Monday, April 3, 2017

Thoughts From Deepest, Darkest Virginia

     Living at the top of a mountain sounds dandy – peace and quiet, great views, fresh, crisp mountain air – until you need to get somewhere in a hurry and find that a tree with a two-foot bole has fallen across the only road out.


     People up here have no interest in the sounds of gunfire. At least, I’ve fired a 12-gauge shotgun without seeing anyone come running. Of course, the running would need to be uphill, which might have something to do with it. Later my host says I can try out his 80mm mortar.


     The Internet is one of the marvels of our age...if you have broadband access. That’s not easy to get at the top of the Blue Ridge Mountains. This article will be posted over a 0.750 MegaHertz line. We’ll see how that goes.


     I’ve never had to drive 80 miles on a divided highway festooned by stop lights before. It was an interesting experience, but so was falling off a cliff.


     Why are the gas stations so far apart in this part of the Eastern U.S.? There are certainly enough cars on the road. On the other hand, they all move very slooooowly.


     A public-safety warning: Do not follow a 420 mile drive with heavy drinking. The anesthetic effect wears off quickly; the hangover does not. Especially do not couple the heavy drinking with a large amount of pasta in tomato sauce. And under no circumstances should one follow the drinking and the dinner with an attempt to crawl under the house.


     Among the other wonders of our age is the electronic book reader, or ereader. I have three of them. Unfortunately, I’ve read everything on all three. Maybe I’ll cruise Amazon later for something new...wait, over a 0.750 MegaHertz channel? This could require some thought.


     Has anyone attempted to correlate the average length of a vacation-by-car with the incidence rate of prostatitis? Just asking.


     Being away from home has a powerful liberating effect. Married men, beware. She might look good, she might be disease free, and she might not be interested in anything but an evening’s fling, but are you sure the scent will wash completely out of your clothes?


     When did the price of a bottle of domestic beer in a restaurant rise to $8.00?


     I didn’t know the mosquitoes got that big down here! And they attack in squadrons. I must ask my host whether any of his previous guests have been carr

4 comments:

Christian Mountaineer said...

That's why there is such high gun ownership here in West Virginia. Certain breeds of mosquitos are only irritated by small caliber!

Arthur said...

"There are certainly enough cars on the road. On the other hand, they all move very slooooowly."

I guess meth must not be a problem there.

I went pig hunting in Missouri and we arrived at night during what must have been the monsoon season. Half the roads in the county in were washed out, the ones that weren't were still an inch deep in water. The drop-off on one side of the road was 100 feet straight down into trees, the other was 100 feet down into jagged rocks. It was pitch black and my buddy doing the driving(nicknamed 'speedy' just fyi) was pushing his tahoe so hard we were hydroplaning around every turn on the twistiest patch of road I've ever been on. And when I looked back there was a line of cars backed up a mile long who must have been wondering who the slowpokes were.

Pascal said...

Dear Mosquito squadron leader,

Please release our curmudgeon. It is surely clear after 48 hours that his bile has pent up so unmitigated by blogging that his blood is poison your brood. You can only be holding now not for bites but for spite. Don't lower yourself to humanity's worst trait.

HMS Defiant said...

Does your local library not offer broadband wifi? My parents in Virginia used their local library branch for almost a decade before getting broadband at home.