On the Road to Lake Anna

Jeff and I drove down to Lake Anna State Park to visit a friend today -- Anna is a man-made lake, dammed to provide coolant for a nuclear power plant. I did not know this until we entered the park and the first thing we saw was a sign informing all visitors that the Lake Anna Nuclear Plant is ten miles away, and in the event that you hear certain sirens and other sound effects, tune your radio to this emergency broadcast station and then kiss your ass good-bye. (Those weren't the exact words, but the meaning came through all the same.)

On the two-lane road leading to the state park we passed a few brick or stick-built houses and a much larger number of single- and double-wide trailers (on individual plots; not a trailer park). Most of those trailers were in decent, maintained shape, except for one ancient, rotting single-wide covered with enormous rust spots. I had ample time to study that trailer, because the road in front of it was temporarily blocked by a man backing a shiny new $40,000 Nissan SUV into its driveway. "Behold," I said to Jeff, "a maker of wise financial decisions."