Singin' without our supper

We knew when the first few bars of rollicking bluegrass sounded, there would be no dinner tonight.
After a confusing day of following the GPS directions to campgrounds that seemed not to exist, we rolled, travel-weary and in increasing darkness, into Rainbow Plantation in the wilds of rural Alabama — perhaps not where you want to hear banjos playing.
But at the campground desk, the hostess mentioned there was an ice cream social at the clubhouse, starting in about a half hour, with bluegrass and gospel to follow. After a quick set-up, we had to decide whether to check out the music or fry up the fresh jumbo Gulf shrimp we had picked up earlier to go with red rice and black beans for a southern feast.
Never having been to an ice-cream social, we let our curiosity get the better of us and set off for a bowl of ice cream and a brief listen before dinner.
But once the music started, we knew there would be no leaving early — and no dinner.
The musicians, collectively known as the Wayfarers, played a delightful selection of bluegrass, country and gospel tunes — without a banjo, in fact — that drew large applause from the collection of 70 or so RVers gathered on a Sunday evening.
Rainbow Plantation is one of eight or so Escapee RV parks, located mostly in the south, where travelling members get breaks on the cost of campsites, gain an instant social network, and catch up with old friends from previous visits here or at other Escapee parks.
The Wayfarers, a group of part-time musicians from nearby Daphne, are monthly regulars here during the high season, and are very well received by the crowd.
Steve Bauer, a body-shop estimator by day and a mandolin-guitar fiend by night, said the nucleus of the group has been together since about 2000 after they connected at the Eastern Shore Baptist Church.
“We all go to the same church and all played guitar and there was a woman at the church who wanted to sing, so we kind of got together and played for her and it worked out pretty well,” Bauer said.
“One of the fellows also played a banjo that we didn’t know about, and he brought a mandolin and taught me three chords — enough to play I Saw the Light — and we decided we liked it. Nobody listened to bluegrass then so we had to learn a lot about it and went to a few concerts and festivals and one or two guys taught me a few things and that’s how I learned the mandolin.”
Bauer said that at one festival there was a two-hour open mic session before the headliners performed, and the Wayfarers strutted their stuff for the crowd. The promoter liked them well enough to invite them back the next year as one of the featured groups.
“It just kind of grew from there,” Bauer said, with a shrug.
The group offers Bauer on mandolin and guitar; Kevin O’Hara, an insurance broker in real life, on guitar; and dentist Richie Parsons on dobro. All three share vocals, with Bauer featured most often. Larry Harmse, a cabinet maker and bassist, plays the strong but silent role.
“We had a banjo player too, until a couple of years ago, but without a banjo now we don’t do the true bluegrass stuff,” Bauer said. “But we do what we can do and a lot of people seem to like it.”
They must like it. In season — the winter months — the Wayfarers play two or three times a week. In the summer it slows down to a couple of times a month. The Wayfarers are also putting together a CD, which will be available soon — Bauer said hopefully — at www.wayfarersmusic.net
The group passes the hat through the RV crowd for a token payment — a $3 donation is suggested.
“We get about enough to pay for gas and strings, we don’t make any real money at it,” Bauer said. “But we really enjoy it. If I wasn’t getting paid I wouldn’t play as much, but I’d still be playing.”
And we’d never get our dinner.

Life's a beach

Having spent day after summer day on the beach at Aylard Farm in East Sooke Park with little girls 20-some years ago, Vicki thought she knew a gorgeous beach when she saw one.
Having been to Long Beach in Tofino, whose name tells its story, or the vast expanse of Rathtrevor Beach in Parksville, she thought she knew her stuff.
Having left B.C. to sink her toes in the fine, golden sand of Hubbard’s Beach in Nova Scotia, she knew she still had the touch for lovely beaches on this trip.
But none of that prepared her for Florida.
For one thing, from a distance it looks like snow. The incredibly fine sand is that white.
And it doesn’t help that Highway 98 out of Pensacola is lined with snow fencing, reminiscent of that stretch of highway at Portage La Prairie, Man., except in this case the fencing is to keep the SAND drifts from overpowering the highway.
We stayed first at St. Joseph Peninsula State Park, and frolicked like a couple of kids in the sand before leaping into the breakers, letting them push us where they would. Never had Vicki heard Ian say, “Let’s go swimming.” The man who hates to swim, while sinking into that powdery white sand, couldn’t resist the pull of the breakers.
And that sand makes lovely footing as you head through the surf, trying to swim a few strokes before the next wave tosses you about.
At St. Joseph, the sand, while very fine, fit what we think of as the usual beach colour scheme.
It wasn’t until we hit the shores of Grayton Beach State Park that we were almost fooled into entertaining the thought of snow.
But only almost.
Our disappointment to see the purple warning flag, indicating hazardous marine life, was huge. Our minds immediately leapt to sharks lurking in the frothy waves but the ranger quickly squelched that notion when he said, “Jelly fish.”
But don’t sell the small, transparent creatures short. Apparently they can deliver a sting that makes a towel flicked in a vicious rat’s tail seem preferable.
We stayed out of the water, but satisfied ourselves with hours sitting on the beach, watching the tide roll in with each breaker to tickle our toes.
If felt like a real vacation.

The heir, apparently

In feudal times in Britain, estates were generally named after the feudal lord, a practice that continues with titled persons to this day in ‘The Old Country.’
Thinking that similar rules — droit de seigneur, serfs, tugging the forelock — are customs that should be revived in this country, we stopped in at Dutton, Ont., to see how lavish our reception would be.
Alas we were a trifle disappointed when all that happened was that a passerby on the highway — Chrysta — saw us trying to take a picture with the town sign in the background, and turned around to take the picture for us.
Trying to curry favour with the laird, no doubt.
There was not even the offer of a free round at Dutton Meadows Golf Club. Hrmph. However in the course of our visit, we found a local business for which Ian is particularly well suited and got a photo of him in a position of prominence.
Oh well, after all, what’s in a name?

Monochromatic history

Black and white.
Colour of every kind dominates the gardens, whether they’re a front yard in Savannah, Ga., one of those side yards in old Charleston, S.C. or on the Magnolia Plantation outside Charleston, with its 500 acres of gardens.
But it’s all black and white, all about black and white. There are so few black people taking the tourist trolley tours of old Savannah or a lazy carriage ride around the Battery in Charleston that they stand out in a crowd.
Campgrounds might as well post white-only signs. The blacks you see on the grounds are working.
The introductory video at Magnolia Plantation points out that slaves were happy to work the 500 acres of gardens rather than plant rice, the gold of this low-country part of the south. It isn’t until a much later tour of the five remaining slave cabins that visitors realize selected slaves worked the gardens while others planted miles and miles of rice on the remaining 1,500 acres.
It wasn’t until after the Civil War that the plantation reduced to 500 acres, with free blacks staying to work in the gardens. The plantation house was moved in from the city since blacks had burned the original home to the ground.
As tourists walk through those five cabins, they come to a larger one, actually two cabins pushed together, that was the family home of Johnny Leach, the former head gardener, and Isaac Leach, the current head gardener. Isaac’s son, Jackson, also works in the gardens.
The family lived there, without indoor plumbing, until 1969. Four of the 13 Leach children left to go to college.
In Charleston, our carriage driver, with his degree in history, points out one street, paved in stones that came from England as ballast in the sailing ships that docked at the end of the road. This rough cobbled lane holds the first steps of the Africans brought to the south. Almost all of the millions were unloaded here, stumbling up to the market to be sold.
It is humbling.
Our guide on the slave cabin tour points out that all the southern cooking we have been enjoying, to excess, came from the Africans brought to this land. Rice, barbecue, collard greens, grits, pecan pie, and on and on. A lunch at Jestine’s Kitchen in Charleston dates back to the recipes of Jestine Matthews, a black woman who lived for 112 years, many of them cooking for Dana Berlin, the restaurant’s owner, and her family. Berlin, raised by Matthews, who passed away in 1997, opened the restaurant two years later.
It’s long-established recipes set the restaurant’s reputation. The pumpkin tart will linger in Ian’s memory while Vicki gives this restaurant the honour of serving the best pecan pie she has ever tasted.
The lineup for lunch is well along the block and so routine that the establishment has installed a large outdoor fans to keep waiting patrons more comfortable. We appreciate it on a 75-degree day and shudder to think of a few days before when we sweated through 90 degrees, with 98 per cent humidity, in Savannah. Locals tell us we should imagine 20 degrees hotter for a summer temperature.
We point out that our trailer doesn’t have air conditioning. They shudder.
And we think of the history of people working outdoors in that heat, and of those who work outdoors today.
It’s black and white.

Please sir, can I have some Moe?

Fat Buddies is closed on Sunday.
Now, that threw a very large wrench in the works. Some of our new fibreglass RV friends, Ray and Cindy, live about 20 miles from our Cherokee campground so we wanted their local knowledge on where to find proper southern barbecue.
We’ve seen the TV shows where those barbecue cooks face off, each claiming the best barbecue in the U.S. Even without the benefit of smell, we knew from the visuals that this was something to try in the south.
But it wasn’t going to be at Fat Buddies in Waynesville, N.C.
So we rolled further down the highway to Asheville, N.C., heading for McDonalds’ free WiFi. Feeling obliged, we buy something to drink every time we find ourselves at the golden arches but we’re never there for the food.
We’re looking for barbecue, so while Vicki posted to the blog, Ian wandered off to solicit McDonalds eaters for a good place for barbecue.
First table he hit, he struck out. The four southern women weren’t from Asheville. One, from Texas, pointed out in a long drawl that we would have to eat pig, not said in the most complimentary tone, in this part of the country.
“In Texas, we barbecue be-ef,” she drawled.
Next table, more success.
The four men were indeed from Asheville and Ian’s question sparked a spirited discussion on where the best barbecue could be found. Then the talk turned to Sunday, and what would be open.
In this part of the country, many businesses shut down on Sunday, with some also closing up shop on Wednesday afternoon.
But at last, it was settled. Moes Original Bar B Que, just down Lodge Street, would be the one. A couple of gestures for directions plus the words “and by then you’ll be able to smell it” sent us on our way.
There was some confusion, of course, since there are many eateries in Asheville using Moe’s name, including Moe’s Southwest Grill, right next door to McDonalds. Turns out everyone seems to have an old barbecue recipe from some dead guy named Moe.
We followed the loose directions, which included a reference to “you’ll see the chimbley.”
It really is a small hole-in-the-wall kind of place, where you walk in and place your order at the front counter. Allison, the waitress working the till when we got there, was first astounded that we’d never had barbecue, and then quite willing to help the rookies.
The idea is to order a platter, which includes one kind of meat, two side orders and a hunk of melt-in-your-mouth corn bread, plus a drink. Ian opted for pulled pork, Vicki chose chicken. Then the discussion was whether the chicken should be on the bone. Vicki bowed to Allison’s superior knowledge.
The half chicken came on the bone, with side orders of slaw and cornbread dressing as Vicki had ordered. There was enough to keep her knoshing away for an hour or so.
Ian had opted for baked beans and collard greens, a new experience, with his pulled pork. Apparently he inhaled all of this because he quickly moved on to another meal, this time pork ribs with slaw and baked beans, already a favourite.
When we first sat down, a waitress hurried over to wash down our table, we thought, because there must have been children seated there earlier. By the time Ian hit those ribs, and one skittered out of his hands and down his shirt, we knew the table always looked like that after anyone ate.
This was not clean, neat eating. The fact that our food didn’t come with napkins but each table had its own roll of paper towel should have been a hint. This was drip- down-your-chin, dribble-off-your-wrists, slurp-up-barbecue-sauce kind of food.
It was wonderful.
By this time, we had become entertainment for the staff. They watched our every move, the looks of bliss on our faces, the uhms and ahs of each new taste. They were so entertained that they sent us waddling home with complimentary banana puddings for dessert.
Maybe, when we’re willing to eat again, we’ll find out they’re really good too.

Size matters

Sheryl plays like a dream; Nelson hurries to join the show






“It’s AH—HUGE. AH—HUGE!!!”
That was our introduction to Steve. He’d come over at Happy Holiday RV Village to introduce himself, pointing to a Casita, another of the fibreglass trailers at this Tennessee, Alabama and Georgia gathering in Cherokee, N.C.
Then he asked if he could see inside our 17-foot, wide-body Burro, otherwise known as Harley, since he’d never seen one.
He was the first of many wandering by, wanting to see our little home of nine weeks. It was a very welcoming crowd. We think they also wanted to see just what British Columbians were like. In both cases, we think they liked what they saw.
Steve, the class clown, quickly saw us as the butt of the jokes, not that we minded but somehow the weekend ended with Ian calling Vicki the Possum Queen. There were a lot of possum/roadkill jokes and since neither of us had even seen a possum until they started appearing, lying dead along the roadside a few days ago, some of the jokes were actually educational.
Both the trailer, a foot longer and a foot wider than his Casita, and Harley’s bathroom were the subjects of Steve’s “huge” comment. Those extra feet make a big difference in the feel of the space.
All we could think of was our family the week before, looking at Harley as a tiny little thing.
Everything’s relative.
Our neighbours for the weekend were in Casitas and Scamps, plus one 13-foot Burro, happy to see Harley roll in on Friday, the second day of the weekend gathering. By then, most campers had met each other, were wearing their name tags and knew this was a musical event.
Once Steve got over “huge” Harley, he wanted to know if we had any musical instruments aboard. Vicki’s flute came out, with her insisting that playing by ear was not something she does. She’s willing to try, but not any good at it.
By the time the group had gathered in a common room Friday evening, Steve was determined she would play with others. After one number, she knew she was way, way over her head.
So did Steve.
So did the others.
But all were very helpful, letting Vicki know keys and chords. And when all else failed, she sang if she knew the words.
It was great fun, and that’s what this group does. Many of the musicians use their fibreglass trailers to go from one music festival to another, weekend after weekend. This gathering had the extra bonus of almost all having the same type of trailer.
That’s almost all because some of the musicians kind of stumbled on the group. Jeff, strumming guitar and mandolin at various points, happened to be in the same park, in his stickey (a somewhat derogatory term used by the fibreglass crowd to describe conventionally built trailers). Suzette, on auto harp and vocals, came with her husband Chance, on guitar, to meet his long-lost cousin Nelson, on guitar, for the first time. She and Chance made reference each night to going home to the big house (a hotel) for the night. Nelson went back to his Scamp fifth wheel.
Sheryl, a master of the fiddle when she isn’t playing violin in a symphony, came along with husband Chris in their Scamp. John, on Banjo, calls a Casita his temporary home.
And then there’s Steve, who uses his Casita for his work as a musician and storyteller as he designs programs for schools, all skills he brought to this event as well, not to mention his play of multiple instruments. His case of harmonicas was put to good use but only after he’d dealt with the cookie crumbs left behind by his tribe of grandchildren. His jokes, many focusing on the possum or the Canadians, kept smiles on faces between bluegrass songs and tunes reflecting the roots of country music.
We have been to many gatherings in B.C., Washington and Oregon. All have focused on the trailers and what people have done to customize their rigs to make them work better for their needs. This was our first gathering where music took centre stage. And it was the first time these three states had gathered together.
It was also a really good time. Ray and Cindy did the work of organizing, while Steve took over class clown leadership. It was a successful combination.
Steve, a large, boisterous man, has eight children, some of whom think he was the model for the current entertainment of Larry the Cable Guy.
He told us of the wedding of one of his daughters, a woman who spent seven years as a nun and who Steve says is drill-sergeant material. When he found himself overcome by emotion as the moment neared to walk his petite daughter down the aisle, she looked up at her father and told him to suck it up, stop bawling and walk.
“Man up,” she said sternly. “Man up.”
Laughing, he says he did what he was told.
But after Steve made the Canadians the butt of many jokes, we kept telling him we could get him back. He didn’t know about the blog, but he did by the time he left Cherokee.
We promised him he’d be on it.

Lasting legacy of tough times

The Great Depression, and this last recession, both generated some good things.
Skyline Drive, a national historic landmark leaving Front Royal, Va., and heading into Shenandoah National Park, is a prime example. The park exists because of the Great Depression. Since 1933, as a make-work project, through 1942, thousands of young men in the Civilian Conservation Corps worked to ready the parkland, developing its extensive trail system and overlooks at the magnificent viewpoints.
These days, there is much ongoing work, rebuilding the miles and miles of low stone walls that line the roadway, serving as barriers to ensure a wayward vehicle doesn’t make the long, long drop to wedge against a tree somewhere below. All are marked with signage saying Your Recovery Dollars at Work, in reference to government funds pumped into the faltering U.S. economy. Nearly $30 million of the dollars designed to jumpstart the U.S. economy have been earmarked for Shenandoah.
Leaving Front Royal, Va., drivers climb and climb some more to hit the Skyline Drive, eagerly paying the $15 toll to enter the national park. For the next 100 miles, drivers will stop again and again at the roadside pullouts, set up to maximize the views of far-off hillsides, multi-coloured in autumn, interspersed with valleys filled with farms and small communities.
Again and again, we comment on the roadway linking these viewpoints, saying the tree canopy is particularly beautiful as the sunlight sparkles its way through the leaves. Gusts of wind bring a shower of foliage down to the road. A glimpse off to the side reveals a forest with a canopy so thick there is little in the way of undergrowth below, just a carpet of brightly-coloured, newly-fallen leaves.
The national park comes to an end and the Blue Ridge Parkway, running along the ridge of the mountains, begins. Elevations of up to 3,600 feet bring cooler temperatures. The stonework of the Skyline Drive is gone, leaving one feeling abandoned to fate if making a wrong turn.
After hours of peering over the sides to the valleys below, we come down from the mountains at Roanoke, Va., as much because we like the sound of the city’s name as because of rave reviews from others who have made this trip.
The valleys, after driving the unpopulated areas above, offer a glimpse at everyday life.
It’s not much of a house in Virginia if it doesn’t boast white columns on the front facade.
And it probably is either white clapboard or red brick. There are lovely, manicured green lawns all around it. At this time of year, there will be an orange flame of a tree in the yard and a sweeping driveway leading up to the door.
On the same property, connected by similar colour scheme or additional driveway, there are other less-imposing abodes, smaller structures or mobile homes, likely housing family or farm workers.
Any town boasts many of these homes, possibly outnumbered by churches. Vicki’s Quebec upbringing says the largest, tallest church in town must be Catholic. Ian’s time in Victoria says it has to be Anglican.
Heaven forbid in Virginia.
Churches carry names but not denominations, although all are solidly Christian. Pastors are advertised on signage, as are upcoming events ranging from revival meetings to group breakfasts.
Every time a large building appears on another of the rolling green hillsides, it is indeed a place of worship.
Towns boast home cooking, from bakeries to BBQs. The area’s other religion, football, waits for it’s worshippers; Thursday night service is for the junior varsity, Friday it’s the varsity boys at high schools throughout the South, all surrounded by stands ready to seat half the town, cheering the kids on. Saturday the shrines shift to the college towns and Sunday, after church, it’s praise the Lord and pass the remote for NFL Sunday.