In which Daisy and Jazzy Discover the Curse of the Island

So, have I mentioned that my car hates Assateague? Jazzy is a pretty ten-year old red civic with NSS bats on her butt. She had to be a J, because that was her first license plate. She's been my only car, and I'm pretty affectionate, especially since we cover a lot of miles together between all my homes dotted up and down the East Coast. And now I'm asking her to take me West. She's game, but wants new windshield wipers first. Driving her is like reading the wind on a sailboat; you can feel her roar when she wants a gear up, and groan when she'd rather go down. After all this time, I'm loath to even touch an automatic - they have no life, no opinions! Jazzy has plenty of opinions, especially when it comes to playing CD's when it's cold out.

She also has strong views on the visitors to Assateague Island National Seashore. Sorry, general public, but you drive like shit when you're on vacation.

I have worked two summers at this park, and been hit twice by clueless visitors reading maps instead of the road (at no fault of my own, I might add. I work here, so I'm not about to drive poorly). Last summer, I was coming to a stop in the center lane in front of the entrance booth, and the woman next to me decided to try pulling a U-turn directly through the side of my stopped car. I'm not sure why exactly that seemed like it might work, but let me assure you, it did not. I had just truly left home permanently on my own to an unknown place for the first time, and I had never been in any kind of car accident before, so I freaked. So, I'm bawling while attempting to remain calm and move the cars out of the road and make sure no one was injured, and then the Ranger, Brittany, needed my registration and I had no idea what piece of paper that is, and the lady gouged open my tire, and I had never changed one before (it's really straight-forward), and I basically felt like a five-year-old trying to live on her own. My sister came to visit from DC to help me sort out the mess of insurance and repairs, and Jazzy was finally back to her shiny, reliable self after much confusion and a ten-mile bike ride to pick her up at the shop. Needless to say, I learned from the experience, but wasn't hoping to repeat it.

But I came back anyway, and this island hates my car.

So, I'm driving back home from a night of camping on the beach, and a raccoon starts crossing the open road two hundred yards ahead of me. As far as I'm concerned, the park belongs to the wildlife, road or no road, and I have no desire to get raccoon guts on my tires, so I slowly start breaking, hit my hazard flashers, and come to a stop over nearly two hundred yards. All my precautions are in vain, however, because the car behind me has four teenage boys in it, and I guess something funny happened or whatever. Anyway, boom. I was pretty peeved for a few seconds, but I'm hardly a combative person, and shit happens (and it's not like they tried to drive through my car from a complete stop, as did the lovely lady from last year). They were nice kids, and came to see if I was alright and what was dripping out of my car, and I called down to the ranger station for help. The irony did not escape me: "hey it's daisy... again. I got hit by a visitor... again." Why am I the only ranger this happens to?

So Walt and Brittany came down to write up a report for me. Brittany came up to my window and asked "wasn't this you last year?" and then "maybe you should get a new job." No kidding.

This time, I didn't cry or fumble with the papers. It may not have been the ideal experience for the morning, but, honestly, I wasn't terribly bothered. I called the insurance company, and they just came today to do the estimate on my gal. She'll go into the shop at John's Auto Body in the next few days if everything goes as planned (I'll have to delay getting her fixed if they need three weeks... I'm leaving Maryland soon), and be good as new. And Walt told me the 17-year-old boy who was driving, clinched his official written testimony with a report that he had seen the raccoon cackling evilly as it walked away. That cracked me up.

I guess Jazz and I have grown up a bit in the past year. Confidence aside, though, she really doesn't want to come back next summer.

I might make her though. And cover her in entire perimeter with bumper buoys.

(Nearly all the Candleberry House cars are red!)

Ps: If you ever need car repairs on the Eastern Shore, John and Jackie at John's Auto Body in Berlin are fantastic and really talented. Go them.

In which Daisy throws a Party on the internet

I'm getting this thing started. Pump up the volume.

Basically I am a twenty-year-old wandering naturalist with a year off of school and a terrible history of communication, so I'm putting a few of the adventures down in the pixels for those that care to read. I don't plan on being a famous travel blogger, so this mainly for my friends to know what I'm up to. Hi, friends!

I'm starting this on September 15, 2009, and I'll fill in the backlog of awesome stuff that's happened recently and then go from here. Sadly, my life is not all drama and intrigue all the time, so you may have to actually like me in order to enjoy this. If I told you about it, that probably means I like you, so there's a complement.

So I'm off to figure out where I belong in this little slice of the world that is my life, and I'll keep you updated!

Love for all,
Daisy

In which Daisy encounters a Vampire Horse

Today I was stationed at the front desk pretty much all day. Turns out it wasn't all that boring though. About 10 o'clock Liz comes downstairs from the craft room with one of the cardboard rolls from the commercial toilet paper rolls (the huge ones) and basically tell me to brainstorm. Maybe you didn't know, but I adore brainstorming. Thank you, PLATO. We have a million of these things, and we need to entertain several hundred kids with crafts for Coast Day coming up this Saturday. Joan, the volunteer, and Renee from Eastern National were at the desk with me, and there were very few visitors in the Center because it's the first sunny day in forever, so everyone's out on the island. So, we got to it. I carried this toilet paper tube around with me for the next hour, turning it over and basically looking like a dork. Tube came along to feed the fish. Tube came along to turn the camping sign to "Vacancy". Tube swept sand from the beach combing room with me. Tube answered questions about surf fishing. Okay, the tube couldn't actually talk, but it was on my hand pretending to be a hermit crab shell while I talked about surf fishing. Here is the list I came up with:

Hermit crab
Sea anemone (Rene deserves credit for this)
Whelk, or shell complete with Feather Blenny poking out.
Whelk egg case (if cut into strips)
Puffer fish
Horse

I then made a field trip up to the craft room and raided everything that might be useful: popsicle sticks, dowels, pipe-cleaners, construction paper, clothes pins, goggly-eyes (you can never have enough googly-eyes in my profession), little foam balls, scissors. An the three of us set about deciding on a prototype. I started thinking about the hermit crab, and it would be pretty awesome as a hand puppet (fingers as claws!) but didn't really work with our craft supplies. The sea anemone would be adorable, but I decided to give the horse a try. After all, what child on Assateague Island wouldn't get excited about a horse? And let me tell you, this horse is the cutest thing to grace the National Park Service in years. It's belly is the infamous tube (which is perfect because of the salt-bloating), it has popsicle sticks for legs, a dowel for a neck, and a clothes pin as a head, complete with ears and a mouth. Joan and Jackie came up with the idea for matching pipe-cleaner manes and tails. This thing is win.


My prototype horse came with a price, though: a blood sacrifice a la the cave of the Slytherin locket (turns out everyone gets Harry Potter references in this generation.) That, or maybe I'm still four years old and can't be trusted with a pair of scissors. The funny thing is I didn't even notice that I managed to cut open the pad of my finger drilling holes in cardboard with a pair scissors until I realized that "my finger feels sticky". By then, there was already a nice blood-spot on the horse. So, I named him Vampire. Joan thinks he's too cute to be a blood-sucker and that I should call him Tubby. Tubby Bloodsworth, perhaps?

Any excuse is a good one to practice my First Responder certification, though. So, I wrapped that thing up in gauze and tape. Yeah, take that.

Anyway, Jess and I decided that if the Ranger had already annihilated a finger on this project, we had better do some prep work for the innocent children. So, she acquired a power drill and a box cutter from the maintenance crew, and we went to work. I know, right? I guess I didn't draw enough blood with the common scissors, so they gave me the power tools. Surprisingly, though, I am actually very good at using power tools, thanks to a year in the Brown Engineering lab, so no need to worry. Jess took care of that for you, anyway. Especially when, for lack of a clamp or a work table, I had to hold the tubes with my knees in order to drill them. I managed to drill ten small holes in each of 70 tubes without planting an 1/8th inch drill bit in my thigh. Yuck, talk about an unclean puncture wound. Oh well, what's a job without a little perilous adventure?

Tubby Bloodspot the Vampire Horse is a cutie, though, so the day was a certain success. Plus, I had a great time at the desk.

In which Daisy watches wind in the flag

We flew the flag at half-staff today. I can't believe it's been eight years when it still feels like last week.

I drove down the New Jersey Turnpike six days ago, and I remembered the last time I saw the towers. It was August, 2001, and I was coming home from Rhode Island to go back to school. After crossing the George Washington Bridge with my mom, I kept my eyes glued to the skyline for at least ten minutes. I remember thinking how amazing, how majestic, how cool they looked against the sky. To a twelve year old, downtown Manhattan was the center of the whole world, and I felt so lucky to be a part of it. So I looked, and I thought "so cool".

The next summer, driving home, they weren't there anymore.

I'm so glad my twelve-year-old self thought to look out the window. I still do it every time.

Never forget to take it all in. The world belongs to you, mountain cliffs and city skylines, so don't miss seeing it. We are all so lucky to be here.