Southboud I-95

Shout out to CNB for making the middle 27 minutes of the drive home more entertaining: Yo. Thanks.

Some I-95 thoughts:
Is it just me, or is there 58 times more garbage on our roadsides in Virginia since our rural counties started accepting out-of-state trash, as a way to make a quick buck? The floating plastic shopping bags and shreds of plastic sheeting in 100 miles could alone fill one truck.

Last Saturday morning, I spotted a bald eagle at the Rappahannock River bridge!

Mitch and I coined this term back in August: SOL. Slow Out of Lane. Cars going too slowly in the middle or far left lane cause unnecessarily congested stretches of road (lead to road rage, unsafe situations, etc.). We call these folks SOL, though, of course, it's those behind who feel the traditional meaning of SOL.

On average, on the Wednesday night homebound trip, I note one car with an on-board television.

Mark your calendar
Drive Thru Book Drive at Richmond Public Library (Franklin and 1st Streets), Saturday, February 28, 9 - 4. Thin your shelves, bring the books to RPL, and in April you can come to the book sale and restock.

New find: Spam Poetry

Cheers
To Dan and BJ for Tuesday night's fun.
To CNB and BLH for sangria and laughs today.

On the Muzak at Ukrop's: "Walk Like an Egyptian"
At the Byrd: "Mona Lisa Smile" - I need to see it
Capital City weather: sunny, maybe 60 degrees, beautiful

Note to self: go back and view this cool online exhibition when there's time Not by Bread Alone: America's Culinary Heritage.

For my special collections class, I am writing a review of an online exhibition about the home ec school at Cornell. The part about the "practice apartment" and students borrowing an orphan baby to raise blows my mind.

I also wrote about the Library of Virginia's "Radio in Virginia," about WRVA. When we were kids, in the 70s, Dad listened to WRVA while he got ready for work: farm reports, Millard the Mallard, "Rhinestone Cowboy," and school closings. Now it's all conservative chat shows.

The Post did an item on the Virginia tribes' quest for federal recognition. Ken Adams, pictured, is chief of the tribe for which I have done some research. That office is in the Sharon Indian School. Until the mid-1960s, Virginia Indians attended segregated schools, none of which went as far as high school. For two hundred or so years, Virginia's government wished them out of existence. Recognition addresses this. It's not about building casinos in remote corners of rural Virginia.

Capital City weather: 30, snowing

Anniversary

Hey - I missed my own anniversary. Look what long items I used to write. I don't think those side bar elements are archived correctly.

Capital City Weather: cold and rainy.

The whole middle of the country is a mystery to me.

Cheers to Mitch for finding this.
Jeers to me: is it true I've never been to Rhode Island?

I'm not counting changing planes in Chicago or Dallas as visits. Hmm, but I did count Arkansas based on accidentally crossing the Mississippi to West Memphis, once.




create your own visited states map
or check out these Google Hacks.

Places I Remember

Traffic on I-95 wasn’t bad today, but for a change of pace on the homeward bound route from school, I exited at Massaponax and took U.S. Route 1. Spring is a long way off, but the sun is already a little higher in the sky: it was pretty at midday. I put on Edie from Ohio’s “Actually Not.”

Just five or ten miles south from the discount malls, I was nearly alone on the backbone of the east coast. If I squinted a little, it could have been 1975 again. The countryside has changed only a little since the countless day trips of my childhood. That huge oak, there?: I've probably had my eye on it most of my life. The rhythm of farms, motor courts, bizarre little stores, and 1940s gas stations feels the same. I love most the parts where four lanes – smushed together; no median – ribbon up and down the gentle hills. The trees seem to cozy up to the asphalt. It looks as great in the rear view mirror as it does through the windshield. EFO’s “Mimosas in Missouri” matches perfectly drives on Virginia’s roads less travelled.

When I squint a lot – when the motor court cottages don’t have fallen trees through them, when the gas stations still boast their red tile roofs and not asphalt shingles – I can almost imagine car trips of 1950.

I love Route 1. In Caroline County, Virginia, on a Sunday afternoon it’s silent and empty. At the same moment, countless people on the same road are pulling into enormous parking lots to shop in big box stores; or their farms; or small-town café. It bustles through Boston and West Palm Beach. I love to meet it in a new city, a strange state: it connects me to home. In Virginia, I’ve driven every bit of it from Pohick Church to the North Carolina line. Off the top of my heard, I know it’s called Washington Highway, Richmond Highway, and Jefferson Davis Highway. I suppose this spring is the time to make sure I cover that last bit: some day when time is on my side, I’ll have to inch into Washington via the number one highway.


At the Byrd [state route 147]: "The Cat in the Hat" and "Gothika"

"The Dead Have Risen and They're Voting Republican"

I'd like to think some clever kid pulled this episode for syndication hour: Lisa and Bart find that Buddy Holly, Richie Valens, and the Big Bopper are amongst those buried in Springfield's cemetery who voted for Sideshow Bob for mayor. Maybe it's just a coincidence it showed up on the anniversary of that plane crash? Well all right.

Capital City weather: 37 and rainy; cleared to sunny around 4:00.

From NPR : 'Hitchhiker,' a Guide to Douglas Adams, an interview with Adams's biographer.