The Great Expedition of 2011…now it can be told!

Greetings, Lovers of Adventure and Endeavour:

   My apologies for picking Kurt Vonnegut’s pocket for the title of this little missive. In a posting from last year, (click here to refresh your memory), we told you that Sparky and I had gotten separated from the main body of the Cousins Caravan during its return from Indianapolis. Our peregrinations in the Funmobile took a turn for the Homeric when we crossed paths with a long-lost associate, the renowned explorer Vasco da Gama.

I wanna innerjeckt at this junkchoor that we ain’t sure if he’s jus’ some guy what thinks he’s th’ ackchewal Vasco da Gama, er if it’s th’ reel’n genyuwine Vasco an’ he’s bin so lost fer so long that he ain’t run ackrost nobuddy who could tell him that it’s th’ 21^st Century already an’ he otta have bin dead now fer th’ better partuva half of a whole millennyum even.

Sparky

   All that is true, but when you’re around Vasco, it’s best not to ask questions of any kind. One question you definitely don’t ask Vasco under any circumstances is anything that sounds like “are you sure you know where you’re going?” Vasco has a habit of phrasing his answer to this question in very broad strokes…of a very sharp sword, that is.

   We encountered Vasco as we were traversing northern Ohio, within sight of Lake Erie and within hailing distance of the Michigan border.

 By that, he means we fish’d him outta th’ lake b’fore th’ cardboard box he wuz floatin’ in went down fer th’ third time.

Sparky

   Just so. Having accepted his offer to help us navigate our way home (and therefore not having accepted the business end of his sword—see above), we set off with Vasco on what proved to be rather more epic a voyage than was strictly called for under the circumstances. I quote, as evidence, from Vasco’s own log of the journey:

The last day of the month of Augusto, in The Year of our Lord One Thousand Four Hundred and Six Hundred and Eleven,

   We arrived-it at the fablèd city which is called of-it Toledo, which for it means that we are now in the Spain, and close therefore to my belovèd home of Portugal. How good it will be for to seeing-it of my lord and sovereign, Prince Henry the Navigator, to be to the telling to him of all the many lands which I have been for to claiming of them in his name as well as the name of me myself, the great Vasco da Gama.

The same day plus seven more, the same year exactly,

   One whole week it has for to have been gone by in this ‘Toledo’ city, and I am not for to seeing of it at all El Greco! This city is a liar, and does not know what it is or where it is at all, for this is not the city that is the Toledo of which I know it is in the Spain where it was last when I am for to finding it. I now must keel them all.

   The continued existence of Toledo, Ohio (Google it if you don’t believe me) is proof that we managed to dissuade Vasco from this particular momentary ambition.  I have no idea how Vasco latched onto the idea that he was ever going to meet Prince Henry the Navigator, who died before Vasco was even born, but that’s our Vasco for you. The latest edition of Uncle Fun and Sparky’s Radio Colouring Book that has been posted webside contains what purports to be one of his many presumably apocryphal adventures. Click on the blue letters you just saw; you know the drill, and don’t say you haven’t been well and duly warned.

Uncle Fun