May 17 2007
Road Trip Through The Overberg - Dassiesfontein
[Monday April 30, 2007]
It’s time for a Road Trip - the kind of road trip where you’re open to possibilities and you’re not quite sure where you’ll find yourself so you pack a toothbrush just in case.
Shirley wants me to see more of the beauty of Western Cape and she plans a road trip. She and Laverne will be driving along the smaller roads through and area called the Overberg.
Shirley plots out a beautiful route and is navigating, Laverne is behind the wheel and I’m in the back.
We head out in the early morning and stop at Dassiesfontein, a thatch-roofed general store-restaurant with chickens running around outside and selling really different…stuff inside.
Laverne is in the mood for some old-fashioned porridge and makes herself comfortable in the farm-style dining room. Shirley and I wander around the meandering store which is not so much a store as a giant attic with piles of “antique” plates, bowls, and signs, leather goods and freaky stuff.
Yeah…freaky stuff. Freaky like garden gnomes.
Freaky like…Crocs.
You can run to the far corners of the earth but you can’t hide from … CROCS.
I manage to leave Dassiefontein with nothing more than a set of postcards and we’re back on a winding 2-lane road through the countryside.
The Overberg is a beautiful patchwork quilt: Velvety soft greens, corduroy brown, and wooly tans.
The skies are unbelievable, an incredible soft blue with these white flat-bottomed clouds that make me want to float in clear blue waters so I can somehow be a part of that wide blueness.
Unfortunately, I do tend to doze off when I’m a passenger in a car. I doze off and become a Question Mark - my chin tucks in, my head drops down and I lean slightly forward in a very uncomfortable-looking position and I can hear what is going on and may even answer questions but really, I am asleep.
Despite being rested, I doze off on an until we reach the town of Napier where we have lunch at Pascal’s Bistro.
Laverne and Shirley know Daniele Pascal and tell me she is a French chanteuse that sings in the style of Edith Piaf. They add that we’ll be hearing her sing the following Saturday.
I have a roasted vegetable salad while both Shirley and Laverne enjoy the richer chicken liver salad. I like chicken livers but not a big pile of them. Laverne has a sly sense of humor and when our waiter comes by, she says to him, “May I ask you a personal question?” He is understandably alarmed by the glint in eye but all she asks is, “Do you have good coffee?”
He replies that the coffee is very good and both she and Shirley order a cappuccino. I’m coffee’d out and stick with water. Their cappuccinos arrive in foamy perfection and my friends agree that it’s the best cappuccino they’ve had.
We’re fortified and ready to hit the road.
Our next stop…the southern-most point of Africa!
Why do you low-res AND cover your face in all of your photos? Why not just do one or the other?
HMTKSteve: I used to just cover my face and then I noticed that on XP, the thumbnail version would show my unaltered photo! Yes, it would be a tiny photo but for whatever reason, XP showed the original shot.
It doesn’t do this when I convert to gif and of course I have to reduce the image size for loading and fitting into my theme.
I am not sure what you mean by only doing low-res - I mean, you’d still see my face.
My friends laugh and ask me why I bother erasing and then re-drawing my face telling me I look like my drawings. Hmm.
I don’t have any fancy image software. I use the old MS Paint program! Sometimes it’s a bit of a hassle to erase my face but the results usually amuse me. I sometimes see myself as a bit of a cartoon character (short, embarrassing, easily lost) so why not go with it.
For some strange reason I’m reminded of something.
Ever notice that when you surprise a naked man he covers his groin area and then heads for cover. Yet, when you surprise a naked woman she covers her face and then heads for cover?
It’s almost as if the man is feeling vulnerable so he protects his dangly bits while a woman is simply embaressed and covers her face in the hopes that you wont recognize her?
Now, I don’t often startle naked people (and have not done so in years) but it was a fairly common occurance when I was in the Army and had roommates.
HMTKSteve: I can actually follow your logic and how my “geisha face” as a friend calls it made you think about the differences between how a man reacts to being caught naked and how a woman reacts.
It’s been a long time since I’ve startled anyone naked, much less a man. I believe men do cover their groin but women will either cover their breasts or their face. I am sure I’ve been startled and I think I’m a chest-coverer as I think face-covering is pointless.
No pun intended.