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bethb's Diaryland Diary

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a lot of photos

ok, so i've attempted to upload some photos of my little vacation with chris from this week.
first, we'll start with dinosaurland, 'cause that's that we did:
it's everybit as wonderful and terrible as it looks from the road.
you're ushered into a giftshop behind a large dino-mouth where you're greeted by the most un-interested teenager ever who in no way shares your giddy-delight for large fiberglass dinosaurs and elvis memrobelia, but will prefer to instead keep softly singing along with the Offspring (you gotta keep 'em seperated) on the radio.
once in dinosaurland, there are a number of singular dinos

(if this were my park, i would have named him "lickey". and in the interest of fill disclosure, that was also the name of my blanket when i was 4. although it wasn't really a blanket, but a piece of cloth with orange and yellow giraffes printed on it and the edges not even finished but pinked by a pair of pinking sheers. and it wasn't so much "licked" as it was wrapped around the index finger on my right hand and chewed and sucked thus creating a big mangey hole in the middle of said scrap of fabric and also resulted in me having a slightly enlarged knuckle on the index finger of previously mentioned hand which also resulted in weird-looking thanksgiving handturkeys but has since thankfully gone away as finger has not been sucked in that security-giving way for almost 30 years and relative swelling and grossness has moved to other parts of being.)
there's also

and also close to the start of the park is a large land-shark, shown here eating my friend chris:


there are also some staged battles in the park

and

with the victor grinning a fakey-bloody dino smile

then you have a peculiar tableaux of what appears to be a family of triceretops um......servicing a t-rex


and what dino-park would be complete without a big king kong whose hand you can actually sit in?(that's unfortunately me, by the way)

after buying all manner of dinosaur crapola, we headed out to find lunch, and thus began the rule "we can only eat at places with cool signs". which worked out in a town called "berryville" where there was a "mexican" restaurant called the camino real. which had a great sign (although undocumented) and also had the "vases? we don't need no stinkin' vases" allure by simply jamming the stem of a flower bouquet (fake, obvs) between the table and panneled wall

and to berryville's credit, i probably did have the best latte of my life there. we thought perhaps we could create the expereince as in charletown WV there was the same coffee chain (called "unwind" or ungrind....or unwind with daily grind...something) but no. for whatever reason, that coffee was *good*
so we get to harper's ferry and check out the town (cute!) and decide to check the rates at the "hilltop hotel" which when i set eyes on it i thought "f-it, we're staying here, at least one night" because it looked like this

and the view was literally magestic and the hotel was really really gorgeous and totally had a dorothy parker vibe to it and reminds me of a place up in new hampshire and the rates were really really reasonable so two nights were spent looking out a window at this view

although you had to not really mind spiders. um. at all. because there were a lot. and i mean *a lot* nights and mornings were spent alternately reading and knitting on the front veranda. and sometimes i put a quarter into those viewy-things and watched the fishermen downriver.
we headed back into town only to discover that harper's ferry (still cute!!!) was very very very closed.(almost nothing in that reigon appears to be open monday-wed) back to the hotel, where the lady tells us of an olive garden and a crapplebees (the first i've never actually ate at and i don't want to break that record now, the second is of no interest to either of us, and both would break the "cool signs only" eating rule) so we head to charlestown W, VA where i wanted to go anyway, because i really did want to see a horse race but chris did not and said she felt weird and/or disinterested in gambling.
i said gambling didn't have to be part of the equation, but she won out. drove through town, noticed lots of antique stores and a place called the turf motel (cool sign? check. horse on roof? check. restaurant called 'the rib room'? check)

however- actual ribs available? zero. unless you count 'prime' which i guess i did because that's what i ate.
back into harpers ferry, walk across the trinbridge over the potomac, walk up the hill to jefferson's rock and past this beautiful church ruin walked around jefferson's rock and marveled at the old graffiti carved into the rock (some from 1872...or at least that's what it said, and other dateless initials carved when people took the time to carve serifs onto their letters)

we hopped the rail and went into the church and this was probably the apse.
then back down the hill along the trail to try to find parking, we pulled over and read a bit about the pld pulp mill which eventually capitulated in 1934 in a big flood leaving behind more gorgeous slate ruins

then back to the hotel for an evening of severe air conditioning (which i have to admit was awesome. i love being chilly and underneath covers) and some knitting. then the next day we ventured out to the John Brown Experience (really, just the wax museum)
in terms of value, dinosaurland had it hands down. 5 dollars. dozens of dinosaurs....not to mention the people working there. whereas at john brown (six dollars), there was a sour-looking lady and kinda melty-looking dummies. the finale was excellent however.
also excellent, look at this photo from the website:

in the JB wax museum, john brown has holed himself up in a fort which general lee crashes and someone whacks poor john brown in the head with a sabre thus injuring him so much that when he's brought to trial, he is laid out in a cot in front of the judge. first, it's pretty f-ed up how he was treated even when you consider he was trying to do what was right even going so far as to attempt to establish an independant union so slaves could live free, but notice the two men by the firewagon in the right of the picture.
the farthest right guy is totally pinching the butt of the other guy. i took a close up to prove it.

i apologize, john brown wax museum. but you have to admit, that's a little funny.
also funny, "young john brown"'s initial expression when you walk into the museum
.
it did not, how you say, set a reverend tone.
after the JBWM, chris and i tried to go to some stores, but seriously? nothing was open. if it did open, it might open at 11 am. and here's something, NO ONE POSTS THEIR F-ING HOURS. except the vintage lady. she always seemed to be open. although not so vintage-y. although i did buy a really pretty ring from her.
chris and i went to charlestown and looked at antique stores (the few that were open) and this literally awesome record store. i have never seen so much vinyl. when i go back, i will have to insist on two things.
no, three things.
1) have to go back to leslie's records
2)would really like to see one horse race
3) have to stay at the hilltop hotel
leslie's records was so big and so packed that i actually asked if i could take photos of it. which i did. and haven't downloaded yet, so i'll get those up here someday maybe.
after charlestown, chris was pathologically seeking antique malls (I really wanted more of a "what? tourist trap caverns? let's pull the fuck over!) trip but we blindly headed to shepardstown W VA where they didn't have any antiques. but a good bakery with good sandwiches and meh cupcakes and a bookstore with a cute clerk and a copy of the disappointment artist which i flipped through while waiting for chris.
headed back to the hotel and watched something called "weird US" which is totally what i'm into and really what i wanted the trip to be. went to a pizza place which was kinda sketchy but ultimately open and ultimately delicious.
went back to hotel for two hours of vincent d'onofrio, conditioned air, good pizza, more spider battleing and the second shower without shampoo.
and speaking of showering, i'm going to do that now.
saw mission of burma at the black cat which i''m glad i did. it wasn't pathologically crowded. they were really really good. bob weston really really kinda looks like greg brady.
left the show only to find some douchebag hit my drivers side mirror and left it hanging. KC was able to reattach it somewhat which was good. and it didn't seem to fuck up the wiring which is better.
i hope that whomever hit my car fucked their mirror up as well. i found a piece of car laying in the street and picked it up and asked kc if he thought it belonged to me and he said he didn't think so and this morning i looked at it and it appears to have come off of some hyundai thing.
seriously. fuckers. leave me alone.

1:54 p.m. - 2006-07-16

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