Starship Bounder

  Tuesday. October 3th, 2023 – And the déjà vu continues. We are in Marion, Virginia at the Hungry Mother State Park, and seriously, yes, that’s the name.   The story, as I (and Google) remember it, was that a small child was found wandering in the woods and all she could say is, “Hungry mother.”   And, alas, when the mother was found she was dead.   The mother was Molly Marley, and she and the child had been captured and then escaped from some raiding Indians. The déjà vu part is that I stayed at this park when my buddies Tim and Guy and I rode down the Back of the Dragon from Tazzewell, VA to right here in Marion back in 197 0-something .   Me on my 1970 Triumph chopper, Guy on his (year?) BMW, and Tim on a (year?) Ducati.   At least I think it was about then.   I actually have some mini-audio tapes of that trip somewhere. The Park is very nice, and I don’t remember anything about it. I expect it has changed a bit over the past 50+ years. ...

  Monday, October 2th, 2023 – Déjà vu all over again. Seriously, it was déjà vu all over again.   But first a trip down other memory lanes to Mount Vernon, home of POTUS 1. It was cool.   The big G owned 8000 acres and 300 people to help him farm it.   The “Mansion” was originally a small house built by his father, but Georgie-boy expanded it when he married and had a gaggle of kids thrust upon him.   (Martha had been married before and had two kids.) Shawn and I discussed it and decided as the Big G and Martha didn’t have any offspring together theirs may have been a marriage of convenience.   She needed a husband and he needed someone to oversee the running of the house and staff.   It apparently worked out for the both of them to the tune of over 40 years. Mount Vernon is HUGE compared to how I remember it from my last trip there 65 years ago.   We spent four hours and could have spent four more seeing all the parts and buildings we did...

  Sunday, October 1th, 2023 Happy October the 1th from Occoquan, Virginia.   Home of Occoquan Harbor Marina.   Motto: “You wanna boat?   We gotta boat.” Yesterday was fun.   I drove the rig from brother Kim’s Hobo Palace Campsite up to Occoquan, and to the marina.   When I asked where I should park, I found that the owner had actually installed a 50-amp circuit just for my brother to use when he drove his rig to visit.   So, I slipped my rig into the clandestine, private, nobody else knows about, Del Monte only, RV parking spot.   Now that was cool! The marina was holding an open house for all the boat owners and slip holder clients, and once again I rode my brother’s coat tails into the invitation only event.   Ms. Shawn was delivered to the marina by her brother, and I sweet talked the nice lady with the invitees-only check-in list into letting them ride my coat tails into the event. So, we ate good food, and hobbed with a whole bunc...

  Friday, September 29, 2023. Hello from Virginia.   State Motto:   The land of the eternally damp bath towel.   Yes, that means it be humid here. Late Update: The two new DVD players are installed and working just fine.   The old HUGE DVD player and the 16-button switch box are removed and stored for any later audio genius rig owner to reinstall if they wish. Laundry was done, hair was cut.   A tad bit shorter than I wanted but it looks good (to me) and it will soon grow back to the longer, shaggier style Ms. Shawn prefers.   Shawn Med Update:   She’s fine.   No remedial actions required.   Happy news. I’m still at the Hobo Palace with brother Kim.   Shawn is still up in Burke, VA with her brother.   The plan is for us to meet tomorrow in Occcquaaneinnn, VA at the Open House Party at the marina owned by a close friend of my brothers.   By my familial linkage to them I was able to wrangle an invite.   Then...

  Tuesday, September 26, 2023.   Plans for the week. Ms. Shawn returned yesterday.   Flew from Bah-stun to Dulles Airplane Patch and was picked up by her brother, Sam, who lives only 25 miles from the patch.   She is now staying at his house, and he will shuttle her back and forth, to and from, over and out, two doctor appointments at John Hopkins Med Center in Bal-Mere, Maryland over the next two days.   The reasons for the above are three-fold. On one-fold, the total miles to be driven for the above if I do it from the Hobo Palace here in Colonial Beach, is close to 600, while if Sam gets saddled with it the miles are just shy of 300.   That’s a lot of miles around here because east coast miles are twice as long as Arizona miles, and 3000% more crowded. On two-fold, Sam knows exactly where the doctor’s office is and the secret procedure for finding one of the few available parking spaces in the whole town of Bal-Mere.   City Motto: “We wish you...

  Saturday, September Twenty-threeth, 2020-threeth. There is a storm marching up the east coast.   Rained here all night.   Kim said it was quite heavy, but I slept thru it and didn’t notice.   The tide is in and about two feet higher than normal.   Kim’s lower deck is under water, but the upper half is still dry.   He thinks the water will rise more and I ‘spect he’s right but as a dyed-in the -wool desert rat I have no idea.   The rig is on a rise another two feet higher than Kim’s upper deck, so I do not expect any water/rig socializing. I’m using this rainy-time to explore converting from PC’s and MS-Windows to an Apple computer.   I’ve just about exhausted all my patience with MS-Outlook, Mail, Outlook, One-Drive, and the Cloud.   I bought MS Office-360 and Outlook with this computer and now I have Outlook that lets me send emails but not receive them, and “Mail” which lets me receive emails but not send them.   So, I’m using Ou...

  Friday, September twenty-tooth, 2020-threeth. It’s Bike Week here in Colonial Beach.   It is also 7AM and the first “I’m up so you’re up” Harley of the day just went by.   Loud pipes, first gear, and definitely not doing the 5-mph camp speed limit by about +30 mph.   Bless him.   Those pipes do sing!   I’m sure all the folks here who were still party’ing last night when I slipped away about 10 are just as grateful for his rooster-crow early morning of the day greeting as I am.   Especially those who were singing and playing grab-ass around my rig at 2 AM. Bless them. Kim’s daughter, Christen, is here.   Love that girl!   She flew in yesterday.   An interesting story is when she was younger, she wanted to do something different, so she joined the Army.   And they wanted her skills (legal something) so badly she went into the military with more stripes on her sleeve than I had when I got out of the Air Force.   My, my, tale...