Dancing Through My Road Trip

An account of the surprises on my journey, accompanied by Adina and Lykke, in reverse chronological order

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Dancing by the Bridge-Tunnel

I was so excited when I saw that my new route would take me through this bridge-tunnel. Although the toll is high, it’s a fun experience. Sadly, though, all the rest areas and the restaurant are closed while construction is underway, so the only photos I was able to capture were from here.

And yes, those are more offshore drilling vessels, sadly.

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Choo choo

Gratuitous cool train photo, taken near the entrance to the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel.

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Dancing with Paul

Paul was at the visitor center at the entrance to the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel. When I shared what Lykke was doing, and he agreed to be in a photo with her, he shared that he had done something similar with a taxidermied vulture.

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My new friends

This is the couple on the same path as I was, from the back.

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Dancing Above Oil Tankards

Lovely benches along the pier in Cape Charles. May art triumph over greed.

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Keeping it clean

Great idea. But will it matter if the drilling kills our seas?

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Lykke in Love

Or more precisely, the “O”. Ummmmm... ha.

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More art!

And then... look what I found! How cool is this? 

Look a little closer, though. What are those things in the distance?

Heaven and hell, indeed. 

I photographed a couple inside the tire with their phone. We talked for a while about how nuts it was to see this going on. 

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This looked pretty heavenly

Soft white sand, pretty painted benches... Lykke and I approved of the entry to this Cape Charles beach. 

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Good question

On the way to Cape Charles, I passed this billboard. Which would this trip be?

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Flowering Tree

This was one of a row of beauties that greeted me on my detour to Cape Charles. It is several months ahead of when my flowering trees will start. The colors fill me with hope.

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Meet Lykke

Knowing I was destined for a rainy place, I decided to take my time arriving there, making the journey about the trip, not the destination. My first big stop was at the Shore Flea Market.  I had fun looking around. The best thing was finding this beautiful statuette. It’s a sculpture by Swedish artist Bodrul Khalique, although the identity sticker is missing. It dates to the 1960s, is about 13″ high, and is quite heavy bronze. I named her Lykke (pronounced Luka), Swedish for happiness or good fortune. She gave me the theme for this story.

The other interesting thing was this booth. Most of the art seemed to be pretty angry or hostile. Check out the face of the booth owner (in the hood). Symbolic, isn’t it?

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Pesticide sprayer

The journey continued down a flat road. This was the scenic route. Mostly the scenery was farmland, with many of these, pesticide sprayers, to be seen. (Forgive the image quality – it was taken out of a moving car’s window.) Another unpleasant surprise. What are we doing to our earth? There were also many run-down, decrepit or abandoned houses. How many of them were vacated due to cancer or other health problems from the sprayed pesticides?

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Well take a look. What do you see in the distance?

That’s right. Tankers or something related to offshore oil drilling.

I had hoped to get away, be with nature for a few days, escape the horrors and daily stresses of 2018 USA – but it was not to be. Here is a pretty picture of the sun shining through a screen house to make this post a little happier. Also at Slaughter Beach.

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So when I survived a very intense work time and still hadn’t shaken the symptoms after about three weeks, in fact they started to resurge, I decided to take a mini-break. It was too complicated and expensive to fly somewhere warm, so I decided to take a road trip to the warmest place I could end up, minimizing my expenses and sleeping in my car when necessary. I left late on a Friday afternoon, stopped in New Jersey to say hi to my parents, and set off to an unknown point south. That night I slept in a parking lot in Delaware in my Honda Fit, on the folded-down seats, with my dog next to me. It worked pretty well, except it got really cold late at night, and I gave my extra blanket to my dog. We woke early enough to see sunrise. So I detoured to the closest beach: Slaughter Beach – a terrible name. According to Wikipedia, nobody is quite sure where the name came from. I prefer to hope it was just named after William Slaughter.  The scene is pretty, right?

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It all started with the flu

Actually, it all started with pneumonia last year. It took a long time to get over; the turning point came when I went with family to the shore for a few days. My energy returned! This reminded me of the days when people would go to the country to convalesce. Not a bad idea. This is the full moon over the Atlantic on my pneumonia-healing break.

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Dancing across America at Gunpoint — this image is a preview of my blog. Stay tuned. #dancingacrossmyroadtrip #dancer #mural #soldiers #guncontrolnow #nomorekilling