Typical Day on the Road

September 2004

<- August 04 - September 04 - October 04 - >

Sept. 1

New Hampshire. The book ordeal seems to be over, at least for now.

Sept. 2

New Hampshire. Dennis drove into Salem (NH, not Mass.) to take care of some errands, and Kimberly worked on sewing "garb" for this weekend's event with the SCA (Society for Creative Anachronism).

Zephyr and friend Chris assisted in the renovation of a house that was built in the 1700's and has some decaying wood.

Sept. 3

Drove to Bear Brook Park to check into the 4H camp where the SCA event is being held. But before plunging into the 14th Century for the weekend, we decided to take a little foray back out into the 21st Century to have some pizza.

Sept. 4

A full day of classes and activities at the SCA gathering. Dennis took a harp class (like last year) and everybody did some archery. In the evening, there was a program of entertainment scheduled to begin at 7:00 that actually didn't start until 10:00, because there was a feast that took much longer than expected--but that's really expected at SCA events.

Sept. 5

Wrapped up the weekend at Bear Brook, and headed back into the modern era.

Sept. 6

Labor Day, but we're not laboring. Still visiting our friends in New Hampshire.

Sept. 7

Said goodbye to our friends in New Hampshire and started heading south.

Sept. 8

Stopped in to visit our nephew and his girlfriend in Stamford, Connecticut. We went out for some excellent Thai food, then walked down to a neighborhood movie theater, an old "art house" such as we've rarely encountered outside of San Francisco. Saw the documentary "Uncovered: the War On Iraq", which features the testimony of numerous former government officials about the deceptive justifications for going to war.

Sept. 9

Still at our nephew's house in Connecticut. He has a new job teaching science at a Jewish school, and seems to be enjoying it so far. While he and his girlfriend were at work, we made ourselves at home, working away on their computer and our own, and playing with their cat who thinks he is a dog, and likes to nip at your heels. After they came home, we said our goodbyes and got some driving done.

Sept. 10

Driving to Washington, D.C.

Sept. 11

Arlington, Va. We attended one of the restaurant get-togethers held regularly by deaf and hearing-impaired people (but open to others) in the D.C. area. It was nice to get a chance to practice our ASL with native signers.

Sept. 12

Arlington, Va. Found a Trader Joe's and Kinko's next to each other, so we settled in for the day.

Sept. 13

Attended a meeting at The National Theatre in Washington, D.C. We'll be performing there next month to kick off a series of for young audiences. This was an orientation session for all the performers (those who could make it) that will be appearing there during the coming year. The other acts on the schedule appear to be more locally based than we are (although we're really local everywhere) so we astonished people by showing up. The meeting was held in the Helen Hayes Gallery, a history-rich room where we'll also be performing.

Sept. 14

Spent the day in D.C., seeing some Smithsonian museums. Dennis went to a post office where (we thought) we'd had mail sent, but learned that because of a zip code mistake (we're not quite sure how it happened), our package was forwarded across the river, to a post office in Arlington.

Sept. 15

Picked up our mail in Arlington, Va., and spent much of the day online at Kinko's.

Sept. 16

Drove south toward our next performances. Stayed at a campground in central Virginia, and heard that tornadoes were spotted not far away. We were doing laundry at the time, and a horde of campers descended on the laundry room to take shelter and listen to the weather report on a radio. But the heavy storms passed us by.

Sept. 17

Made it to Stuart, Va. and witnessed some more thunderstorm activity. The wind blew a power line down and the sparks were flying. We notified a policeman who came to check out us suspicious characters, and he said that they were already aware of the problem.

Sept. 18

Performed in Stuart, Va. in the morning, then in the afternoon we did a show for the library in Martinsville. The librarian, Hal, had booked us a couple of years ago when he was the librarian in Helena, Arkansas.

Sept. 19

At a small bookstore in a Maryland suburb of D.C., we saw author Brian Jacques (which he pronounces "Jakes") for the second time. (The first time was a couple of years ago in Truckee, Ca.) Zephyr is a big fan of Jacques and his "Redwall" series. In addition to being a colorful author, he's a colorful and highly entertaining speaker. A former performer himself, he keeps his audiences quaking with laughter.

Sept. 25

Zephyr's 14th birthday, and we celebrated by taking this theme park fanatic to Six Flags near D.C. Not all of the rides are in operation at this late date, but it was still a lot of fun, and we saw a pretty entertaining stunt show. And riding one of the rides, Kimberly picked up a souvenir--a bit of whiplash to take with her.

We'd bought a pinata for the birthday occasion, and after we left Six Flags, we scouted around until we found a suitable place to attack it - a tree in the parking lot of a school.

Sept. 27

Two performances today in Maryland: New Market in the morning and Frederick in the afternoon.

Sept. 30

Staying at the campground in Greenbelt Park (Md.), where we saw a camper that runs on vegetable oil, and leaves the smell of donuts rather than the smell of diesel in its wake.

(1/19/05 WebMaster's Note: Don't know where the rest of this page got off to - we are working on reconstructing it. But we do know that we met Brian Jacques author of the Redwall series while we were in Maryland. And we have the picture to prove it.)

Here Zephyr is timidly suggesting that Brian write more books!

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