As I mentioned in the last post, I was really nervous about the Scout doing a long-distance trip. I’d prepared everything else as much as possible, but the worry nagged at me all morning as I packed it up with our gear. That only took about 20 minutes (I was basically just stuffing things in there) and after getting Finley up and moving we were on the road by about 9:45. She and I stopped for some breakfast at Dunkin Donuts and then we hit the highway. It’s going to sound mawkish, but as I merged on to Rt 97 I talked to Rob under my breath and asked him to help me get Zachary to the campsite and back home so that we could show him a good time.
The ride down went without a hitch. We made great time to Easton, only having to stop for a five-car line at the Bay Bridge and were in Easton by 11. This never happens. Usually the Bay Bridge line looks like the traffic scene from The Day After. We did some repacking of Zachary’s gear, found some space for it in the truck, and then the three of us were off!
Roaring Point is about an hour south of Easton below Oxford, and the route gets much more rural the further south you go. We turned off Rt. 50 to head west towards the shore and were swallowed up by cornfields and blue sky. As we entered the tiny town of Nanticoke (traffic lights: zero) I stopped for beer, ice, firewood and bait, and talked to several different people about Peer Pressure (“Hey, I haven’t seen a Scout in years!”) before finding the campground at the end of a dusty gravel road. We checked in at the front desk and they gave us the lay of the land; our site was up in back by a giant field we’d passed on the way in. I cruised around the rows of long-term camp trailers and over a bridge to get to the tent area; we had our pick of all but one site. We had to walk the area to see what was available, because the heavy rains of the past weeks had made most of the sites wetland and I didn’t want to grind out the mud looking. We found that the sites furthest back and closest to the field were high and dry, so I put the truck in 4WD to grind over the bog in the middle and backed in to our site.
We pulled gear out of the truck and got our tent set up, put bedrolls down, organized the food situation, changed into swimsuits, and took a vote: fishing was first on the list. Collecting our bait and tackle we walked to the pier and scoped the situation out. I got Finley’s line set and got her casting, then untangled Zachary’s line and got him casting off the other side. Finally I put my giant surf pole together and got my line in the water.
They stuck with it for about an hour as we worked through most of our bloodworms, and then the lack of action caught up with us all. We moved over to the beach area and jumped in the water together, splashing and swimming until about 6.
Getting hungry, I corralled them back to the site and we got changed for dinner. I realized pretty early on that lots of my old camping gear had made its way out of my bins and never returned, so I was missing important food-related things like a fire grate, spatula, wooden spoons, long roasting forks, and a frying pan. While I had the kids hunt down kindling wood, I whittled the ends of three long sticks and set them in a cup of water to soak while we got the fire started. Luckily there was a lot of dead wood on the ground and plenty of pine needles, so within minutes I had a good fire going. I speared a hot dog on the end of each stick and showed them how to cook without dropping everything into the fire. Once the nutrition portion of the meal was consumed I busted out the S’mores and we had dessert. Victory!
After food I busted out our walkie talkies and had them test out the range by exploring the field behind us while I cleaned up the dishes. I was impressed by how far they carry, and felt secure about letting the kids roam the campsite by themselves–which they were happy to do. When I finished cleaning up the site I called them back, busted out laser tag and we ran around the site for about a half an hour shooting each other before the light started fading.
Now it was craft time. I’d bought each of them an LED flashlight, a length of paracord, and a handful of hardware to make lanyards, but it took me some time to improvise a way to set up the workspace and then remember the way to get the lanyard started. My phone was bouncing between two bars and NO SERVICE, so the internet was intermittent at best. I finally reverse engineered the lanyard I’d brought along and got us all started but at that point the light was almost gone and we couldn’t see anything. Before turning in we walked out to the field to look at the stars and realized that the moon was directly over our tent with Venus shining brightly right next to it.
Unfortunately, there was a live band playing at the camp rec center for Father’s Day. They started up at about 8 with a Hootie and the Blowfish cover and didn’t stop until 10:30, ending their set with a mashup of Sweet Home Alabama, Whoop! There it Is, and a G-rated edition of Closer. Yes, this is true. By this point the kids were half-asleep but grumbling, and someone suggested walking over to hit the singer in the face with a frying pan. That person may have been my daughter.
The next morning we woke to direct sunlight on the tent as it broke over the field behind us. I got coffee brewing and offered the kids eggs and bacon, but they each chose to try one of the freeze-dried meals I’d brought on a whim: Finn had eggs and bacon, Zachary and I split mexican rice & chicken. And they weren’t half bad! The bacon was a little chewy as was the chicken but for a simple heat-and-eat meal they weren’t bad at all.
Then we sat down and finished our lanyards, which took some patience and multiple attempts to master. Zachary got the hang of it first, and Finley picked it up right after that. When we ran out of cord, I cut the ends, melted the loops together, and we hung them on the walkies.
After gathering supplies, getting our suits on, and grabbing towels, we walked up to the office and rented a canoe for two hours. It turned out to be a three-person kayak, which was actually a bit better for us, as the freeboard was lower for the kids to make paddling easier. Life jackets donned, paddles in hand, I dragged it down to the water, put the kids up front, and pushed off into the bay. It took some time to organize their strokes (I had to tell Z to watch what Finn was doing so he wouldn’t bonk paddles) but after a few minutes we worked out a working rhythm and headed for the point.
The campground is named for a spit of sand that noses out into the bay and disappears at high tide; as the tide shifts the water from upriver hits the sand and rushes over top–less than a roar in our experience but loud enough to hear from a canoe on the bay. It was about a half a mile from the beach, and so just the right distance for the kids. We nosed onto the beach and explored the point, stopping to talk to two gentlemen casting long lines into the bay and walking out to look at the osprey nest at the tip of the sand.
They spent more time in the water than on land which was fine with me; I splashed and played as much as they did–the water was warm enough to be in for hours. The horseflies from the nearby marsh were fierce but we dove under the water when they landed, and as the wind picked up in the late morning they blew away from us. Up on the spit I noticed a turtle crawl out of the marsh to explore the tidal pool and brought the kids up to check him out.
We wound up keeping the kayak for four hours, taking a break from the water to paddle down past the pier and explore the other side of the campsite. Then we paddled back up to the point and jumped in the water again after stopping for a Clif bar.
At 12:30 we returned the kayak, bought ice, wood, and bait, and walked back to camp to get lunch together. I packed up more water and cheesy-poofs and we hiked back out to the pier to try our luck at fishing again. They did great on their second try, spending an hour casting until it got too hot, and then jumped in the water again. I continued fishing until I caught a small 3″ bait fish, showed the kids, and then hooked him to use for bigger bait. I’d paid $35 to a guy at a yard sale for a second-hand fishing rod for Finn earlier this year, and after rebuilding the reel it turned out to be a pretty good setup. The rest of the afternoon was spent alternately fishing, swimming, fishing and swimming.
At dinnertime we walked back to camp and put more dogs over the fire, then had a massive game of walkie-laser-talkie-tag in the deserted tent area of the campsite. During dessert I busted out the glowsticks and we decided to walk back down to the pier to watch the sun set over the water. As the kids sat and played with their flashlights and talked, I said a quiet word of thanks to Rob and poured a little of my beer into the water for him.
Our second night was much quieter without the band, and both kids went down hard at about 9:30. I’d forgotten to put my spare battery in the tent to charge my dying phone, so I laid quietly listening as a blanket of birds and cicadas settled in around us mixed with quiet breathing from both kids, enormously grateful that things had gone so well both days.
The next morning fog covered the field behind us, and a light drizzle dappled the top of the tent but–didn’t make it inside (I’d left the rain cover off to capture the cross breeze, so this was another lucky break) which was what woke me. Zachary was up first so we snuck out of the tent and I made him some peanut butter toast while my coffee brewed. We chatted for about an hour until Finn woke up, puffy and pink from sun poisoning. Dammit.
After breakfast I let them fart around while I packed up camp, pausing to have them help me with important stuff like their belongings and folding the tent. I found a better way to pack the truck for the ride home so the kids had the whole bench seat to themselves. After cleaning up the campsite and taking a few group photos we dropped off our garbage and hit the road.
At the end of the camp driveway I looked both ways to merge and spotted a lump in the road. Jumping out of the truck, I brought a surprised Eastern Box turtle back over to show the kids, and then ran him over to the other side of the road so he wouldn’t get squished. Stopping for gas in Nanticoke, I got out of the truck and was faced with an old-school gas pump with spinning numbers and a mechanical valve–something I haven’t seen in 20 years. Before I could get it started a nice man named Earl ambled out from the office and started pumping for me. He and I and a local on the other side of the pump chatted about full-service gas stations and Earl’s odd choice of a retirement career before we got to $20 and I mounted back up.
The ride home was hotter than Saturday by about 20˚ and 100% humidity, so by the time we made it to Easton we were ready for some AC and a quick bite at Karean’s house. Finn and I got back on the road by 1:30 and she passed out in the back seat again. After an uneventful ride we were back home by 3. We laid Finn in the den with some water and debriefed on the couch before heading back out to unpack the truck.
The verdict: both kids had a great time and told me they want to go camping again, but they don’t want to go to a place with a live band. Check. Both of the kids were awesome sports about everything: fishing, canoeing, swimming, crafting, they were up for it all and didn’t complain. They got along great with each other and with me the whole time. I spent two days with both of them and didn’t lose my cool, didn’t lose them, and had a great time myself. All I can think of is how lucky and grateful I am to have the two of them in my life.
Peer Pressure is back in our driveway after a brief stay at the mechanic’s shop. As I predicted, the culprit was a missing rotor. The mechanic found a new one, popped it in, and she fired right back up.
I’m planning a camping trip for Finley, Zachary and myself on Father’s day weekend. I’ve got a campsite reserved in Nanticoke, on the Eastern Shore, where there’s a campground sitting right next to the Chesapeake Bay. It’s mainly set up for trailer lots but there are primitive tent sites in back, which is what we’re doing. I’m a little nervous because Zachary hasn’t been camping yet, so I want to make it fun for he and Finley so that we can make it a regular trip together.
I’m beginning to sort through my camping gear, which is scattered between the basement and garage, for the stuff we’ll need. My good sleeping bag, backpack, propane burner, and first aid kit are all AWOL (lent out and never returned) so I’ve been eyeballing the sales at REI and Backcountry for new gear. I scored a good sleeping bag on sale last week and now I’m on the hunt for the other stuff, as well as some toys to make the trip more fun. I figure having some walkie-talkies would be cool, and maybe laser tag, and I need to get the kids some flashlights. And another fishing pole. And some basic fishing tackle…
Next I need to dig our tent out and see if we can fit three comfortably inside; otherwise I’ve got to add that to the list. I think it will be OK, but it’s been a couple of years and I just don’t remember. Rob had some camping gear packed away that Karean is going through now, but she’s also waiting for me to send a list along for what we’ll need.
Elsewhere, I’m sending the deposit back for our beach rental today, which I delayed for too long, but feels good to get those plans underway too.
Brian (Mr. Scout) and I have had a longstanding plan to go up and visit Barnes IH in Pennsylvania, from way back when I was just getting on my feet after surgery. We made a plan months in advance, which I now know was part of a nefarious scheme. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
He picked me up last Saturday, early in the morning as I was mowing the lawn for Jen. She had planned a tea party for Finn and a bunch of her friends that afternoon, and I wanted to help out as much as I could. Because Brian is the kind of person he is, when he offered to edge and blow the front walk I took him up on it without a second thought. Once that was done I kissed the girls goodbye and we hit the road for Pennsylvania.
On the way up we had plenty of time to catch up and talk about life, which is something I don’t get to do with many of my friends. Brian is an honest, open guy, and we’ve always been able to talk about real stuff without feeling weird. It’s something I don’t often get to do outside of talking with Jen, and it felt good.
The second half of the trip to Barnes IH, after getting off the highway, is through beautiful rolling hills and past picturesque farmland. His place is a converted horse ranch, and he’s got a gigantic modern barn with storage and workshop space, a parts counter, and restoration shop in the back. We got to talking and quickly found where the circles overlap in our Venn diagram of friends. Then he took us on a tour of the shop, which absolutely bowled Brian and I over. he’s got about 20 parts Scouts outside the shop which he’s slowly picking over. We then hopped in one of his running Scouts and checked out the back section of the farm where there’s a patch of woods and another 40 trucks in various states of decay.
Back at the shop we talked over how we’re going to get Brian his next Scout, lamenting the fact that they’re getting harder to find these days and the prices are going up rapidly. I talked to him about a rewire job in Peer Pressure, which will take some saving and planning, but something that’s desperately needed. Then he took us to the storage sheds where he’s got probably 100 motors of various sizes, shelves of engine parts, and transmissions waiting for buyers. Next to that there’s another barn, originally set up as horse stalls, now filled with sheet metal parts. It was like Valhalla.
We said our goodbyes after about an hour and a half and then set course for the Strasburg Train Museum, something I’ve seen on maps and heard of but never visited. The facility is huge and stuffed with trains mainly from the Pennsylvania Line, but also some from other operators as well. The exhibits inside are all in excellent condition, gleaming and refurbished like new. There are side exhibits with storefronts and railroad epherma, and a whole room dedicated to model trains for kids to play with.
We got out of there at about 2 and hunted down some food at a local brewery. The food was good and the beer was delicious. At that point we figured the day was getting long, and Brian told me the junkyards were closed at 4:30 (I believed him) so we drove home and parked in our quiet driveway. We walked inside and I found that there were about 80 people in my house waiting to surprise me. Jen had pulled off a FANTASTIC bit of chicanery and organized a post-cancer belated birthday party for me. I was absolutely flabbergasted. My family was in the dining room, my work friends were in the living room, my Scout friends were in the kitchen, the neighbors were in the hall, and everybody else was tucked into corners throughout the house.
She’d done the work of ten people in six hours–and that was just what she’d moved the minute I was out the door. She’d been working on cleaning up the house for the last month, claiming it was past due for a deep clean, and dropping hints about parties for Finn as her cover story. She got me good.
The rest of the day was like a wedding: I talked to everyone I could for as long as possible, but I still missed out on people here and there. It was amazing to have most all of the people I love in one place and laughing together, and I was humbled they were all there for me. Thank you to everyone who came, and the biggest thanks of all go to my girl for such a special day.
My Uncle Ed passed away last weekend, after a brief stay in the hospital. He was 79, and lived in his own house and drove his own car up until he went in for treatment. He was a quiet, private man who lived with my Grandmother until she died, and then in the home my Grandfather built for her back in 1964. I hadn’t had a whole lot of contact with him in the last 20 years, but almost every Christmas I’d get a handwritten card from him, talking about his health and, up until recently, his cats.
Normally I’d post a picture of him here from my archives but it appears I don’t have a scan of the one I’m thinking of: a shot my Dad took from the mid ’70’s, where he’s standing in the backyard of my Grandma’s house in either the spring or autumn, wearing a jacket and smiling at someone off-camera.
Thursday I stopped into our local Hopkins satellite location for a baseline CT scan, now that the baby is gone. This is going to be part of the new routine, a CT scan every 3 months to see if something else appears in my body, because it won’t show up in bloodwork. Overall I’m feeling much stronger this week. My arms still hurt but it’s receding slowly. I’m down to one Tylenol every eight hours, which is a relief. I haven’t used oxy in five days which is making my bottom system happy again. I don’t know how oxy junkies deal with never pooping; I’d be in the hospital with an impacted bowel the size of a subway car.
This week I tackled the issue of radiant floor heat for the new bathroom, which has been a giant question mark for months. The system I’ve been recommended is modular, incorporating a mat with molded depressions that goes down first. Then we snake a wire through those depressions in a specific pattern before laying thinset and putting tile down. The question has been how much mat, and most importantly how much wire do we need, because the wire has to be cut at the factory to fit the application–I can’t cut it once I’ve got it. I found distributors for the system, visited one on Tuesday, and was so underwhelmed by the “service” I got that I walked out of the store. The woman I talked to refused to help me figure out how much material I needed, because if she got it wrong, it would “come back on her, and there are no refunds.” Well, Fuck you very much. I found that the tile distributor we’ll be ordering our shower tile from also deals in this system, and returned there on Friday. The guy I talked to there took the time to sort through my diagram of the room, calculated the size, and set me up with the mat I need to get started. Once that’s installed, I’ll use a string to test-fit and see how much wire I need before ordering the rest of the system.
Having been stuck in the house for the past month, and while the region was trapped in record-breaking low temperatures, I got tired of always being cold and drafty. I’ve spent the last fifteen years trying anything and everything to make this house warmer, from insulation to new windows, and I don’t feel like any of it has helped. Wednesday afternoon I started paging through Angie’s List for energy auditors and found a local outfit who was offering an audit for $100 (with the other $300 being billed to BG&E). I called and set up an appointment for Friday morning. A nice man named Larry came out and walked through the house, looking over the boiler, piping, and layout, and then he hooked up a blower to the front door that provided negative air pressure. Then we walked each room with a FLIR camera and looked for leaks. Surprisingly, the blown insulation in our walls hasn’t settled too badly–just in a few locations. A big culprit for air leakage is the latex caulk I’ve used in a lot of places, which has shrunken in the cold, and allows for cold air to penetrate each room. Our ancient windows are actually holding air in pretty well, to my surprise. The preliminary findings say it’s going to be a lot of caulking with silicone, some weatherstripping around the doors, and closing up the lip of the aluminum siding/shingle where it meets the foundation outside. Larry will provide a large report with pictures and recommendations in about a week.
Saturday we jumped in the car after Finn’s soccer game and headed to the Renwick Gallery in DC to check out an exhibit of murder dioramas built by a woman in the 1940’s to further the budding science of forensics. The Nutshell Studies take actual murder cases and recreate the scene in 1′ x 1″ scale and meticulous detail. Jen saw an article about them in a magazine 20 years ago and was fascinated by the collection; last week she found an article about the exhibit and realized we needed to go see it immediately before it closed. Finn was fascinated by the displays and carefully read each of the descriptions before gazing at the dioramas, and I found myself slowly getting better at sussing out what the crime was and how it happened as we walked through the crowded exhibition.
On the front steps of the museum, we were greeted by the middle of the DC Women’s March, being down the street from the White House. After a few minutes of spectating, Jen suggested we join the march, so we walked down to the corner and slipped into the crowd. It was slow going, but the mood was upbeat and cheerful. Everyone in the crowd was smiling and laughing, and the weather was perfect for enjoying our constitutional rights. Pussy hats were everywhere, and it seemed like every hand-made sign was funnier than the last. Finley got caught up in the chants and was marching, fist raised, in a matter of minutes. We slowly made our way down the street to stand in front of the White House, where the crowd slowed, and Finley began a chant she’d heard earlier. A woman with a bullhorn walked over and handed her the mic, and she led the crowd for a minute, then stopped abruptly, shocked, I think, at her own agency. I was lucky enough to get the last two chants on video.
The White House was the endpoint for the march, so we gradually wound our way out of the crowd and headed back toward the garage. On our return home, we heated up some tea and made our way through three chapters of the Half-Blood Prince before bedtime. Overall, for a lightly planned day, we couldn’t have asked for a better one.
Yesterday morning, we watched via FaceTime as my sister married her fiancee. They did a small ceremony with my Uncle Brian as officiant, which was full of laughter and love. There isn’t much more I can say about it other than congratulations!
Jen convinced me to visit the ER yesterday afternoon to have my arms looked at. The earliest my GP could see me was Monday at 5:20 and that just seemed too long to wait. We went to our local Hopkins affiliate hospital and were greeted with a small temporary waiting room jam-packed with people. They got me in for triage pretty quickly and signed me up for a sonogram, and then we waited for about four hours to have that done. That experience reminded me a lot of watching Jen get sonograms with Finley, except for the fact that it was me on the table and the nurse had the wand jammed up my armpit. She took a lot of pictures of my left arm (even though I’d told the nurse it was both arms they only wrote up the order for my left) and then they sent me back to the waiting room. We’d gotten there at 1:30 and it was almost 9:30 before we made it to the ER itself; at 10 a doctor appeared. Apparently there’s a bloodclot up in my neck that’s putting back pressure on the veins in my arms.
I’ve been using a blood thinner they gave me on discharge, but because it’s a subcutaneous shot I’ve had little luck administering it to myself. I go in at an angle with the needle and it fills a pocket of my skin up with medicine and then starts to hurt. I pull the needle out and all the medicine shoots out of my skin like a faucet. Rinse, repeat. It’s a pretty good bet none of the blood thinner was getting to me, but I was complaining about this in the hospital before they discharged me. They switched me over to an oral medication to get away from the needles and sent us on our way at 11PM.
I went back into work on Thursday and Friday to a lovely welcome from the staff; there were gifts and signs and a card on my desk when I got in, which was a surprise that made me a little misty. I got lots of hugs from everyone and a ton of support that really made me feel humble and appreciated. The Grinch in my heart melted quite a bit, I admit.
Renie came into town this weekend to visit, wrapping a tiny business trip into a great 3-day weekend with family. The weather decided to drop about 2 inches of snow on us the morning she hit the road, but the plows were out and she made it down with no drama. We spent Saturday evening and most of Sunday catching up in between a trip out to Second Chance and Housewerks, punctuated with Manhattans and a fantastic sushi dinner (after being froze out of football by a balky FIOS box). She shared the details of her engagement(!) and life in Upstate NY, and we caught up among the rows of cabinets and mismatched toilets. On Monday morning it was with a heavy heart that we waved goodbye to the Subaru on snow tires. I’ve been doing a lousy job of keeping in touch with everyone this year, but as I said after Rob passed, my #1 resolution is to keep better and regular communication with all of my loved ones.
As mentioned earlier, there’s been a ton of progress on the bathroom. Everything is taped, mudded, sanded and primed. I asked Mario to continue the drywall up the stairs to the edge of the attic door, and he drywalled that part last night. He framed in one window on the weekend and it looks OK but it’s not up to my standard–the vertical wood has a gap at the top where it meets the cap board, and the way he made the bullnose isn’t the way I do it. So that will need to be redone in the spring. We’re nearing the end of this phase, which means we’ve got to identify the radiant floor heat system and floor tile we want. The former I know but the latter is a mystery.
Harry Potter and The Order of the Phoenix is a good read but I’ve forgotten what whiny teens they all are in this book. I think it might be my least favorite of all of the books in the series. Still, it’s the highlight of the day to pass the book to each other over sleeping cats while the wind howls outside.