Smokin' trip to navigating the Potomac

The South and the regular South

The South Carolina countryside is attractive. We drove past miles and miles of peanut fields, dotted with tidy small country houses and punctuated with Baptist churches every couple of miles. Each church has its graveyard right next to it. Occasionally some graves are separately fenced off and I suppose this is to keep the Southern Baptists from associating with the regular Baptists, but I don’t know that for sure. People here are friendly, hospitable and gracious. Along the back roads we saw fewer confederate flags than in California and while we came across a couple of county race tracks, there really were no redneck yards of the week to be admired. Certainly, Oregon sports more “emporiums” and fixer upper cars displayed on concrete blocks than the heart of the South.

In Augusta, GA we enjoyed the Green Jackets (http://web.minorleaguebaseball.com/index.jsp?sid=t478) beat the Charleston Riverdogs (http://web.minorleaguebaseball.com/index.jsp?sid=t233 )

 5:1

Our goal was to get to the Smokey Mountain National Park (http://www.nps.gov/grsm/index.htm).  On crossing into North Carolina along a curvy mountain road in the forest, things did suddenly turn backwoodsy. We came past a bunch of stereotypical shacks with moonshiner type characters lounging on the sloping porch and an assortment of rusting trucks along the highway that dated back to the great depression. We had lunch at a roadhouse and were asked a question I had not heard for some time: “Smoking or Non-Smoking?” Bless the Tar Heels.  They had a bucket of peanuts on each table and the catfish is real good.

As we got close to the park entrance, heavy thunderstorm developed that would last well into the next day. We turned back and my ambition to visit this famous park will remain unfulfilled.

Eventually we paused in Fredericksburg, VA and saw the Potomac Nationals (mascot: “Uncle Slam”) (http://web.minorleaguebaseball.com/index.jsp?sid=t436 ) play the Winston-Salem Dash (http://web.minorleaguebaseball.com/index.jsp?sid=t580  ) .

I like the way a lot of minor league teams bring a lot of kids onto the field and really engage the fans.

My nephew Mark came down and joined us and Ferdinand scored a souvenir T-shirt

We cheered with uncle slam, celebrating the win  with a tenth inning walk-off.

In DC we were treated to a fine afternoon of sailing on the Potomac.

Ferdinand did an outstanding job skippering

 Now I’ll have to get a boat.

We also made a pilgrimage to Camden Yards.

 What an iconic ballpark! What great food options ! I had some pulled pork, but would also have liked the BBQ chicken with corn on the cob. What good fans ! Unfortunately, the birds

stink and have stunk for some time. Attendance is way down. We did enjoy seeing ole Vladi swat

 and we held up our end by cheering for the ex-Angel. His average is way down and the birds lost to the Cardinals, but Ferdinand bagged a promotional T-shirt.

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It’s easy to get in and out of DC and Baltimore. They have multiple mass transit

systems, albeit incompatible light rail lines that do not connect

, so we parked our truck at the station and took the tram into town and to the games. Unfortunately, the Greenbelt, MD transit police are dimwits and gave me a tickets for expired Oregon plates (yeah, they do stand out), while I had a valid California permit displayed at the same time.

 They were pretty nice over the phone, though,  and I assume its all good by now.

We also saw the surging “Natinals”

 take on the surging Pirates.

The stadium is fine, but lacks character. The team makes up for it with fine play.

We were treated to a walk-off in the ninth.

  They don’t do fireworks when this happens. I suppose the tight restrictions on anything that goes ‘bang’ in DC have something to do with national security, or maybe with nervous dogs. Good thing I didn’t bring a bunch of “Ill Eagle” rockets to Marks house and launch them over the White House. A fine time was had by all, despite the lack of some big bangs after the big bang.

A better mascot would have been a eledonkey or an asslephant