Heading South - Travails Times Two

Hello again!!

The balmy breezes at Quantico suddenly gave way to freezing temperatures with gusty winds by the time we reached our next destination at Yorktown, VA on Sunday, Dec. 28. Chris' grandfather, Charles Clark died in an aircraft accident at Langley Field in the late 1920s and she wanted to do some research about his life. He was the Captain of the 19th Airship Company that was stationed there and piloted what we know today as blimps.

Chris' family has a long history of military service dating back to the Revolutionary War. Clark Air Force Base in the Phillipines was named after her Great Uncle Harold Melville Clark (Charles' brother) who was also an Army aviator.

We celebrated the beginning of the New Year with our old friends Al and Suzanne Brassel and Jay took a side trip to see his friend, Harvey Orr's, new home and woodworking shop.

Next stop was Raleigh, NC where Jay attended an all-day Melaleuca seminar and Chris stayed in Sonny to recover from the madness of the last few weeks. However, North Carolina was not all-together what we'd hoped for. Upon our arrival at the RV Park, Jay was so intent on looking ahead at where we would park he neglected to pay sufficient attention to all that he was dragging behind him, i.e. 33 feet of trailer. Yep, you can almost visualize him taking that corner too sharply and sideswiping that tree. Correcting cosmetic damage is now another line item on our list of things to do. It was too painful to photograph so please excuse the omission.

Saturday's weather was sunny and warm, comparatively, and we were looking for things to do outside. In an effort to control the pet hair Chris successfully used the "furminator" on Max while he stood atop the picnic table at the campsite. When Jay returned from Raleigh, we were hoping for the same results with Little Miss.

Perhaps we should explain more about Little Miss. Eight years ago, Jessica got her from an animal shelter on Long Island, NY. Like most New Yorkers, she was a little difficult to deal with. She is the proverbial "scaredy cat". For months she wouldn't come out from under the bed when anyone was home. Eventually she would tolerate Jessica and other familiar faces but still disappeared when strangness was afoot. The trauma of the cross-country flight didn't help her psyche.

With this knowledge we proceeded with caution to take her outside to the "furminator table". With Jay wearing leather gloves, and Little Miss secured in a harness, we thought we'd taken all precautions to prevent an escape. All went well for the first 15 minutes and she was loving the experience complete with purring. As sometimes happens with older females a sudden mood swing occured. The tail twitched, a gutteral howl and out came the claws!!! While we were distracted by Jay's bleeding arm, Little Miss leapt from the table, squirmed out of the harness, with Houdini-like ability, and rapidly departed the scene.

Now this RV park is surrounded by dense woodland, with a cow pasture on one side. And like all good cow pastures, this one contains an ostrich. It is highly likely that Little Miss had never seen an ostrich. As she entered the pasture in an attempt to flee our grasp the big bird, with wings oustretched, immediately charged from the far side of the field, in defense of its territory. With Chris behind her and an angry ostrich in front she had nowhere else to go. Little Miss evacuated the scene the only way she could - straight up a tree.

With darkness setting in and temperatures plummeting we took turns trying to entice Little Miss from the tree. But she would not budge from her perch 10' above our heads. By bedtime Jay was convinced she would only come down with assistance and we resigned ourselves to seek a ladder in the morning.

Jay, the world-renowned feline expert, was proven once again to not know a thing about what he was talking about. In Jay's defense it rained during the night and Little Miss decided to find dryer accomodations elsewhere. A forwarding address was not provided.

Emotionally bludgeoned about the disappearance of a pet that had been entrusted to our care we felt we had to make a concerted effort to perform an exhaustive expanding square search ( a little Coast Guard search and rescue lingo there). We delayed our departure an extra day to distribute fliers, post her information on the local Craig's List and combed the area, often on our hands and knees, attempting to locate her to no avail. We would have stayed longer however the last time she got away from Jessica's home, she was gone for 3 1/2 months. We felt that if someone found her they would call and we would return immediately to retrieve her.

Rock Ridge Campground has way too much negative energy for our tastes. With heavy hearts, heads hung low and seeking warmth we reluctantly abandoned the search and continued south.

Next stop Savannah, GA.