While chatting with the rangers shortly after my arrival at the park
yesterday, I learned of a self-guided auto tour. Thinking that would be
perfect for today with most things closed, I snapped up a printed guide.
My first disappointment came when I saw that it was just 6.8 miles long.
Driving it was hardly going to fill my afternoon. There was more
disappointment when I realized that all five stops concerned a single
Civil War battle. I generally find a war's causes much more interesting
than its battles. I know that many would really appreciate seeing exactly
where each of an engagement's actions took place but that's not me. I've
never been more sincere than now in saying that my pictures do not do the
scene justice.
I definitely expected my next activity to take even less time than a 6.8
mile battlefield driving tour. Seeing a nearby cemetery among the Saved
Places in my GPS initially confused me but I eventually figured out it was
the burial place of my home county's namesake, William Darke. I figured I
would stop there, take a few pictures, and quickly be on my way. But the
location recorded in the GPS is several yards off the road inside that
empty field in the first picture. Thinking it likely that I had entered
the location incorrectly, I took to my phone to check. The same
coordinates appeared on multiple websites and there were even some fairly
recent photos. The photos were all rather close up and did not offer any
location clues but their existence seemed to indicate the the cemetery
had not been simply replaced by rows of wheat. I stopped to ask a fellow
working on his car in a driveway and also questioned three other people I
saw at road side. Nothing. Pursuing the few other clues I found was also
fruitless. The marker that I happened upon indicates that I was in the
right neighborhood but that cemetery eluded me completely.
There is a Hollywood Casino a few miles away and I sort of assumed that
was where I would have Christmas dinner. But a rash of early closing
restaurants made me resort to it last night and the mediocre pizza I had
didn't make me anxious to return. So, for what I believe is the very first
time, I did what all the movies say people without a kitchen or the skills
or desire to use one are supposed to do: eat Chinese. The cashew shrimp
was very good and the service was also very good when the elevated work
load is considered. I'm sure that the number of eat-in customers was well
above normal but the carry-out business was even greater. Orders were
identified by phone number. Having overheard a few grumbles about long
waits, I expected each ready order to be snatched as soon as it appeared
but almost every number had to be called a half dozen or more times before
someone stepped from the pack to take it. People are strange.
Today's background is the Christmas tree in the Lafayette Hotel's Gun Room
when I had breakfast Friday. The musical selection is last week's Sunday
Lunch offering from Toyah Willcox and Robert Fripp.
