natural bridge, va

Sorry for delays. I am pooped and I have been having a busy week since our return, blogging fell down the priority list. 

Fun things to do at the modest KOA:

Pool, always a favorite for Captain Comic

 And Honey and Toots.

An old school playground

 This was a giant slide with the old metal steps made of the letters: AMERICAN, like the slide in my old neighborhood as a little kid. It took her about the whole week for Toots to actually descend the giant slide without my climbing up the ladder and walk her back down in my arms.

 Toots and Captain Comic playing together and having fun.

Meanwhile, back at camp, Mr. Cynic being so very very Mr. Cynic, plugged in and all. That's my old van, Big Bertha behind him.

And the Natural Bridge itself, carved out of the mountains by glaciers.

That's not dirt on the photo, it's a hawk that swooped under the bridge.

I love him even if Mr. Cynic does not want his picture taken.

 Captain Comic takes a cue from Mr. Cynic.

 At the end of the trail, we found a nice cascades area that was quite calm and relaxing. We actually didn't make it to the end where The Lost Springs are. We decided our end was here.

We were surrounded by butterflies, lots of kinds, but mostly various Swallowtails. This was a Red-spotted Purple Admiral, even though it was black with blue like a Black Swallowtail. I looked it up at the gift shop in a book of butterflies after our hike.

 Toots was so happy to have her big brothers back, and she wanted to keep up with them. But she fell on her way to this little cave tunnel in the mountain side that Mr. Cynic found.

Finally, the Natural Bridge on the way back...

More adventures next week, I'll keep the shots to a minimum.  Panther Falls and Crabtree Falls were big ones that almost did in poor Bertha.

We are rearranging the boys' room again this weekend, taking the giant shelf beds out and moving in some bunks. A lot of furniture disassembly and assembly to ensue, right after I take a landscaping class at our local garden center.

feeding beasties

Our Grand Family Adventure started with picking up the boys at the halfway point between their father's home in Rhode Island and ours in Virginia  - Wilmington, Delaware. Hugs were given, things were stuffed in the already packed to the gills van. Then we made a last minute decision to side trip to the DC area to visit Honey's cousin who just moved back into the house he grew up in after living on the west coast and other parts of our country for most of his life. He bought the house from his mother and plans to tear it down and rebuild a new one. He told some stories of he and his brother growing up there, and I think Honey had fun visiting where he used to visit as a kid. It was nice to have one more night in a bed before my family slept in tents on the ground for the rest of last week. He and his long time girl friend were lovely hosts and it was good to see them.

The boys have grown. Captain Comic may have surpassed me or is about to, but we are not telling him.  Please don't tell him. I will ne'er hear the end of it.

We took a spontaneous approach to this vacation, and the following day as we head toward the Natural Bridge area of Virginia, our campsite destination, we made another detour to Luray Caverns. I'll post about  about those sites later.

After the caverns, we traveled the rest of the way and made it by evening to the campsite at the KOA. I have mentioned before that I like the KOAs. This one was more modest than the Super KOA where we stayed with just Toots and Lucy about six weeks ago, in Harper's Ferry, WV. Anyway, we set up camp, and basically collapsed after campfire.

The first morning we decided to go to the Natural Bridge Zoo. They had a lot of exotics there: baby tigers, lemurs, DeBrazza monkeys, etc, but mostly we enjoyed feeding the animals we could feed. All the kids really got a kick out of it. So did Honey and I.

This is Abigail. She is a five week old dromedary camel. She loved us. 

Toots later got to hold her baby bottle for her to feed. 

She loved when I scratched her neck and behind her ears, like a cat.

Mr. Cynic feeding pygmy goats.

This little guy was pushy.

Captain Comic and Mr. Cynic feeding fallow deer, they are indigenous to Eurasia. 

A lot have been introduced to Texas for hunting, apparently. Sad.

Feeding giraffes is fun. Their tongues are very long and... adept.

Mr. Cynic took this one of a giraffe and me.

We rode an elephant! Her name was Beautiful, and she was. 

Honey opted to take pictures of the rest of us riding.

I think Toots wanted to ride the fallow deer after her ride on Beautiful.

This was probably the hottest day of the trip, and we largely spent it walking around in the sun and looking at a lot of different monkeys. I'll spare you more the pics, but for the baby tigers.

And this guy - we think this cage was full of a type of black spider monkeys. 

They were fun, like a greeting committee.

Okay, one more of a DeBrazza monkey. These guys seemed very forlorn.

But that's it, today, I swear.

oh the adventures we had

I don't even know where to start.

I have a lot of photos. A Lot.

I have a foggy head, an achy back and a lot of laundry to do. A Lot.

I have my boys back, and my memories of jampacked days of hiking, swimming holes, zoos, safaris, caves and old diners and a drive-in movie under a nearly full golden moon. I hear crickets, peepers and cicadas all the time. I see mountain vistas, stone stair cases and rocky trails up and down to waterfalls. I see a natural bridge carved by glaciers through a mountain, and lots of cascades.

I see Toots twirling ballet in the middle of camp, at the edge of a waterfall and wiggling her hips to oldies pumped from 61 year old speakers and finding perfect marshmallow sticks. I see Captain Comic building first fires, begging to just go home please, between swimming and hiking and caving that wasn't quite spelunking. I see Mr. Cynic pretending to not be interested in anything, while secretly enjoying the facts of long ago Monacan people, weird geological things and bizarre animals. I see Honey setting up camp, grilling, breaking down camp loving the kids, laughing and finally saying, "I love an adventure!" in other words, relaxing.

I still smell of campfires.

I promise I will not inundate you with a family travel slide show over the course of the week, but I will share highlights of the past week over the coming week or so.

Honey, breakin' the law and putting his feet in Crabtree Falls just to cool off after climbing up and down the mountain.

And somehow finish my book in a two day Writing Camp that my writing group is holding tomorrow and Thursday.

time out

I have a lot to do.

I have a lot on my mind.

So this morning, Toots and I took a breather, and just played in the sunshine. I think it helped me to not obsess quite so much, sort things out a bit.

It's also our last day of Toots only. Tomorrow, we retrieve Mr. Cynic and Captain Comic. Mayhem will return to its usual full capacity.

"Don't take my picture, Mommy!"

"I said, stop taking my picture."

So for now, some quiet girl time.

tell it like it is

My life, in a nutshell, or rather two fortune cookies:

reassessed

I can't rush writing, especially editing.

I managed to accomplish the exact same amount as I averaged prior to last week's nose to the grindstone post. It was an ineffective way for me to work. I painfully edited one chapter, and less painfully edited a much longer chapter in two long sessions last week.

Today, I decided at the last minute to work at home and read through what I currently have, remove glaring repeats and other flaws, just a little tightening here and there. Mostly I needed to read through the manuscript for the sake of catching myself up and making sure I continue appropriately tomorrow. My mind is muddled with former rewritten details, so that I don't know exactly what I have in this draft or if I removed something, oh say, three drafts ago, and am still referring to it in this one. That would be bad.

So far, in a couple of hours this morning, I've read through the first quarter. I like it better than the last draft, and am having some good edit sparks along the way. Enter ye olde highlight and back space function.


Now I know why I wrote poetry and short stories for the past twenty-five years. This longer stuff is a pain in tuckus. But I like it. Figures.