When the Smoke Clears

After a Monday night brief stop with the Blogdaddy, some expensive cheap pizza and a very fine old scotch in celebration, Tuesday involved a few stops focussed on natural beauty.First stop: The Lost Sea.

Actually it was really cool and the tour guide we had made it even better. The Lost Sea is a giant set of caverns hidden in the Tennessee mountains. Far deep down in those great caverns is a giant indoor lake. Super neat stuff, especially if you are a fantasy novel reader geek.

Seriously, I want one of these places on my property. I think a little mountain property should come with a few ginormous caverns. I don’t have to have the lake, too much humidity, but some big old cavern or two… lots of room for entertainment, set up a really cool movie room, tons of space for extra guests to sleep, especially since the temperature is always the same.

One other interesting caveat about the place: in the 50s there was a bar in another chamber of the caverns. Due to the increased air pressure, one can actually drink more than normal when underground, but upon resurfacing, one will be a lot worse off… so people were tumbling down the stairs on the way out and breaking things.How cool would it be to say, “Hey, wanna get a buzz on? Let’s run down into my cave, do a couple of shots, then back to the surface!” ?I

left there and headed towards the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The better part of the afternoon flittered away along the streams there, reading from a collection of Robert Service. I napped on the rocks when I grew tired. The rushing water drowned out my snores, I am sure.

Then I started driving again, letting the road take me. I would turn here or there, depending on intuition. A few hours later after having turned down a number of different roads I’ve never seen before in the mountains of Virginia, I suddenly found myself in a familiar place. I knew why I was here.

So I turned off on a side road and up the drive by the old high school and then eventually I pulled into the cemetery where my grandfather is buried. He is actually in a mausoleum. The rose I left there last year still rested on top of the plastic flowers in the cup attached to his crypt, color still present, though muted in its thoroughly dry state.

I went back to my Jeep, reached in the console and pulled out a card on which was attached the gold bar I was commissioned with. I left it there at his crypt.

Wednesday was back to rediscovering history, after spending the better part of the morning working out. Hey, it’s what I felt like doing and I have to get some of this muscle mass back before I get too old to put it on.

On my way to a few Civil War sites and stopping at some historical markers, I found myself at the D-Day Memorial in Bedford. Stunning. Even more so when you consider it is a private memorial and not actually funded by our federal government or the state government.

It caught me off guard. The tour guides offered to show me around on the bleak, drizzly day. I thanked them but let them know I needed to be alone. And I was able to wander the site alone, the rain keeping other visitors away or in the gift shop.Later on a nice tour of Appomattox was in order. Partially reconstructed buildings, partially original historical structures, it was a very nice, quiet place to visit.

Then back on the road.

And tonight I find myself in Newport News. Tomorrow will probably be time at Yorktown and a few other places. I am not going to go to DC, though I would like to. I feel I probably need to spend at least 3 days there or else I will be frustrated and now is not the time.

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