September 29, 2005 - Quinby, VA
Well, after driving 550 miles yesterday, we're here in a Thousand Trails park. Originally intended to get here today, after staying someplace like a Wal-Mart last night, but after getting through the traffic and bad roads of NY and NJ, Barb found we were only a "little ways" from here, so........... Glad we did it. Isn't it nice to have options?
Tyler Michael Connor. Less than a day old. Mom Tracy didn't have to force that smile, either. Tracy is the daughter of Carol, Barb's sister. And the baby is Carol's first grandchild as Tracy is her only child--so everybody's got smiles today!!!
What's amazing about that shot of the four generations is that I caught Tracy with her eyes closed. Four shots of her in a row with her eyes closed! Must be a record for me. And there's Mike, the justifiably proud dad. It's their first, but to hear Tracy tell it, not their last. Ma was so excited it was almost funny. She's got a whole bunch of great grandchildren, and 4 great-great grandchildren, but you'd have thought this was her first. Stories abounded, as you can imagine.
Filled the room, and the guest of honor slept through the whole thing. And to think he's less than 24 hours old made it even more special.
Sort of interesting to note that my older brother lost a 28-yr-old grandson the week prior. Young man died in his sleep leaving a wife and three young children. He'd been taking some powerful pain medication following some surgery, and we suspect that may have caused his death. But here's a new life just a week later. The process of birth and death continues just as it has for a very long time, and yet when it touches us, it seems so, what, unusual? And why should it? It's the normal process we all go through. It's the one thing that kings and paupers have in common, isn't it? And yet standing there watching young Tyler and thinking about Craig (my grand nephew), it all seemed so mysterious to me,..... and yet so natural.
Then it was off to the Lobster Boat to celebrate Ma's 92nd birthday (a little early--her birthday is Oct. 3rd). Well, at least one of the celebrations of her birthday. She enjoys all of her family, but in smaller doses than in the past. She and Pa are responsible for one huge bunch of people, what with the 6 girls, the grand kids, and all the great grandkids, and even four great, great grandkids. This place is in NH, and Ma likes fried lobster. Barb and I had fun making a big mess.
We'd moved from Calef Lake in Auburn, NH, to the Famcamp near Hanscom AFB/Field. Used to be Hanscom Field when Barb started her career with the Federal Govt. back in 1961. The Famcamps are for active-duty and retired military and retired DOD civilians. Mostly. We'd heard that some Famcamps allowed retired Fed's in, so we drove over a couple of weeks prior to check it out. Actually, you can stay if you have a sponsor regardless of you status, so John, the camp manager, offered to sponsor us, and for $18 a day verses $24 a day, we couldn't pass it up for a week. Besides, it was a lot closer to a couple of the sisters we wanted to visit before heading south.
Nice shot of the light pole, don't you think? If I was willing to spend the time, I have the software that would remove it, but I'm not. Besides, all I wanted to do once I got on top of the Road Abode was climb back down. Actually, that's a picture of the control tower for the runways of Hanscom Field hiding back there.
When these little private planes take off, we can hear them real well, and when those small jets (usually corporate planes) take off, not only can we hear them, we can smell the exhaust, and we can feel them vibrate the walls of the Road Abode! Fortunately, very few of them flew at night, and it didn't take long to adjust to the day noise. We were only here for a week after all, and the price was good, particularly considering we got excellent 50A electric and five bars on the cell phone! What a joy to be able to sit at home and make phone calls! Barb also found a nice mall about 2-3 miles away.
Jennie (another of Barb's sisters) and Don have a home quite close to Hanscom, and we were invited over one evening to play some Pegs and Jokers. Barb had made some sun shades for their glider (lawn swing) at their Maine home, and was explaining them here. Barb had earlier made a set for Ma's glider as well. The New England Patriots (football team) were about to finish a game, so Don, Guy, and I watched while Jennie, Carol, and Barb practiced Pegs and Jokers.
Seems to me that the men beat the women two out of three games, but we still got fed some wonderful homemade apple pie and ice cream before heading home. Sorta tough telling everybody goodbye. We really enjoy Barb's family a lot.
Woke up this morning, looked out at the sunrise, and WOW! There was the Atlantic! We'd pulled in after dark, and had no clue of our surroundings. A short walk through that line of bushes brought us to the mud flats (no beaches!), and lots of these little crabs. Wonder if they're the blue crabs so famous around here.
These little crabs were real quick to scamper back down their holes. This one looked like it had lost a claw, and had a tinge of blue on its shell, so maybe it is a blue crab. And there we are in this wonderful 200 space campground located in this 800-acre preserve. Only a few sewer hookups, and we're at one of them.
Not all spaces were in the open like we enjoy, some were in the pine trees for shade. The pool was closed for the season (the entire campground closes in two weeks), but it would have been fun to swim in it while looking out at the ocean.
These small gulls were just too good for Barb to pass up, so I had to take a picture of them for her. Looks pretty good after all, eh? And then we walked out on the pier and they all went to sit in the water to wait for us to leave. Looked like this would have been a great fishing pier.....except for the gull droppings!
Barb wasn't as interested in the toy boat (say that quick three times -- toy boat, toy boat, toy boat) as she was in finding the mocking bird that was yelling at her in the tree. And then we spotted this boat-tailed grackle going through his repertoire. The campground is an old one, but this old abandoned building was the exception as far as maintenance goes. There was some evidence of "deferred" maintenance, but for the most part it's in good shape. There are lots of lawns to mow, and even though it's this close to the end of the season, they're still keeping them up.
This weekend we plan to spend some time with Eric and Martha in Norfolk, so there should be some more pictures pretty soon. Oh, tomorrow we'll run up to Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge and see if we can find any wild horses.