Charles Apple

It’s true, unfortunately. Literally. My boot heels have wandered away from my boots themselves. Check it out:

Yes, that’s dry rot. That’s what happens when you live in a place where you use your snow boots maybe once every three or four years.

Ah, well. I bought those boots a month or so after I moved out of the South, 13 years ago last month. They lasted me through three Chicago winters, five Iowa winters and exactly one Virginia Beach snow, if I recall correctly. So it’s not like I didn’t get my use out of them.

I’m writing you from a hotel in Maryland, however, an hour or so east of snowbound Baltimore. The question is: Will I be able to make it to and from my meetings today and get on my way back home to the sunny South before my feet freeze or before I slip and bust my ass.

But I’m getting ahead of myself…

While they got a foot or so of white stuff just up the road in Richmond, we got the lightest of dustings overnight in Virginia Beach.

The governors of Virginia, Maryland and Delaware declared portions of their states disaster areas late Saturday or early Sunday and begged travelers to stay off the roads. In fact, I-95 between Hampton Roads and Washington was completely choked off where trucks had difficulty scaling steep hills.

So I elected to drive up the Eastern Shore of Virginia and through the “Delmarva” region, which was reportedly not hit as hard as the region to the west.

The first step, of course, was to cross the famous, 23-mile-long Chesapeake Bay-Bridge Tunnel that connects Hampton Roads with Virginia’s Eastern Shore.

In case you’re wondering, one-way toll for an automobile on the Bridge Tunnel is $12. If you come back within 24 hours, your return trip is only five bucks.

As you can see, it was sunny with very few clouds when I set out a little after 10 a.m. Sunday.

You can see the southbound lane, across the way.

See the support beams beneath the roadway? Those are tripod-like pilings. There are a total of 5,114 of these on the Bridge-Tunnel.

The Bridge-Tunnel consists of enormous raised causeways, a huge bridge and two relatively short tunnels beneath the Chesapeake Bay’s primary shipping lanes. From the south, you first come to a man-made island that contains a modest rest area, gift shop and restaurant.

Which, naturally, is closed.

There didn’t seem to be many renovations going on. Frankly, I’m not sure I believe it. I suspect they shut down the joint in order to save money.

This huge sign outside the gift shop explains the Bridge-Tunnel system. Click for a larger view.

Behind the gift shop is a fishing pier, which is open around the clock. I didn’t walk out there because a) I was pressed for time, and b) it was cold and windy as hell.

The pier is still open but hey, some restrictions apply.

A number of signs explain the typical shipping in the area. This one shows different types of vessels seen in the Chesapeake Bay. Click any of these signs for a larger view.

Naturally, much of this information focuses on the U.S. Navy — the East Coast fleet of which is based in Norfolk. Therefore, many, many Navy ships pass through these channels.

This one is a cool guide to all the ships based in Norfolk:

Alas, no submarines or aircraft carriers passed my way during the few minutes I braved the icy wind of the observation area. This is looking south, back toward Virginia Beach.

To the Southwest, I could see a large container ship rounding the bend of Cape Henry.

Here’s a zoomed-in view. The two large spikes on the right are the fraternal twin lighthouses of Cape Henry on the northeastern tip of Virginia Beach:

And, naturally, one can look off the northern tip of the island toward the opposite man-made island, where the bridge-tunnel resurfaces, one mile away:

Below my feet, cars zoom into the mouth of the first of two tunnels, headed north toward the Eastern Shore, Maryland and lots of snow.

Finally, fingers frozen and camera batter dying, I climbed back into my trusty Deerslayer and headed into the tunnel myself.

Like I said, there are only two of these and each spans only a mile or so. Not nearly as impressive as it sounds, when you first hear of a ginormous 23-mile long thing.

After I passed through the second tunnel, I came to the high-rise North Channel Bridges on the system’s north end.

It looks like my sun roof is open here, but it’s not really. It was way too cold outside for that.

Here, my trusty Deerslayer pauses for a well-earned rest upon completion of the Bay Bridge-Tunnel.

While I was in South Africa, my wife lipped the front end over a concrete parking barrier. When she backed out, it ripped part of my front end. I don’t think it’s in any danger of falling off. But just in case, Sharon patched it up Friday night with some red-colored duct tape:

it’s not elegant. But it’ll get me by until I have a thousand bucks or so to spend on a real repair. Sigh…

I had seen no snow at all on the ground in Virginia Beach. On the Eastern Shore, however, I saw my first small clumps of flurries in front of the southbound toll booth.

Eighty-five miles or so later, when I stopped at the Maryland welcome center, I noticed the ground cover had become a little more consistent.

So far, I had seen just about what I had expected. And, naturally, the roads were nice and clear. U.S. 13 was filled with small towns and stop lights and light traffic, so I wasn’t making the kind of time I’d make on an interstate. But at least I was moving.

It was at lunch, just before I crossed into Maryland, that I felt like somthing was hanging on the bottoms of my boots. It turned out to be my boots themselves.

I hadn’t used my old snow boots in three or four years. In fact, I had to go all the way up into the attic Saturday night to pull them out for this trip. I was amazed to find the soles disintegrating as the morning went on.

Unless I was willing to dig through my suitcase for my sneakers — and I was not — I’d just have to live with my heels flopping around. I gritted my teeth and pretended not to notice all the people noticing my boots.

It wasn’t until I entered Delaware that I ran into icy roads. I checked the state’s Department of Transportation site before I left home and found that only two Delaware counties had been declared disaster areas. That didn’t sound too bad, I figured.

But then I dug a little further and discovered that there are only three counties in Delaware to begin with. The entire northern two-thirds of the state was under traveler’s advisories. D’oh!

I stopped for a rest room break at a McDonald’s just as I was entering the Dover metro area. The parking lot really hadn’t been scraped properly. In fact, the car in front of me actually got stuck and had to spin its wheels in order to get through the lot.

I sloshed through the slush to get in and out of the Deerslayer. Luckily, my leaky boots didn’t leak too badly. Yet.

As I progressed through town, the snow on either side of the road got higher and the piles of scraped snow got very high. Suddenly, I was reminded of my days living up north.

Like I said, I spent three years in Chicago and five years in Iowa, so driving in this stuff isn’t really a problem for me. Don’t speed and give yourself plenty of stopping distance. If you feel yourself losing traction, drop down to a lower gear. Most of all, though, don’t follow the car in front of you too closely.

It is a little daunting, though, when the pile of snow is as tall as the car in front of you.

I might add that not a lot of this stuff melted over the course of Sunday. It just wasn’t warm enough. The temperature on my car’s exterior thermometer never went over 35 degrees all day long.

In Dover, I switched from U.S. 13 — which I had been on since Virginia Beach — to state highway 1, the Korean War Veterans Highway. Which is a toll road, but a much faster trip than U.S. 13. I shelled out another two dollars and dropped the hammer, finally.

A quick side note: All the exit numbers seemed, oddly, to be a little different from what I’d normally expect. When I checked the Wikipedia entry for Delaware’s Route One, however, I discovered this was because the exits are numbered by kilometers, rather than miles like on most American highways.

Very odd. But that explains it.

This is the picturesque bridge that carries highway 1 over the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal.

It was about this time that the sun set. The temperature — hovering just above freezing — would drop pretty quickly now.

And I still had another 50 or 60 miles to go. Ruh-roh…

The next task was to basically go to Wilmington and then hang a left to head south on I-95. However, I didn’t really need to go all the way into Wilmington. My planned route cut the corner a bit by slicing through the southwestern suburbs a bit. And there, I ran into quite a few roads that hadn’t been scraped. I slipped and slid around on state road 72 and U.S. 40. It wasn’t anything I coudln’t handle, though.

It was after 5 p.m. that I finally turned onto I-95 south, toward Baltimore. Which, it turned out, was a toll road.

In all, my toll total for the day:

Cheapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel: $12
Delaware State Road 1, booth No. 1: $2
Delaware State Road 1, booth No. 2: $2
Interstate 95 south: $4
Total: $20

It was about 5:45 — but well after dark — when I pulled into my hotel, a Marriott Courtyard Inn near Aberdeen, Md.

The driveway from the interstate to the hotel was very slick and very steep. I was awfully surprised it hadn’t been scraped. Perhaps it explains why there are so few people staying here in the hotel.

My room is very, very nice. You can’t see it here, but there is a minor-league baseball stadium right outside my window: Ripken Stadium, home of the Aberdeen Ironbirds, a single-A affiliate of the nearby Baltimore Orioles.

Here it is, just before 7 a.m. this morning (click for a larger view):

On the other side of the hotel: A little-league baseball complex. Here’s the view from the back door of the lobby, near the elevators:

Whoever dreamed up this place is a freakin’ sports genius.

Cal Ripken, I’m told, is part owner of the minor-league team. Which explains, perhaps, why practically the entire hotel is a shrine to the guy. In the hallway, I found prints of microfilm pages of the Baltimore Sun, from key points in Ripken’s career:

This is one seriously ugly chart on this page:

This charts Ripken’s performance during his rookie year. Months are listed from April at the top to October at the bottom. The balls on the right show home runs. The bats on the left are bar charts. The length of the bat indicates Ripken’s batting average that month.

The fact that you can’t tell any difference, visually, in those bats explains, in part, why you never should draw a bar chart of batting averages. Unless the values are dramatically different.

I sat in this green chair last night, uploading my photos and drinking a few beers while I watched the Panthers beat up on the Vikings:

A big, evil pile of snow lurked just behind me, laughing at my boots.

My task today: Have a nice meeting with a group of folks here in Maryland. And, when I’m done, head back home.

My choice will be whether to head back the way I came or to go back on the more familiar I-95 through Baltimore, D.C., Fredericksburg and Richmond. I expect that route to be clear by this afternoon, but I also would expect to run into a huge amount of traffic in D.C. I’m betting I’ll be better off going back via the Eastern Shore, despite the fact I’ll pass through the Bridge-Tunnel well after dark.

Luckily, my Christmas shopping is all done. Not much is wrapped, but at least it’s all bought. So once I get home, at least I can avoid the mall crowd.

So when I left you last – nearly 24 hours ago — I was preparing to board a huge South African Airways jet bound for Washington’s Dulles airport.

Although we had already passed through security, we passengers were pushed through yet another checkpoint at the gate. This is because U.S. requirements are so much tighter than those of other countries, we were told.

Problem is, it’s a big plane. With lots of passengers. And there aren’t nearly enough guards to make this an efficient process. So the line grows to enormous proportions.

Somehow, I actually got pulled aside for a patdown and a carry-on spotcheck. I enjoyed the patdown — hell, some people pay good money for stuff like this. But when the guard opened my carry-on bag, he took one look at the crap I had tossed in there, rolled his eyes and zipped it back up. So much for security.

This was the front of my plane:

About where the A straddles the windows — that’s where I was sitting.

And, yes, the aircraft had wings and engines, too:

Once again, my clients sprang for a business class seat. Man, these things are comfortable. And that comfort multiplied when no one showed up to take the seat next to me.

A row to myself!WooHOO!

As you can see there, the first thing I do is pull off my shoes and change into my travel slippers. They might look goofy, but they’re very comfy.

Our flight was delayed another half-hour, though, when two passengers didn’t board. Their luggage had been checked and loaded, the captain explained. So they had to go into the hold, track down the bags and remove them from the plane.

Once we got off the ground, the entire country of South Africa got together and offered me a wonderfully generous going-away present: The most incredible sunset.

My nice Canon Digital Rebel was packed away, so I had to shoot these with my “backup” camera, Sharon’s Kodak EasyShare. Take my word for it, the actual colors were much more vivid than this.

I had been telling everyone I had a 16-hour flight from Johannesburg to D.C. but I was mistaken — it was more like 19 hours, including an hour on the ground in Dakar to refuel and to change crews.

I read an entire book — Born Standing Up, an autobiography of comedian Steve Martin. Plus, I watched two movies: G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra (which sucked) and Land of the Lost (which sucked slightly less, but only slightly).

And I got some sleep. A lot of sleep, actually. Which was fabulous.

We arrived in D.C. 20 minutes early. Going through passport control was much easier this time than it had been in September, mostly because of the new luggage Sharon bought me.

Richard Curtis — who retired from USA Today a year ago this month — met me at the airport for breakfast.

It was great to see him again. He was the last guy I saw when I left, too. I’m very lucky that Richard bookended my trip for me.

I’m writing from gate A1, surely the grungiest of all the gates here in Dulles.

At least it’s not crowded this time.

And normally, it’s quite warm in here. It’s rather chilly at the moment. Probably because it’s December and I’m wearing short sleeves. I only brought one jacket — a sport coat — and it’s in my checked bags. Which, at this very moment, are either being loaded on my plane or on a plane for Timbuktu. Even money on which.

I’ll be in Norfolk by 1:20. And man, am I looking forward to seeing Sharon and Elizabeth.

So my last day In Johannesburg was relatively uneventful. I blogged last at mid-afternoon, I believe. I spent the latter half of the day packing two months’ worth of crap into my suitcases:

I had intentionally left quite a bit of space so I could carry stuff back. Although it looks quite bulky here, I’m glad to report it all fit with plenty of room to spare.

Granted, the books were heavy. But at least they fit.

Here, the Telkom tower in Hillbrow peers through the window and into my mirror as I pack:

And, from the window of my hotel room, here is the tower itself, catching the final rays of Sunday — Day 61 of my stay here in South Africa:

Sunday evening, I drove over to the home of Tarina Coetzee, one of my very friendly hosts here in Johannesburg. She threw a party at her home to commemorate my time here.

We sat around a table out by her backyard pool. Which looked awfully inviting. I kind of wish I had “fallen” in.

One of Tarina’s three cats knows exactly how to use that big pool:

I’m telling you, that’s a big cat. He makes my own fat cat back home, Bones, look like… well, skin and bones.

Business artist Elsolet Joubert showed up with her her husband. She gave me a parting gift from her and another artist, Anton Vermeulen — a beautiful scarf woven with the colors of the South African flag.

Also there was Jaco Visser, the very capable editor who wowed me with his eagerness to research and write some of the wonderful huge megagraphic ASFs we’ve been running in the business section the past couple of months.

Adri Van Zyl was there. She’s a business reporter who worked with Elsolet on a nice big piece that ran Sunday.

And my pal Lauren Thys, a copy editor, came as well. She’s been pulling double duty lately, working her usual job in biz while also working Saturdays for the sports section.

I posted a number of photos of her the day of the big rugby game — most of them were of the back of her head.

And then, here’s Tarina. She went way, way out of way a number of times during my two months here, picking me up at the airport, loaning me a cell phone, chasing down medication when I found myself struck with hay fever.

We had a ball Sunday night. I can’t thank everyone enough.

So Monday, I slept in a little later and finished packing my bags. Note the GPS unit, still in its little blue bag. I’ve taken it out only once — and that was to photograph it for the blog.

Getting to the airport was a breeze. So was checking in — as opposed to the huge lines I endured coming back from Cape Town a couple of weeks ago.

I went down to the enormous food court here at O.R. Tambo Airport…

…parked myself at Spur and had a nice steak for lunch.

—
UPDATE

Man, this airport is nice. Just gorgeous. And they know how to move people around, quickly and efficiently. Just in time for the World Cup, too.

Click this montage for a much larger view:

Going through security and passport control was a breeze. I remember from last time, though, they’ll run us through another security gauntlet as we board our plane.

The gate areas here are lined with shops, stores and restaurants. Even the cheaper ones look upscale, which lends a classy touch to your whole experience here.

Hell, take out the gates and the security checkpoints and you’d have a damn nice mall here. I ducked into that store above to pick up a couple of last-minute Christmas presents for my nieces.

And I can’t stress strongly enough how soccer-crazy the entire country is in preparation for the World Cup next June. Here is an officially-licensed FIFA store, just waiting to suck rands out of your pocket:

Speaking of rands, I somehow ended up with an embarrassingly large amount in my own pocket… and stashed in various compartments of my briefcase. When I stopped by the newspaper this morning, I was given an envelope containing a fairly large amount of cash. Trouble was, I still have cash left over from the last time they reimbursed my expenses, a couple of weeks ago.

With no hope of spending that much in the six hours before I departed and with no way of depositing it into my bank account, I needed to to find a currency exchange to convert it all to U.S. dollars. Finding a place is easy in an international airport. But the amount worried me. And most of it was in small bills. My fear was that they’d think I was a drug dealer or something.

Luckily, they didn’t — as you can probably guess; most South African jails don’t have wifi, I’m told. I was on my way fairly quickly.

By this time, I was in a heavy sweat. Usually, a sign I’m dehydrated. Not good. So I stopped for a Coke Light, but decided I’d try a couple of these instead:

Yep, that’s Tab Cola. It was pretty much phased out in the U.S. in the early 1980s with the advent of Diet Coke. I like the taste of Tab much more than the South African Coke Light.

Unfortunately, they didn’t serve it cold. Arrrrgh!

As I write update this, I’m minutes away from boarding my plane. We depart at 6:10 p.m. Johannesburg time, which is 11:10 a.m. in Virginia Beach.

My flight schedule:

That six-hour layover in D.C. shouldn’t be too bad. It takes a while to go through U.S. passport control, I learned last time. Plus, I’m told I’ll have to check in for my flight to Norfolk to get a boarding pass.

Richard Curtis says he’ll meet me for breakfast in Dulles. He saw me off on my trip out, too. I’m looking forward to seeing him again.

I’ll see you guys Tuesday!

When my Excite news aggregator gives me this banner ad:

Wow! Immigrate to the U.S.! That’s a great idea! I think I’ll do that…

In fact, my plane for home leaves in a little less than 27 hours . No offense to my South African friends, but man, do I miss home.

This morning, I drove up to the Kodak shop at Cresta shopping center and made a few prints for the girls who have taken such good care of me down in the restaurant.

Now I’m packing and preparing to go to a party tonight.

A couple of weeks ago, Peter Ong took me to eat at his really cool restaurant located in the Melrose Arch area in the northern suburbs of Johannesburg. It’s called Moyo and specializes in authentic South African cooking.

It was pretty swell, but what really impressed me was Melrose Arch itself. It was an incredibly nice and well-designed shopping area. So with an entire weekend to kill and not much left on my to-do list, I drove back up there today to take a few pictures.

Even the underground parking deck was bright and cheerful.

Check out the nice lighting and the neon. These guys shelled out some big bucks on nice, upscale touches.

The place couldn’t have been here very long. The satellite view from Google Maps shows cleared land and construction.

But the place is extraordinary.

You can see the banner on the left in the picture below: “100 new shops open.” I thought this meant they had opened new shops. But, it turns out, it refers to all the shops.

The place is very, very secure. Wonderfully landscaped. The architecture adds flavor and atmosphere to the shopping and dining experience.

I was particularly taken with this place:

No, it’s not a restaurant like it is in the U.S. This is an office supply store.

Downstairs are retail and restaurants. Upstairs are offices. There is traffic on the through streets, but not a lot of traffic — entry into the area is tightly controlled.

The overhangs and the trees make for great sidewalk dining.

Here’s the open square area. Note the huge Christmas tree, which is quite impressive at night.

All the storefronts are lavishly decorated for the season, in fact.

Rather than the usual street musicians and beggars, Melrose Arch features professional-quality musicians roaming the streets, adding atmosphere.

Please add your own off-color comment here about a saxy musician.

There’s even a luxury hotel and a few upscale apartments around. Whoever designed this place did it right. Surely, this is what all urban-style developments will look like one day.

But right after I snapped that picture, I found the downside to the whole thing: Two enormous security guards chased me down and kicked me out of the place.

Now, this surprised me. I ran into trouble attempting to shoot the inside of a McDonald’s my first week here. But I’ve not had problems since then. Besides, this place has a hotel in the center of it. How do they police hotel guests who bring cameras with them?

And what will they do next June, when they will presumably have an influx of Americans and Europeans and Asians, all with cameras? Are they planning to kick them all out?

That’s what I asked the guards. They just shrugged and escorted me to the parking deck.

So I take back all the nice things I said about Melrose Arch. This place is a scuzzy dump! Who’d want to shop there?

That kind of put a damper on my enthusiasm for shooting more pictures. I went back to my own hotel and sulked most of the rest of the day.

My spirits were picked up — as they are each night, of course — by the very nice girls down in MacRib, the hotel restaurant. The manager, Charles, was off for the night. But the five folks on duty tonight were glad to pose for a picture.

On the left is Charity, who’s taken special care of me for the past few weeks. Next to her is Jesse, running the place tonight. To her left is Nothando, Thembi and Thembelani.

All five are from Zimbabwe, Charity tells me. And all five have waited on me a number of times. They all are bright, generous and fun.

They were dressed in soccer jerseys tonight in honor of guests who arrived tonight: The Generations Adidas team, made of MLS professional players from the U.S. Although they were dead tired — they just got off the plane a little while ago — the guys let me take their picture…

…meaning they’re a hell of a lot nicer than the folks at Melrose Arch. (By the way, click on that photo for a larger look.)

The team is here in touring South Africa, working out here and there, meeting folks and doing the tourist thing. Read a press release about their South African tour here. Find their home page here.

And that was my crazy Saturday. At least it wasn’t boring.

Sunday, my plans are to… aw, hell, I don’t have a clue. The challenge will be to make it interesting. But hopefully non-confrontational. Sunday night, a few folks are getting together to throw a small party on my behalf.

Monday, I fly home.