The I-95 Grand Folly

The I-95 Grand Folly

I make a monthly pilgrimage up to Northern Virginia. Mostly on I-95. This takes me past Roanoke Rapids. I saw this building being built in the middle of nowhere. The Randy Parton Theatre, a modern adaption of antebellum plantation crossed with a touch of Wally World. Roanoke Rapids thought they could emulate Branson, Missouri and build a theme park as far as I can gather, around a relative of a mainline country music entertainer. Randy Parton is the brother of Dolly Parton. Only problem, why travel a hundred or so miles to get entertained when one can hang out in major cities like Raleigh, Virginia Beach, and so on, complete with existing places to go?

Yep, they are losing their shirt. The theater's namesake is gone, it's under new management, and I'll bet they will have the name changed on that building in less then a year. I really hope they spell "theater" right. North Carolinian retail property owners tend to put "e" on the end of nouns, coming up with "pointe", "olde" and "shoppe". Then there's my pet peeve...."centre". This is America, spell like an American! Center! Point!, Shop! Old!

The Attic House

My last day on it since I got to finish up a punch list somewhere else tomorrow. Basically, last minute tweaks in the attic and then, blown in insulation. My life will be not good today. There are nasty jobs out there, and blowing insulation in a cramped attic is right up there. I'll stick B with returning the machine.

Deferred Maintenance

I'm eyeing the 401K. It's not a good thing to nuke it but the car, computer, cat, me, and the house have been on deferred maintenance and the left eye is getting more then a fair share of money, as it's still under care. The business started off well, and it may be a good way to earn money, do some good, and have fun doing it. Deferred maintenance is sometimes necessary but never good in the long run. Just look at what happened to the railroads, trains kept falling off the tracks before they came to their senses and fixed them.

Off North

When Friday rolled around, I went north. It's cooler up north. Three days away was nice. My best friend up there had surgery to repair his shoulder. Of course he would catch a staph infection in the hospital, one of the really nasty drug-resistant ones. He's doing well but he will be hooked up to intravenous antibiotics for six weeks. He'll probably watch every video and DVD he has twice. Cabin Fever redux.

Usually I go I-440 to I-64 to I-95 to get out of North Carolina. I went I-85 instead. Prettier road and less traffic. Found an old time gas station with fried food.


Really neat interchange to a toll road south of Richmond. Picture doesn't do it justice but it stands pretty tall and proud, and at one point, has three layers.

If you drive north on I-95 toward Richmond, This city skyline complete with skyscrapers, rises out of the horizon. The road then swoops by an all brick Romanesque train station right at the roof level.
Finally I get to where I was going. Another hazy lazy August afternoon looking toward the old home place.

Free wallpaper. Never say I don't give anything away. Black Walnut, very hardy tree. I planted and moved quite a few onto the front lawn. The only drawback is the green hailstones they grow. Not really desirable near sidewalks and driveways during certain months of the year.

Just more free wallpaper. I must be feeling generous.

The kitchen is getting worked on at the house. Oak floors. My Bro-in-Law is going to order the cabinets soon. Until then, it's like this for livability's sake. Very old kitchen, been there long enough, it has one of these......
Kitchen fireplace and back stairs for when there were servants. Fireplace was redone several times, last in the 1960's, but it always has been meant for cooking.

This grate actually swings out. It also has a pot hook. It was welded together by the local blacksmith who made the grate as well. I sent many a cord of wood up the chimney here, and grilled a few steaks.

I spent yesterday at the Garage-House. We got the interior walls framed. Also was contacted by another recruiter, so I got their online thingie done too. Today we do the exterior wall and frame in the old garage door.

Hot enough for Us? Yep.

A hundred and six today. Boss was working on the Garage House in the morning but only because the solar people were showing up. Yesterday four of us were putting up walls. Boss and I and G are all eligible for AARP membership. Could call it the Geezer Construction Society. Ah well. We are all in good shape as opposed to office people. Average middle-aged cubical dweller would have been dead. We just drank, perspired, and kept going.

Interview went well but think it's gonna be awhile. Leaving tomorrow for Northern Virginia. My best friend is in the hospital. Had a short chat, will see him tomorrow or Saturday. May comeback on Monday if he and his better half need help.

Cheap bathrooms, what did I do? Nada. Nix. Nothing. Ah, I did spend money. New toilet fill valve and flapper, four half inch CPVC caps,two wax rings and last but not least, two shiny new straight valves that can be glued into the CPVC pipes. Forty dollars and forty cents. I hope I have stock in Lowes, they certainly get a good chunk of my income. When I get back from my travels, the plan is to put the new parts in the back bath toilet, replace the half bath toilet with the new 1.6 flusher that's been camping in my dining room, and then demo the front bath. Weather and money permitting.

Well, this lazy sod needs to start charging batteries.

I tried to read The World Without Us. Big disappointment. My apologies to Amazon for being late. They should have lost the book. Gave it to my nearest relative with the hope I never see it again.

Weekend in Loudoun

Last week, I got an interesting missive from one D.M. Bashor, who wanted me to go to some seminar on a cash only business. Googling Dana Bashor proved rather interesting, so I went up to Loudoun County, Virginia instead.

I like to go through Richmond every now and then. The city skyline is really impressive coming from the south on 95.
After crossing the James and a few more hours, I was back in that northernmost tip of Virginia. A view of the Union Cemetery in Lovettsville, Virginia.

The Loudoun County McMansion. Not a great picture but this example near Purcellville has two front doors along with the innumerable gables and the three to four car garage.
A slightly less obnoxious example.
Contrast the above with this.

Here's an old door at the old family place. The door is from the 1830's but stayed where it was when the 1884 addition was put on. The detail shows the old claw marks from where a cat or dog long, long time ago pawed at it to get out. I was reading about the painted Victorians of San Francisco, so I did a "Painted Lady" door quite a few years ago.


Part of the problem at this old, old house, is that the rim door locks are the same "vintage". Add to that generations of people slamming doors, children, and other torture the door hardware goes through, they wear out. Only problem is, is that the hardware is so old, it was obsolete before Kaiser Bill got dangerous (WW1). The newest original hardware is about 123 years old. This was on the old preacher's study. It had quit working a few years ago, but I just propped a chair under the knob when visiting to keep the dog out at night.


Emmy, half Belgian Shepard, half Rhodesian Ridgeback, and uninvited roomie.

So I got out the old bits and pieces of locks when asked to fix the door, and started sorting out something that would work.

I finally picked out and repaired an old lock and chose a white porcelain door knob and a marbleized door knob. There are now some nice reproductions, but the old locks are all cast iron inside.

The dog gets to stay out now. Not a great repair job but at least the hardware is original...very original.

The upstairs hall, looking at the 1833 A.D. back wall of the house. Since the wall is three courses of brick, it's a bit thick. The door is relatively recent, a yellow pine cross & bible from Hechinger's. The doorway itself was added in 1884, probably enlarging an existing window.

Some scenes of the front garden and my case of Dominion Root Beer. Apparently Giant in Purcellville gets one a day. I got this one. It's changed though. It didn't have corn syrup in it before or the artificial flavouring.

An Old Place in Loudoun County, Virginia.

I'm a refugee from Loudoun County. I sold a one bedroom condo for an ungodly sum and came down to not-so-laid-back Cary, NC. Nice enough place but too Mr. Beaver like.

When I first came to Loudoun, it was rolling hills, cow farms, cornfields, old barns, country stores, and small sleepy towns where a dog could sleep in peace in the middle of the street.

Here's an old, old place, very typical of old Loudoun houses, painted brick, some parts before Civil War, some even before the Revolutionary War. Not restored, just lived in continuously for for over three hundred years by different families and owners. It's a big house. The church had it for awhile and they added on a wedding chapel and a preacher's study. It was even bigger then that but the kitchen addition from the 1890's had to be taken down. The materials from the demolition was used to build a small cooling house.

The barn was built in the early Twentieth Century, but typical of many structures of the time in Loudoun, quite of bit of it came from an earlier barn, and the older posts and beams have been remarkably free from rot.

The garage is unusual in that it is a post and beam oak frame filled in with oak studs and poplar siding. We used concrete nails if we wanted to hang anything up.

This grey building is just a storage shed, gray, T-111 siding and just shows how structures are added as needs dictate.

Unique to the area. is the use of tin roofs, or more properly, the standing seam metal roof. The roof on the house dates from the 1880s and and gets a fresh coat of paint every ten years.

This is pretty rare that so much has survived here, not untouched, but surely appreciated by it's occupants over the years.

Leaving the Driving to Me

I gotta to go up to Northern Virginia this weekend. I'd rather not. It's cold up there. Who knows, wait a day, it might even warm up?

Three hundred and thirty one miles on our nation's highways.

Flying is out. United could get me there in less then two hours, but that's flight time. Then there's paying for parking, the two hour check in, TSA screening and whatever their prohibition of the day is, then getting to the other end and getting a taxi. By the time all is said and done, think 500 bucks and at least seven hours each way. Ouch.

Don't even think American, Delta, or Jet Blue. They will fly me a thousand miles to go three hundred. I get to cool my heels in the Midwest, or the former Confederacy, or Yankee-land as I wait for the second leg.

Ok, there's Amtrak. Cary to Harper's Ferry. Bike on down to the station...not, cold. Leave at Oh-Dark AM and get to DC at eleven AM. Spend five hours in DC and then get to Harpers Ferry by seven PM. Sixtysix bucks each way.

Greyhound is much the same but the closest station is in Frederick Maryland. That's thirty miles from where I need to be.

So I'm driving. Even after 9-11, The Iraqi War, Peak Oil, and all of that nonsense, it's less then forty bucks of fuel to get me up there. As for all the other costs, I'm already having to pay insurance, maintenance, and taxes on the Subaru. Seven hours tops, and I have my transportation at the other end.

A lot of people puff away and say you can take the train, the bus, the plane, a bike. Just one problem. The US of A is a BIG place. Even at three dollars a gallon last summer, it was still cheaper and easier to drive then being politically correct and socially responsible and using semi-public transit. Also, sometimes one is employed, one is not. Cheap is as cheap does, and right now, the cheapest ride is my Subaru.