When I went outside this morning it was cold. I went back in and put on long sleeves, though I still am wearing shorts. It's not that cold.
I started off the morning with a brief exploration of Beckley. I lived there forty years ago, but I've so completely forgotten the place that I couldn't recall the name of the street where I lived. I drove through downtown, but absolutely nothing looked familiar. So after filling up the tank I headed out.
The cold didn't really matter, because it was to be a day on the freeway. The sun was just up and I was headed due east, so I was blinded for the first half hour or so, until I got into the fog that I always expect in the hollows of West Virginia. I wasn't disappointed.
The car has been going through a rotating series of electrical issues. (1) The little motor that drives the radio antenna up and down stopped working last year; I think it's the mechanical connection, because I can hear the motor turning but nothing happens. It's not worth worrying about. (2) I hit a hard pothole in New Mexico last year, and ever since then I sometimes get a warning light and the messages "cruise control not available" and "check rear lights." I've checked the rear lights and found no issue, and I generally don't need cruise control. Today, when I wanted it, it worked; yesterday it didn't. And (3) I get a red warning light and the message "Engine coolant low." I started getting that a couple of years ago and the reservoir is always full. I did some on-line research and learned that the sensor for coolant level is defectively designed. I had it replaced last year and it's been fine until this trip. This morning the warning light came on every time I went down a steep hill, and went off when I went up hill. Plus the temperature gauge didn't move, so I'm sure it's just the defective sensor. Once I got to the flatlands it stopped coming on. The repair is still in warranty so maybe I'll have it replaced again when I get home.
I made four unsuccessful attempts to get breakfast this morning. First I pulled off the freeway at Lewisburg, West Virginia, "the coolest town in the USA" according to somebody. The traffic into town was so bad it was backed up onto the freeway exit ramp and the main highway inbound, so I said the Hell with it and got back on the freeway. It looked to be a long wait to get into the town proper. Next I took an exit where there was supposedly a Waffle House, which is good enough for me. It wasn't there. A few miles farther on I took an exit where there was supposed to be an IHOP. It, too, was nowhere in sight. You can't trust those blue highway amenity signs. I took another exit where there were supposed to be restaurants, but the only one actually there was a McDonalds, which is too far down the list of tolerable options, so I just got coffee at a convenience store and made do. (There was a sign advertising what looked like a Mom-&-Pop diner at one exit, but I missed the exit because of trucks in the right lane.) I just cruised along, listening to my audiobook, and skipped breakfast. I may have skipped lunch, too, because I can't remember stopping except at a TransAmerica after crossing into Pennsylvania, where I took a nap.
After a couple of scares when I think I actually fell asleep at the wheel, I now make it a point to pull over whenever I feel fatigued, stop the car and count to 300 with my eyes closed. If I get straight through it takes me about five minutes. I don't think I've ever gotten straight through. Today it took me almost 40 minutes, so I must have napped most of that time. Fortunately the weather was excellent and I could put the windows down. After that I was bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and good to go for the rest of the day.
Here's an example: I was standing at the bottom of the stairs reading about the first battle in which Union cavalry proved as good as Confederate cavalry. As I read, I could hear (1) the sound of infantry firing by rank, from a television monitor right behind me; orders being shouted, then click, click, boom, click, click, boom; (2) a description of a field hospital, where amputations were being performed, from an exhibit to my right across the room; (3) the sound track of a recreation of an infantry charge, with all the sounds of battle, coming from a loudspeaker on the stairs to my right; and (4) the sound of soldiers singing at night in their camp, from an exhibit at the top of the stairs. I don't remember any of the particulars about the signboard I was trying to read.
This experience was repeated throughout the museum. I know there are technologies -- I've seen them at other museums -- that will localize the sounds of exhibits; at the very least, they could use motion-activated devices and turn the volume down some. The distraction was maddening.
And while I'm bitching about the visit, they could record the audio using people who don't have distracting speech impediments. In one area (just before the singing soldiers) it sound like Virginia's version of Elmer Fudd, somberly intoning that "Wichmond could bweathe again." I'm sorry, but after about seven minutes of this guy descibing various events of the war, it just became laughable.
And there were the usual museum complaints: duplication of exhibits, specifically having to do with the development of signal flags, first used by the Union in the Civil War; misspellings; and incorrect grammar: they refer to "less men" instead of "fewer men," and they used the word "sunk" when they should have used "sank." You kind of expect educated people to recognize these things and do them right.
I suppose it's to be expected that the battle of Gettysburg, which is just down the road from Harrisburg, gets its own full-gallery exhibit, while the equally important capture of Vicksburg, which occurred at the same time, got one signboard and one photo mounted on a wall. This is called chauvinism, I think.
And finally, after reading several signboards describing various battles, one wonders that the war lasted the full four years, because each Union victory "left no doubt that the Confederacy would be defeated." Well, there must have been some doubt, because they fought on for another year or more. What we have here is a failure of imagination on the part of the signboard writers.
Like I said, two hours wasn't long enough.
My next stop was going to be a car museum in Hershey, that RoadTrippers said was open until 9pm. So I picked a good restaurant in Harrisburg, close to a Chase Bank ATM, and went into town for that. At the ATM (which is located next to the county jail) there were three women withdrawing money, over and over. When they finally finished I pulled up and found that the ATM was no longer available; they had drained it of cash. I assume they were getting together bail for somebody. So I went to the restaurant I'd picked out on line, & found there was nowhere remotely close to park. (Also I didn't want to walk very far in that neighbourhood.)
I located a nearby place to pull over to get directions to my next destination, the car museum in Hershey ... and learned that it closes at 5pm, not 9. So I just asked for directions to Hershey, which is only like 10 miles away, and figured I'd do what is becoming customary on this trip: go to dinner at a random restaurant, and make a hotel reservation while there. I found a Bob Evans restaurant in Hummelstown and made a reservation for a nice little mom-&-pop motel called the Simmons in Hershey. Very pleasant, not too expensive (they advertise "private bathrooms"!), right on the main drag of this quiet little town which, by the way, no longer smells like chocolate. The lady at the desk says they closed down the big yellow factory in the middle of town, so it only occasionally smells like chocolate. Another disappointment.
