t know.” isn’t a great answer to give someone. He picked up his little list of places to go and ventured a guess, “Arkansas? And you’re taking which highway?” “Uhhh…. Let me see…” This time the GPS was consulted and the cop just started laughing. “Oh you got a Garmin. I had one of those. She told me to drive straight into a lake once.” Comforting thought! Thanks! Apparently the Big Black River had overflowed and I had to go literally an hour out of our way to get back on track.

When I got back into town, and after passing this particular gas station three or four times trying to find an addressless ghost town, I stopped in to fill up. The locals were ever so helpful… “You trying to get to Vicksburg? We saw you pass by a few times…” Great, now I’m being watched! SIGH. Can’t do anything conspicuously these days.

If you are enjoying Catching Marbles please consider adding a dollar or two to my limited gas money fund so I can continue going on adventures and sharing them with you! Thank you!

May 26, 2011 0

New Orleans

Good old New Orleans, how could I forget America’s home to Voodoo, ghost tours, beloved vampire writers, and Mardi Gras? I decided to start my little journey by heading towards the famous French Quarters, a magical place where diaper-wearing horses pull carts around the streets. No no, I ended up parking comfortably near the French Quarter for $14 and I walked around. I was in search of a skirt… you know one of those airy ankle-length ones that they apparently don’t sell in the South… and to be quite frank they don’t sell skirts period down here. Whhhy?! It’s so frickin’ hot you’d think everyone would be wearing them! I would settle for an ankle length sundress of course but all the ones here went to your knees and were made of hot materials. It made no sense. I weaved in out of Voodoo shops as a reward for sticking it out and trying to find a skirt, a abysmal activity if there ever were one. Skulls abounded.

I stopped wherever it looked interesting, or just air conditioned in the case of the Magaritaville, apparently a whole parrothead-inspired margarita-flinging bar. I only stayed in its stoop for a few minutes so I could go on. In the meantime mules and horses clacked by with their tourist carriages telling of pirates and voodoo priestesses. I passed by the Voodoo priestesses’ bar and her little voodoo shop. I may have gone in there if a bunch of locals weren’t in the stoop debating something.

After I walked around the main part of the French Quarters I meandered up to Bourbon Street for shits and giggles, figured it’d be interesting people watching if nothing else. That was interesting to say the least! The first thing I stumbled upon was a seedy cabaret with a barker out front. I looked him dead in the eye to see if he’d still make his pitch and laughed when at first hesitated but then actually did! I walked by, obviously. I had no idea the States even had cabarets. Seems such an odd thing to me, bet you they probably named it such to make it sound more interesting than it actually was. In any event I walked past a lot of little strip joints and whatnot, a great deal of them with cutesy little names like The Cat’s Meow. I passed by pubs, bars, and other liquor friendly little nooks, some reading, “two drink minimum,” which seemed more than a tad bit odd. Apparently there was no room for responsible drivers here.

It was a scalding hot day and I had to take time out to lather myself up with sun screen in a public courtyard. I was melting. I ended up back in the French Market scouring the area for a cold non-alcoholic drink when in the spirit of trying new things I also bought a praline. Good thing I only bought one… it was really rather sweet, to a fault. Will not be trying that again.

I had a lot of fun just wandering around. The streets weren’t that busy, the people were friendly, and there was a lemon piper playing classic jazz on sax down at the piers. Every time a dollar was donated this hilarious musician would holler, “Thanks big guy! Have a great day!” before going right back to the same note he left off on. I didn’t come by anyone with a thick New Orleans accent either, which was fortunate as that’s probably the only US accent even I can’t translate.

If you are enjoying Catching Marbles please consider adding a dollar or two to my limited gas money fund so I can continue going on adventures and sharing them with you! Thank you!

May 25, 2011 0

World’s Most Elusive Roadside Catfish – Alabama

I drove to Troy Alabama to see the world’s largest catfish, apparently some sort of stature or clunk of folk art, not really sure. Either way when I got into Troy I realized I did not have an address for the elusive big fish and Google was not being of any help, just teasing me with photos and leaving me to guess. Eventually I came across a forum post which told me which main road it was off of and that this same road had a giant metal cow and some other crazy things so off I went, finding the giant metal bull first. Damn thing was outside of a rodeo place and as anatomically correct as the artist could have done with his personal talent. Poor thing had a sweet doleful cow face and a set of giant tin balls to boot. Strange, I continued onward and somewhere down the road in front of a closed art gallery I found a giant metal rooster. Again it was constructed out of spare parts in a rather artful manner. Its face was cute and I stopped to take a photo. I continued on to find the catfish but had to leave that day without finding it, though I am sure I could make up another big fish story about it…

I drove on that night into Mobile where we decided to stop at a Cracker Barrel, as was suggested by someone I’d talked to before the trip. We just don’t have these places in the North and a name like Cracker Barrel, not to mention the appearance of the place is sure to make a great many of us Northerners a bit skittish. Still I walked in. A kid came up to me asking for money to buy baseball team uniforms. He was a black kid, acting very skittish himself, I am not entirely sure why. I gave him $4. I figured if he was skittish from social anxiety then I helped an awkward kid with his fundraiser, and if he was skittish because he was being put up to his first con (I was in a rather ghetto-ey area), I didn’t care either. It was only $4.

Mobile… what can I say about it… other than I learned of it so many times not in a positive light. I had only known anything about it because of all the atrocities committed in and around it in the turbulent 50’s and 60’s during the Civil Rights Movement. I expected the people here to be a little off because I know scars like that do not heal in an area overnight. Though the people here who could still remember these ungodly events are now getting old and dying off they still had children and grandchildren whom I am sure they told. Like I said, it takes time to heal. All this going through my head didn’t make me any more comfortable going into a place called Cracker Barrel. Oh well, so the black attendant was giving me the evil eye for a good five minutes as I waited, that was to be expected, right? Then again the clerk who I paid my restaurant bill to acted totally normal, maybe she just had personal issues. This place confused me and set me a bit on edge. It’s so much easier when you can just treat everyone as if they’re people and leave it at that. SIGH.

I went in and was served by a waiter with a sweet farm boy accent. He asked if I’d been to the local music festival. I told him I just got into town, pondering if this fraternizing with customers was a normal thing down here. In any event I ordered the catfish, I just had to… and I ate until I was stuffed to the gills. It was good! It was fried and another new southern food. I was happy when I left.

May 24, 2011 0

Getting Out of Florida

Waking up in Key Largo I decided I should spend the day trying to get out of the state of Florida. I drove all day past palm trees, past glitz, past swamps. I saw short fat palm trees, casinos, tall thin palm trees, tourist beaches, coconut palm trees, tourists traps, palm tree nurseries, and in the end I was happy to drive out of there. Shortly before I reached the border I drove through this little town advertising a new store, opened only a few days, it was like a farmer’s market type deal. I had to stop though because over the front of it was a large sign reading, “hot boiled peanuts.”

What are hot boiled peanuts? Apparently they’re exactly that. I had to try some as that sounded ghastly terrible.

There was one middle aged woman sitting there looking a bit put off, perhaps due to a lack of customers or perhaps due to the intense heat and lack of air conditioning ability in a building with no walls.

“So what is this I hear about boiled peanuts?” I said, “I’m from NH, I wanted to try them…”

“Well they’re warm and salted. Here, I don’t want you to buy anything you don’t like.” She handed me two nuts. The shells were soggy, moist, and warm. I slipped out the little meaty nut part and took an adventurous bite. It was like a tiny glob of mashed potatoes in a shell, with the hint of peanut taste. Maybe this was because aside from the meal I ate at Keren’s I was missing hot food, maybe it was because I was desperate for something different besides the PB&J’s I was sustaining myself with but either way, the boiled peanuts were amazing.

“Oh I really like them!” I exclaimed. A surprised, “Really?!” came from the woman selling it to me. I bought a big saggy wet and warm bag of them. Delicious.

“Usually I can guess people’s reactions…” The woman said. I laughed. I bought a cup of the things. She explained they’re usually eaten with soft drinks and are made from raw immature peanuts, unlike the fully grown roasted ones I was used to. I sat in the car picking at them for quite awhile until the large foam cup was nearly empty. This was my second southern food and my second success. Good thing I wasn’t about to try any chitterlings.

If you are enjoying Catching Marbles please consider adding a dollar or two to my limited gas money fund so I can continue going on adventures and sharing them with you! Thank you!

May 23, 2011 0

Exploring the Florida Keys

Key Largo was gorgeous. In the morning when I packed up I took my sweet time reorganizing the Jeep and then stopped at The Shell Store. This place had shells of every kind and color in enormous buckets as well as any kind of tourist memorabilia you could ask for. I ended up buying a little turtle made out of various tiny sea shells for a dollar. It’s cute.

I continued onward discussing whether or not to take a glass bottomed boat tour. I should probably mention that besides being afraid of large boney fish I have always said I wouldn’t get on a sea-going boat, not even if I were paid… but having continuously dipped my feet in the warm waters I somehow felt more relaxed about the idea… and besides there were wild corals here, I hadn’t gotten to see any of those. I decided to go for it, but first I’d drive to Key West, the farthest of the islands. I passed Duck Key and Cow Key and Ramrod Key and all the darn keys, stopping at two beaches. One was rocky and amazing, covered in fossilized coral rocks (far to big to pick up and drag off unfortunately) and another beach which smelled really bad and consisted of 50% seaweed and 50% trash and debris. This place was almost as bad as the Wristcutter’s [a Love Story] beach! It was really bad… I was quite put off by it and the rest of Key West. The island was so full of people and cramped, such a tourist trap. It advertised it was the birthplace of the Sloppy Joe and had pubs and bars every two buildings, hotels the rest. I only stopped when I came upon a strange site… what appeared to be a brick ruin. It was what I came for… and there, sitting snidely across from a horse-drawn hearse and in front of oodles of fan mail was Robert the Doll himself, three feet worth of plushie terror. He was ADORABLE. I probably should explain… You see Robert is probably the original haunted doll. He was said to be made by an angry servant of the Otto family who practiced voodoo. He was named after the little boy (later renowned artist) he was given to and apparently held such a powerful grip on the growing lad that he never abandoned the doll, claiming that “Robert did it!” whenever anything bad would happen. The doll was said to pace, to glower out the window at children, to make evil giggles, to throw around furniture and to haunt people… You name it this doll does it! I can’t say I know the work of his owner, Robert Eugene Otto, but I have been delighted by his doll since I was ten or so. As per custom I asked the doll if I could take a photo and did so, taking the chance we could be cursed… We bought a magnet at the gift shop and perused the place. They had a whole collection of Edward Gorey stuff including The Hapless Child, perhaps because of the child-terrorizing doll in it. They even had a book on his home, the Elephant House, bizarre considering he was a Massachusetts resident, not Florida… Then again they had a book on Hemmingway’s cats, yet another Massachusetts thing. Who knows! Still, anyone adoring Gorey has got my attention.

Sooo… after that I hit the next glass bottomed boat place I could find. It was 1:35 and I literally missed it by five minutes. I decided not to wait around, to find another. I didn’t find another until I was back in Key Largo, seventy something miles away, and I was fortunate enough to just get in on time to take the last boat tour of the day. I filed onto the boat annnnd… was told there’d be a delay… The woman next to us looked on horrified, as if we’d just struck an ice burg here in the harbor. Our captain came up soon after and said she thought they’d fixed the problem. Then the motors started going and two seconds later we hear screaming from down under, two men yelling, “SHIT! TURN IT OFF! TURN IT OFF!” Our captain started to stamp violently on the deck, signaling ever-so-delicately to stop shouting, you’re freaking out the tourists. We were told something else was broke and we’d have to be refunded. I left… without seeing to corals and shipwreck promised, without being able to have the chance to glimpse a casual shark or dolphin. Sad, very sad. Could it be Robert?

I left and decided I should at the very least get a good piece of pie out of this trip, Key Lime Pie… I was dubious. Except for one occasion all the lemon meringue pies I ever had were ghastly terrible, I figured lime pie would be the same… I ordered the prettiest piece of pie I’ve ever seen, decorated with swirls of whipped cream and sauce. It was actually really good! And the ice cold water that went with it was a luxury I hadn’t realized I’d missed quite so much. I drank like a camel in an oasis.

The only other memorable part of the drive was when I saw some deer aside the road, four does grazing. I didn’t realize until later they were endangered Key Deer. How cool is that? I saw something endangered alive and running around… like the feral chickens roaming the streets of Key West I couldn’t explain.

If you are enjoying Catching Marbles please consider adding a dollar or two to my limited gas money fund so I can continue going on adventures and sharing them with you! Thank you!

May 23, 2011 0

Tidepooling in Key Largo Florida

Initially I put a pin in Key West (on the map) as a joke, because that’s where Robert the Doll lives, but seeing as I have been such a devoted fan of this infamous haunted doll I decided what the Hell, I might as well!

I had already had a very long day when I arrived in Key Largo. It was getting dark and I wanted to find a place to sleep so I could enjoy driving through the islands in daylight. So I found a campground here, by luck, as an internet search prior to leaving that morning revealed most were full and not taking any more people without at least a day’s reservation. The office was closed but some friendly RVers told us that the manager would be around in the morning to collect any fees we were unable to give them during the previous day, as there were spots still available. The campground itself seemed a tiny village of RVs shoved into a series of mini streets, with one other tenting couple beyond a fence where the tent plots were. The spaces for tents were just large enough to contain our tent but not large enough to properly secure the ropes down. It was also on sand but it was accommodated with electricity and water. Unbeknownst to me I was also right next to a little stretch of beach. It was rocky, mind you, and beyond the rocks were gnarls of sea weed but for me that’s the best beach I could ask for. I scoured it in search of shells and life that evening before the sun went down, that night after I did the laundry at 11PM or so, and again the next morning. There was fragments of coral skeletons everywhere, scattered about like common rocks and pebbles. There were also a few tiny shells here and there and one big crab in a burrow that initially looked like a ginormous spider.

And then of course there were star fish. The buggar was as big as my palm and oddly colored. I picked it up but not long after it started oozing orange goo as it tried to ankle it out of my hand. You see, this is why star fish creep me out. They are sooo alien. I put it back before finding a tiny sea anemone, a whole school of the brightest teeny tiny snails you could ask for. There was even a conch-like snail the size of my thumb I also picked up for some reason.

I picked it up and was fine with it when it was sitting still but when it started to ooze out of its shell like a cow tongue trying to come out… well I kind of tweaked a bit and flipped back into the water. I was more comfortable with the hermit crab I found adorned with a fantastically beautiful shell that seemed five sizes too big for it. Of course to make the wildlife all the more amazing there was a swarm of little throat-bobbing lizards skittering up and down the trees giving us that whole Jurassic Park feel. I loved the lizards… as corny as that sounds.

I watched the sun go down sitting on a dock, surrounded on all sides by bath warm sea water gently lapping by. The sunset itself was gorgeous, the most beautiful sunset I’ve ever seen and I got some fantastic photos of that, I’m happy to say.

If you are enjoying Catching Marbles please consider adding a dollar or two to my limited gas money fund so I can continue going on adventures and sharing them with you! Thank you!

May 22, 2011 0