New Point Light

These are different angles of the beautiful New Point lighthouse, taken from the boat ride I took last Sunday with my friends Glenda and Billy.

This will be the last post until I return from vacation, which we eagerly depart for this Saturday.

For more information on our lighthouse, click here or here .

Have a great weekend and a great next week.

I sure intend to!

Egret

One day last week, as I was leaving the New Point Light observation deck, I happened to glance off into the marsh and noticed this egret, who was sunning himself.

Or herself.

I'm not an astute enough heron or egret watcher to know whether there are discernible differences in color or other markings.  I can distinguish between a male and female cardinal, no problem.  But egrets? Just not that up to speed.

Anyway, this one was basking in the glow of the sun that particular afternoon, not at all perturbed by my intrusive camera.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This will be the first full/normal work week I've had since the week of September 23.  The last home meet of Daughter's cross country season is Tuesday evening. District, regional and the state meets happen over the next month, however, so we'll be busy with those.  I must focus on preparing for November's half marathon, which is breathing down my neck like a fiery dragon.  I've not run more than six and a half miles since April, and my knee shin foot back has been threatening to give out on me for about a week now.

Otherwise, things are good here in the Chesapeake Bay Family household.

Hope all is well in your neck of the woods.

Lighthouse

Remember yesterday when I said the clouds had parted and the sun came out?  Well, that was short lived, because Tuesday was back to Drearyville--do not pass Go, do not collect $100.  (Or is it $200? I never had much patience for Monopoly.) In case you didn't know, Drearyville is a suburb of Unemployment City, where Chesapeake Bay Woman has lived for the past several weeks.

Monday's spectacular sunshine reverted immediately to Tuesday's overcast skies and continued unemployment due to the government shutdown.

Waaaaaay off in the distance is New Point Light. 

Luckily I still have photos from the one day the sun came out.  

These were taken from Bavon, at the end of Old Bayside Drive.

You can't see the lighthouse here, but this is the point of land shown above, zoomed in.

This is a grainy shot of the lighthouse, zoomed way in.
My camera has a decent zoom, but the quality of the images
isn't always great, mostly due to the person using it
and her general lack of technical skills.

This was taken from a closer vantage point,
the lighthouse observation deck.
A little better, but still not great.

Unless the Government Fairy Godmother sprinkled angel dust pixie dust over Congress last night, I won't have work today either.  That's OK.  I have an eye appointment at Gloucester Point, which will eat up several hours of my life day, and Daughter has a cross country meet at the West Point Country Club this evening.  Since I've never been to the West Point Country Club (or any other country club, for that matter) before, I'm actually looking forward to it.

Wait.  I went to some country club before.  A wedding.  Decades ago. Golf carts were stolen and there was lots of driving in places where golf carts weren't supposed to be involved.  I want to say it was somewhere in Northern Virginia but can't swear to it.  

Whatever.  So I've been to at least one country club before, but never the West Point Country Club.

This blog post, which has flitted from sunshine to vague Monopoly references to Drearyville and its suburbs to country clubs and pixie dust, is now mercifully coming to a close.

Click here and here for more information on our lighthouse.

Venturing Out

Yesterday, after sleeping all day lying around nursing a Christmas cold that refuses to leave, I decided to venture out to the ends of the Earth opposite end of the county from me, the Bavon/New Point area.

It was pretty chilly and there was a good breeze blowing.

None of this deterred a kayaker, who was gearing up and preparing to put in just as I arrived.

I didn't take his picture, but trust me he was out there somewhere just as I was snapping these. I think he slunk underneath the dock.  Slunk is the past tense of slink. I think. Or did I thunk he slunk?  To slink is to sneak stealthily underneath a dock when someone with a camera desperate for something to take a picture of happens to be nearby. There's no need to check this on Wikipedia or Merriam Webster online or anything. Except if you did, you might find this.  And here I thought I had made up a new word. 

After spending some time on the observation deck at New Point Light  reflecting on the cool breeze and the elusive kayaker,

I returned to the car and headed back up the road towards home, but not before I took a few more pictures of a seagull festival going on down Sandbank.

Stay tuned.

Observation Deck

Last Thursday morning after taking a jog and prior to running a million errands, I drove down to Bavon and piddled around at the New Point Light observation deck.

Never underestimate the importance of piddling around.  It's right up there with lollygagging and dawdling.

If anyone needs lessons in how to piddle around, lollygag or dawdle, please let me know, I'm the global local expert.

Ann Marie is related to Elzy Burroughs, the man who built our lighthouse.  

Her father Henry and she came over Friday night for dinner.  Among topics of conversation ranging from jogging to the heat to tomatoes to the Bible to kindred spirits, the lighthouse came up.  In addition to building our lighthouse, Elzy also built Old Point Comfort lighthouse, further south.

Lest you be wondering why anyone would use the word "lest" why there's all this talk about the lighthouse and not one single photo of it, the answer has to do with my camera and the zoom on it and my lack of patience with the whole thing.

In short, with only a few exceptions, any time I've tried to capture the lighthouse from this deck (which requires some zooming in) the photos come out blurry. And that makes me mad. And when CBW gets mad,   her head spins around completely on her shoulders nothing productive can possibly come about unless you count stomping, and I don't, so please enjoy these photos of the observation deck while you imagine a nice lighthouse off in the distance.

Or better yet,  click here for yet another of my midsadventures one of the few photos I've taken that's not blurry.

Click here  or here  or even here for more information about the lighthouse.

Scenes from Bavon

Thursday morning I drove down to the end of the Earth county to check on the beautiful marshes and the lighthouse.

Except for a quick trip down here with my classmate Johnny Pugh back in March, I hadn't been in this neck of the woods since Blog Fest, 

I was relieved to see that everything was just as I remembered it.

Only far prettier.

The greens and blues were so overpowering, I actually gasped.

Then, when a horse fly flew in the window I'd rolled down to take a few pictures, I screamed.

The End.

p.s. I only screamed when he landed on me.  If you've ever been bitten by a horsefly, you don't need any explanation for that scream.  

This concludes the third consecutive blog post involving insects or my screams.  

Both are quite common here in Mathews.

Three Things

Welcome to Three Thing Thursday, where I share three things and you share three things.

Today my three things are about this man, Mr. Henry.


1. Mr. Henry is good looking, isn't he? used to hang out with Chesapeake Bay Father "back in the day." This I discovered when he came over to help set up a camper for Blog Fest. The twinkle and the glimmer in both men's eyes told me there are many, many years' worth of blog stories about the hijinx and frivolity of their youth, just waiting to be told.


2. Back when I was playing county league softball during the summers of my high school and college years, I remember Mr. Henry being one incredible player. Summer league softball was the equivalent of major league baseball in Mathews at the time; people lived and breathed it. You've never seen a more competitive spirit. I lived at the ball park and would often stay to watch my new crush Mr. Henry the men's games. Seeing Mr. Henry on the ball field is not something you easily forget.


3a. Mr. Henry and his daughter Ann Marie are kin to the man who built the New Point Comfort lighthouse. He would be a wealth of information on his ancestors, but don't ask him to remember details about the Chesapeake Bay Family.

You see, at Blog Fest, he was absolutely convinced that there were four girls in my family. He listed them all out: CBW, Chesapeake Bay Middle Sister, Baby Sis and Jill. The only thing is there isn't a Jill. But it doesn't end there, because not only does this nonexistent sister have a name, but she's left-handed! He knows because he watched her play ball.

Well, this whole Jill thing has taken on a life of its own. My Blog Fest name tag said "Jill's Sister." Then I started blaming Jill for everything that went wrong in any given day. It's really kind of fun and very therapeutic. It also sort of takes some pressure off Gustav. Someone even created a Blogger account so she can comment.

3b. The last day of Blog Fest was Ann Marie's birthday. Her father came over and handed her a card. She let me read it.

Mr. Henry is a very thoughtful, loving father.

And isn't he good looking? photogenic?

Now it's your turn to share three things--whatever you want. Anything at all.

Insects: The Mathews County Edition

The photo above is from the observation deck at New Point Light, on a day that found me running through swamps and briar patches in search of a decent shot of the lighthouse. Instead what I found was swamps and briar patches, an ancient graveyard and chiggers. And swamps.

Chiggers are a story for another day, but they do provide a nice segue way for a discussion of another Mathews County freak of nature nuisance, the "over sized, killer mosquito."

The other day I was perusing the web for information on the lighthouse and discovered this: http://www.newpointcomfort.com/. I'd come across it before but never lingered very long.

The site contains a wealth of information relating to the construction of the lighthouse, including the excerpt below, which in spite of all appearances was not written by a woman with insect paranoia and hysteria me:

Two hurricanes did pass northeast along the Atlantic Seaboard in August 1803 and September 1804 producing violent gales upon the lower Chesapeake. Another, in October 1804 passed directly over the Chesapeake Bay with Force 6 winds before turning nontropical and tracking northward dumping over two feet of snow in New England. Burroughs most likely rode this storm out on the mainland and returned after it had passed.

They also had to endure the conditions that existed beside a thriving salt marsh habitat. "It is home to a variety of aggressive stinging and flesh-eating insects that prey upon their human host. Vast numbers of gnats can erupt from the swamp on still mornings and nights graying the sky in a swarming cloud. They burrow under the clothing and into the hair on the head.

There is also a species of mosquito, larger than average, that can walk upon the skin undetected before it strikes. Biting flies in great variety prey here, some growing to several inches in length. They buzz about the head relentlessly before biting with such voracity as to cause a person to lose their grip or drop what they are carrying in order to swat at the beast."

Three things:

First, the "Burroughs" referenced above is Elzy Burroughs, kin to the one and only Ann Marie aka Re ,who today lives just a hop, skip and a jump (with a cartwheel thrown in for good measure) from the lighthouse her (great-great?) grandfather built. Mr. Burroughs was also appointed the first keeper.

Second, Hallelujah, I feel vindicated. Even centuries ago the mosquitoes and horseflies on steroids were causing people to swat the air and hop up and down like they didn't have any sense. It's not just me. Amen.

Third, Dear Blog Fest Attendees, be sure to bring armored tanks your strongest wine insect repellent.

Speaking of which, Blog Fest is less than two months away...

The Misadventures of Chesapeake Bay Woman

Once upon a time, Chesapeake Bay Woman needed photos of the New Point Lighthouse, commissioned by Thomas Jefferson two centuries ago--give or take some decades. But even though her camera was solidly perched on the railing at the New Point Lighthouse Observation Deck, her shaky zoom lens could only produce blurry pictures. And this was not good.

Chesapeake Bay Woman grew increasingly frustrated, because she could see a stretch of golden sand right there across a vast expanse of swamp marsh grass. The beach was way closer to the lighthouse and would require much less use of the zoom. However, that beach was not technically a part of the official New Point Observation Deck. And this, too, was not good.

For emphasis, she'd like to repeat that there was nothing but swamp, marsh and heavy vegetation between where she stood and that pristine piece of sandy heaven she so desperately sought.

Packing up her attitude camera, she trotted back to the car where she sat and stewed. She really needed a good shot of the lighthouse, but she did not own a tripod or a decent lens, nor did she have a clue any formal training in anything, much less how to properly use her camera in photography, so the only viable way to produce a decent picture given her skill set involved a closer vantage point.

Earlier driving in she noticed a path leading down to who knows where what appeared to be the exact pristine beach she sought. This same path, like the beach she sought, was not at all really a part of the official observation deck area, yet there was very little delineation between this area and the official observation area. In other words, since there were no signs stating otherwise, why not?

And now we have arrived at the accelerated, abbreviated, mathematical part of this story. The extended version would fill the Library of Congress a book.

Here's the equation:

1 Chesapeake Bay Woman, saturated with adrenaline, who needs closer proximity to the lighthouse because she doesn't know how to work her camera

plus

1 Unknown, very narrow path with 8-foot high reeds and swamp mud on either side

plus

1 heavy dose of standing water, mud, briars and fallen trees

plus

0 Knowledge of where the path lead

but

1 sincere conviction that it went to golden sand and a perfect vantage point for photographing the lighthouse

minus

1 Bit of common sense

plus

15,003 Inches of rain this week in a place that is already below sea level most days

plus

1 tombstone, an old one, lying on a tree stump right next to the path

plus

1 Near heart attack, and more and more difficulty making it through the mud and rising water

plus

3 more tombstones ensconced in briars, barely visible from the so-called "path"

plus

1 Recollection of someone telling me about a haunted cemetery except this could not possibly be the same one ...or could it?

equals

1 About face and a sprint out of there that would have broken the sound barrier, if not for the fact that her tennis shoes were soaking wet and she was up to her ankles in mud, plus her ears were being pierced by briars.

plus

0 decent shots of the lighthouse. Still.

The End.

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p.s. Come back tomorrow for a picture of one of the unexpected tombstones and a much shorter post.