The Continuing Adventures of Drydruid and Ollie

 

Timing is everything and “now, the rest of the story.”

Christina wanted to sort and get rid of some thing in our storage locker in an effort to downsize. Upon opening a box of odd papers I found contact information and some Harris family details that had been sent by Lewis Harris, a 4th cousin, thirty some times removed. The little voice said, “Call now!”

Turns out that the next morning they, he and spouse, Margaret and several other Mustang owners, were putting their cars on a train somewhere in Florida that was bound for Lorton, VA to cruise around Virginia then meander home. One of their events was to be hosted by the Richmond Mustang club including laps around the Richmond International Raceway. I put 90% of my camera equipment in the back of the car, drove off to meet Lew and Margaret at the track.

WOW! What fun and an opportunity for the club and for me. The track “officials,”  a couple young men barely older that pimples but yet being every bit Virginia gentlemen, directed us into the infield where the ‘stangs’ cued up for the track and I was  directed to a Press Stand on Turn 2. In two separate groups the Mustangs flew, at a terrifying speed of 55mpn, around the track five times as I clicked away.

a link to the gallery is at the left.

 

in the months before Ollie and I left Doha, Aug ’06 to June ’07, I invested a lot of time grabbing images of things I wanted to remember and share. There are things I missed like the Chicken Souq about which I wrote some years ago in my Dusty Desert Digest. On the other hand, I grabbed an image of almost 100 different one room groceries. One could ask, “Why the heck would you do that?” to which there was a good answer – at least to me – that will be the topic of another post.

In the time since, I’ve started assembling the images at least a half dozen times. The most recent was a coming along nicely; then a hard-drive crash scuttled everything. No more story but more about the hard drive/time machine thing later.

So, the n-th + 1 resurrection of the ‘one room grocery’ story, “wahad ‘orpha buqa’alah” in arabic, begins. It wasn’t a total lost as a recent copy was on one of my external drives. While looking for other images from Qatar I ran across several that I really need to include in this photoessay and two of which (and more to come) I have posted in the page “images from qatar” accessed in the left column.

d2

d2 finially got a set of images from romania together. they’re posted in the page “images from transylvania and other parts of romania

One of the typical features of architecture here in Transylvania is the arched ‘eyebrow’ window. The roofs here tend to have several, along with small, rectangular windows set into the arch. they look eerily like eyes and could be used to great effect in a sci fi movie.

Romania was fantastic, for many reasons but we’re not going to talk why now as it’s 22:30 and we have to be up at 05:00 to catch a bus to Bulgaria. If it weren’t for one thing we’d be planning our next trip, now.
 

No where in Romania can one sit down in a restaurant without some idiot at the next table or someone up wind lighting a cigarette. The young, mothers with children, the beautiful, and the homely.

Romania – up in smoke.

Romania has been Communist since before I was born, so arriving in Bucharest and finding fabulous, albeit crumbling, 18th and 19th century buildings was something of a surprise. Not all are in bad shape, but many need serious work. They stand cheek by jowl to hideous soviet block monstrosities and are interspersed among new, glass and chrome highrises. A few have made use of old facades and tacked new buildings on behind.

Ceausescu leveled 1/6th of Bucharest to build his Palace of Parliament in 1984. Only the US Pentagon building is larger.

Ethiopians dug down, carving amazing stone churches out of living rock.

Most amazing of all, they did this in the 12th century, without modern tools. Lalibela, while sounding Italian, is in fact a World Heritage site of several of these amazing churches. Some of them are completely free standing and others are carved into the stone like caves.

The Germans, on the other hand, chose to go up. The castles of Hohenschwangau and Neuschwanstein were built in the 1800s on earlier ruins. Both are high up on hills and required climbing. Again. As did the ruins of Heidelberg Castle. I’m not lacking for exercise on this trip.

 

Traveler’s tummy. Dehli belly, Montezuma’s revenge….call it what you will, food poisoning and dysentery are often part of a trip, especially to lesser traveled places. No matter how many times you wash your hands, drink only bottled water and eat only baked, boiled or broiled food in respectable looking establishments, there often comes the ‘oh, no’ feeling of hot, cold, cramps, nausea, etc. Between us, the Druid and I have had it 18 times, and once each on this trip. One does instantly find religion, though, as you simultaneously pray for an accessible facility, while begging, ‘Please God, take me now and put me out of my misery.’

the second window from the left on the second floor was my home for the most of 20 months. it was from about christmas ’68 till august ’70 while i was ordered to report to the 6th battalion of the 9th field artillery that was stationed in rivers barracks in giessen, germany. i was in charge of everything that had a small engine that included a pain in the ass gas space heater to the generators of high frequency ac current for the now antiquated fire direction control, about 50 things to have ready for field duty and two IG inspections each year.

seeing it again after 40+ years was not as odd as i thought it would be. being used by the Hesse district they are well maintained. the motor pool areas that had been WWI stables are now auto dealerships or auto related businesses.

as near as we could figure out the concrete missilie looking things, there was another, were built by Hitler as bomb shelters. no one knew for sure nor did we care enough to find out. they, the Germans, now thing we, i.e., the US Army, built them, lol.

glad i saw the barracks again, it’s time to move on as there are many more things to do and see. -d2

Silverbacks are mountain gorillas. Somehow, I overlooked the MOUNTAIN part, along with the fact of climbing UP, through JUNGLE. What was I thinking?? The Druid and I are fairly fit, but climbing to 3000 meters at our age was no small feat. Have I mentioned that Richmond is at 100 meters? The legs were fine, but the shortness of breath due to the altitude nearly did us in. But we made it, with frequent stops.

Our guide, Mr. Hope, was a wealth of information about the gorillas, and after an hour and a half of climbing, we finally encountered them. This particular group is headed by a huge 12 year old silverback named Charles who has 4 mates and several offspring. We spent a very fast hour watching and following them. They are very playful and seem to eat, lounge and just hang out. They basically ignored us, but often turned their backs so photographing them was a bit of a challenge.

This is a once in a lifetime experience because there is no way I’m making that climb again.