My month in North Carolina

My take on North Carolina

where I went this month

North Carolina's land

It's a little hard to see the state's boundaries on this map because of its shape.  The southern boundary with South Carolina and Georgia is marked with a blue pen; the eastern boundary is the Atlantic Ocean; the northern boundary is mostly a straight line with Virginia; the western boundary is half forest land and is shared with Tennessee.

As I've mentioned before, North Carolina is really spread out.  It has almost exactly the same number of square miles as Arkansas, which should show how non-compact this state is.  That stretched shape meant I ran out of time to visit huge chunks of the state.  Also like Arkansas, North Carolina has a lot of mountainous areas, making road travel a bit of a challenge. 

This is a lovely state, and my guess is it's lovely at any time of year.  When I was there I had the summertime growth and green trees and so forth.  But NC also has a lot of deciduous trees so it's likely to have some great fall colors.  And it also has a lot of evergreens so it's likely to still be pretty in the winter.  

This state certainly has its fair share of mountains, what with the Appalachians running right up through the western side of it.  It also has a lot of farmland, and all the scenic attractions of a coastal plain.  The Outer Banks are an internationally known destination for vacations.  Someone I knew in Seattle took her vacation there each year with friends (okay, Seattle's not "international" but you get the idea).

North Carolina's people

Most of the people I met here were very nice, very pleasant folks. 

It seemed to me, as I was traveling, that NC cities had a lot of similarities with Georgia, so I did some checking.  And was very surprised to learn that though the 2 states have almost exactly the same populations (GA had 10.7 million to NC's 10.4 million at the 2020 census), the size of the cities were quite different.  Georgia's top 10 cities by size begin with Atlanta, of course, at 499,000 and end with Johns Creek (heard of that?) with 82,000.  North Carolina, on the other hand, started its top 10 with Charlotte at 875,000 and ended with Asheville at 95,000.  

The odd thing, though, was that Georgia's #2 city by size was Columbus with 207,000, while North Carolina had 6 cities larger - Fayetteville came in at #6 with 209,000.  In other words, the list of cities by population looked like NC was a hands-down winner in population but still came in behind GA overall.  And it also seemed odd that Atlanta - which anybody would agree is a large city - would have only a little more than half the population of Charlotte, NC.

Maybe what happened was that, with all the land that the mountains and farms take up in North Carolina, the population got squeezed into fewer population centers - hence the larger cities.  Compared with Georgia which is not only larger in size but also has a lot more habitable land, even with all its farms.

Driving in North Carolina

This is the license plate most of us see on an NC vehicle.

For the last few years, this version has also been
an official NC plate, and they're fairly popular..

The First In Freedom plate commemorates 2 historic events, one of which I accidentally stumbled on in Charlotte: the Mecklenburg Resolves, aka the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence in 1775.  The other is the Halifax Resolves in April 1776, which was a declaration of independence by the North Carolina Provisional Congress.  It was the first official such declaration among the American Colonies.  The Halifax Resolves preceded The Declaration of Independence by almost 3 months, so I'd say NC comes by its First in Freedom claim honestly.

Again like Arkansas, North Carolina has a general lack of major highways, which is challenging for road travel.  But the difference between Arkansas and North Carolina is that because Arkansas is compact, the major roadways have a better shot at reaching more parts of the state, while here they're more reliant on state/local roads.

In general, I found North Carolina's roads to be in pretty good shape, which is just as well since they're so important to transportation here.  

And in general, I found NC's drivers to be fairly safe, and they ran the gamut from very considerate and helpful to pretty rude.  Still, I never got tailgated and the most unsafe behavior I found were the drivers who pulled out slowly right in front of me.  Not a good situation but not bad compared with the driving in some other states.

What I wanted to see that I missed

I mentioned quite a few places in the daily posts, but there were others I'd hoped to see but ran out of time for.  In the far northeastern corner, Elizabeth City, which I passed through, is home to the largest US Coast Guard station in the country.  They also have a lot of boats in the Dismal Swamp Canal, which runs up to the Dismal Swamp.  That straddles southern Virginia and northern NC, and I'd have liked to visit - with a name like that, it's got to be interesting.

A little farther south, on the Outer Banks, I'd really wanted to get down to Cape Hatteras, where the lighthouse is the tallest in the US.  Its light was originally lit with whale oil.  Some current concerns are shore erosion as climate change is affecting ocean patterns - the lighthouse has already been moved once, in 1999, thanks to the effects of erosion.  That's something I think I should get to while it's still there, but I was apparently in North Carolina at the wrong time of year and no campgrounds were available anywhere near there.

In Raleigh, I would have liked to visit some of the state's museums - specifically the history museum and the art museum, which includes a Botticelli and works by Rubens and Titian.  I spent enough time in the area that I could have done it, but I was having a hard time getting myself pulled together and failed to take advantage of the time I had.

I know I sounded like a broken record about all those barbecue places I missed, but there were many more I'd hoped to get to and didn't that I didn't mention.  For instance, Lexington seems to be acknowledged as the hub of bbq in NC, and I'd planned to get there at least as a side trip, and just didn't make it.  It's almost due south of Winston-Salem, about halfway between Charlotte and Greensboro.  I'd intended to swing by there when I went to Statesville, but I ended up being in a hurry then, kind of racing from Wilmington through Charlotte to Statesville because I couldn't find anywhere to stop in between.  And it was in the Statesville campground that I had those strange electrical power problems that just threw me completely for a loop, and instead of staying in the area a couple of days, I raced over to Asheville.  So I missed Lexington's trove of barbecue joints.

In Hickory, the Furniture Discovery Center shows the steps in making furniture.  About 60% of all US-made furniture comes from a 200-mile radius centered on Hickory/High Point, and I'd have liked to spend more time here.

My conclusion

I guess I'm ambivalent about North Carolina.  On the one hand, I enjoyed my time here and wish I'd had longer.  On the other hand, I kept finding places that reminded me of my sister Louise, reminding me that the pain of a loss will diminish with time but never really goes away.  And on the one hand I found many places that were comfortable and beautiful here, while on the other hand I got tired of how thoroughly rural this state is, despite its numerous large cities.

North Carolina is a beautiful state with very pleasant people and as laid-back an attitude as the conservative end of the spectrum can take.  And it certainly has mountains and ocean and rivers and forests - and large cities and small towns - I guess North Carolina could make the case that it has a sample of just about everything.

North Carolina - Day 22 - in Murphy campground

Murphy/Peace Valley KOA
Sunday, 23 through Monday, 31 July 2023

I was here for 9 days, getting myself pulled together after my travels through North Carolina and getting prepared for the drive down to Texas.

During this week+, I made 3 trips into the towns of Murphy and Andrews.  On one trip I went to a local tire place, where the guy discovered this piece:

I think this originally held one of the mud flaps,
though those have mostly disintegrated over the years (and miles).

It was hanging down where it shouldn't have been, so it's no wonder I was hearing a not-good noise from my tire.  He checked the tire itself for me and said it seemed fine to him, as best he could tell without putting it up on a jack, which he didn't have.  He suggested I take it down the road to another place that did trucks.

I went down there - about 10 miles out of town - and showed this piece to the guy there, who said my tires all looked fine to him.  So I guess they're fine.  That was at a tiny town called Mineral Bluff - so small it isn't even on the AAA map.  But this tire place was very busy and was apparently trusted locally, which is a good enough recommendation for me.

One day I stopped at the Murphy post office to pick up mail that David and Anna sent me.  The first woman I talked to there said she couldn't find it, so I went out to the RV, got the tracking number and brought it back in.  That time the young man found it almost instantly.  Don't know if it was their system or if the woman was having a bad day, but I was glad David had bothered with a tracking number.

One day I took Dext to get a bath, only to find that the city had shut off the water in that area for the morning.  They rescheduled Dext's bath for the next morning and, despite the nuisance of 2 trips, I was glad to do whatever it took to clean him up.  It was really nice to have him de-dirt-ed - even though it won't last long (he tries hard to see to that).

On one trip I took the kittens to the vet in Andrews to get their claws clipped and they (the kittens) were ghastly.  It was one of those times when I was glad I wasn't the one doing the clipping.  They weighed 8.6 pounds each - still growing.

I saw a sign in town: "To the guy who invented zero - Thanks for nothing."

I stopped once at the county landfill, which doubles as the recycling center.  At least, they claim they send the stuff to recycling, though everything looks so grubby that I'm not sure I believe them.

We stopped once at the highway rest area in Andrews where we've stopped several times before.  And we went twice to the Murphy River Walk, where Dext and I've been several times also.  This time I brought my camera so I could take a photo of that snake someone had made of painted rocks with googly eyes.  But so sad! it wasn't there any more.  Instead, someone had painted the head blue, the eyes and tongue were gone, and all the other rocks were painted multiple colors.  Very colorful but no longer a snake.  I was really disappointed.

During this period I also got a lot of chores done - housecleaning, cleaning the windows, laundry and like that.  Latches on several of the outside compartments have been sticking, especially the flap for the waste tanks and the one that covers my power cord.  Both pretty important for comfortable living, and this week I finally got around to WD-40ing them.  Amazing what a little lubricant can do to improving our lives.

I got several more blog posts finished and published, bringing me up to Day 8, which I got half done.

One of the more time-consuming chores was figuring out what route I was going to take when I leave here and getting the directions written down.  I'd already made the reservations, of course,  This trip I planned to take mostly Google's ideas of the fast route, though I countermanded some of their alleged shortcuts.  The campgrounds I'd reserved were spaced fairly far apart ("far" meaning 4 or 5 hours per Google, which is more like 7 to 9 hours for me).  I planned some stops for dog parks and grocery stores here and there, but otherwise just aimed to get where I was going without sightseeing.

One night at bedtime we suddenly got a lot of thunder and rain.  Dext got scared and wouldn't stay in his bed - he just wanted to be near me.  I couldn't bring myself to sleep on the floor with him but did pull one of his beds over to the space by the bathroom, and that's where he spent the night.

He was still there when I woke up and he looked really comfortable.  By our usual walking time of 4:00 he didn't even want to open his eyes - I guess he'd been vigilant for most of the night.  Since it was raining and I knew he didn't like that, I decided to wait on the walk.  Made coffee - and he still didn't want to go.  Fixed breakfast for everybody - and he got up for that.  So I moved his bed back to where it belonged, not least because it had been blocking access to the closet and bathroom.  Finally at 6:30 the rain stopped and he was willing to go out.  Strange night.

Not to be outdone, the kittens woke me up at 2:30 one morning with a very strong poop smell.  That was the 2nd time in 4 days.  So once again I didn't get enough sleep.  And I don't know how to break this cycle.  The kittens and I don't really communicate complex thoughts well.

My back/ribs continued to improve.  All very gradual but still noticeably better.  I'm starting to be able to cough and blow my nose again without serious pain, and those turn out to be very handy abilities.

The Murphy KOA is in a valley, and while it's easy to find level places to walk, one of the routes Dext and I take a couple of times a day involves a fairly steep hill.  I noticed we'd both gotten out of shape after staying in fairly small, fairly flat campgrounds for the last couple of weeks, so I was glad our bodies were getting pushed a bit.

I called my friend Paula in Albuquerque.  She's having some serious health problems, but it sounds like she's getting good medical care.  And she's lucky that her husband Bruce is (completely unlike my husband) willing to do anything he can to support her.  Despite her difficulties, she always asks about my situation - not just about the traveling but especially about how it's registering with me.  And she always has good insights.

I don't know if I've already published these photos or not, so in case I haven't, here are The Marauders.  That's Jimmy on the bed, and Bucky emerging from his cocoon.

North Carolina - Day 21 - back to Murphy

Murphy/Peace Valley KOA, Marble

Saturday, 22 July 2023

today's route

We left the campground soon after 8:00 and by 8:30 we'd found a PetsMart in Asheville.  Murphy, where we were headed, is too small for really well-stocked stores, and Asheville is the nearest large city (354,000 residents).  So I tried to load up on supplies before we went west.

From there we went once again to the French Broad River dog park - still nobody else, though I thought there might be on a Saturday morning.

I saw a bumper sticker that read "Hall/Oates '04."  Sounds good to me.  Even the part about going back to 2004 when life seemed simpler.

On US-74 I saw a sign saying "Slow Moving School Buses Use This Highway."  Reminds me of one I saw a couple of weeks ago about farm equipment.

At Waynesville 2 cars pulled out so closely in front of me that I had to brake.  Then suddenly, with no signal, they both put on their brakes to turn right.  I couldn't change lanes and had to do some serious braking to avoid a real mess.  In this area, US-74 is more than a highway - it also functions almost like a residential street in some places.  I imagine local folks don't think anything about pulling out in front of traffic, acting as if the speed limit were 30 mph like in a town.  But I was going highway speed, and I'm driving a large vehicle with a lot of momentum behind me.  With folks like these, leaving a safe following distance is a pipe dream - they don't allow it.

Further along, 2 more cars and a biker did the same thing.  Were they all hung over from partying on a Friday night?

I crossed the Tuckasegee River.  I really like these names.

It's odd that I've driven this road several times recently and still see things I haven't seen before.  This time I saw more signs about hill gradients: 3 said 7% slope, 2 said 6% slope, and 1 warned of 5% slope.  This road is very hilly (duh) and winding and really beautiful this time of year.  I'm guessing it's pretty any time of year, even after trees lose their leaves because the woods here are a mix of evergreens and deciduous trees.

I crossed the Little Tennessee River.  This river starts in Georgia, runs through North Carolina, and winds up in Tennessee.  This river, like the Tuckasegee, flows northwest, which seems odd to me until I remember that 2 days ago I crossed the Eastern Continental Divide.

At the town of Bryson City, a sign told me it was the "Home of the 2013 Freestyle Kayaking Competition."  This seemed improbable and almost incomprehensible, so I looked it up.  And it's a fact.  In 2013 Bryson City hosted the world championship kayaking competitions in 8 different categories.  The scene for all this was the Nantahala Gorge, which I soon came to along the road.

The gorge is 8 miles deep, and this road runs right alongside for part of the way.  And it's that 8 mile depth that was the reason for all those 7% etc. downhill slopes.  There are multiple water-related businesses along this road, which as I mentioned is narrow and hilly and winding.  There are only 2 lanes and no shoulder for much of the road's length.  A sign warned that "Slow Moving Rafting Buses Use This Highway."  What's more, this is the truck route - the main route, really - for anyone traveling east to Asheville from Tennessee.  I can't even conceive of how they managed to accommodate traffic on this road during the full week of the competition.

Eventually I made it to Andrews, where we stopped at a highway rest area we've visited before.  In fact, we've stopped here often enough that Dexter knows exactly where we are and where we walk.

We crossed the Valley River and by 1:00 we were in our site at Murphy KOA, with the waste tanks emptied and the water tank filled.  Three different people told me "welcome back" when I got here, which is nice.

North Carolina - Day 20 - in Asheville campground

Asheville West KOA, Asheville
Friday, 21 July 2023

Last night I got very little sleep - maybe only 2 or 3 hours - partly because my back was still painful from the fall, making it hard to find a comfortable sleeping position.  But partly it was because I woke up at 12:30 to a not very good smell.  Thought maybe it was just Dext, because he farts a lot and sometimes they're pretty pungent.  (But he's such a sweetie that they're a small price to pay.)

Finally at 1:15 I got up and found that Bucky had pooped in the crate.  So that meant time spent to clean it up, and the mess extended to the towel I wrap around the crate during the night which meant I needed to do laundry.  It was just all extra effort that I had to do on not enough sleep.

With all this going on, I decided to stay here another night.  Dext and I had walked past the site we'd be assigned tonight and it looked okay, which was the main thing for me, but also I wanted to limit how much effort I'd have to expend beyond the clean-up stuff.

Because I had to go down to the lower level of the campground to get to the office to check in again for the site change, I decided to do laundry there.  While the laundry got clean, Dext and I walked around the lower camping level, which was much nicer than the upper level and had clearly been the first area developed for the campground.  If I were ever to come back, I'd definitely want to be in a spot down here.  Anyway, it gave Dext a new area to sniff around in.

In our new site, I got Day 2 of this month posted and began work on Day 3.  I know it hasn't seemed like it but I really have been trying to get these done.

Dext is still doing okay on the Purina ProPlan - not vomiting and though his stools are soft they're no longer liquid.  But twice he ate something while we were out walking so there may be more trouble ahead.  I do wish he'd stop being such a dog.

For some reason, my back injury is almost worse today than it has been.  The ribs on the left side, both front and back, are extremely sore (which made laundry a lot of fun), and I'm still having trouble coughing.  In fact, today I'm having a lot of trouble doing almost anything.  I sure hope this is a sign that things are about to get better. 

North Carolina - Day 19 - back to Asheville

Asheville West KOA, Asheville

Thursday, 20 July 2023

Strange saga continued from yesterday's post: 

I know the power was out at midnight and again at 4:30 because I looked at the clock.  And I overslept until 4:30 because I was so tired and sleep deprived, which set back my usual schedule, not to mention Dext's bathroom habits.  The power went off again 6 more times after I got up, and by 7:10 I finally unplugged and turned on the generator because I was worried about messing up the RV's electrical system with such frequent on-offs.  Running a generator in a campground is generally not allowed, but I figured I had a good excuse if I needed one.

I called the office once again at 9:20 this morning, which should have been during office hours, but I got the same recording - and this time my message was that I wanted a refund for at least one of these nights.  By 10:00 the campground owner was testing the power box next door, and when I went out to talk to him he apologized up one side and down the other both for the power problem and for the phone call problem.  He said they wouldn't charge me for either night and offered to move me to a nicer site.  He said the security company was supposed to have notified them right away yesterday that I'd called but didn't, which he said he'd be checking into, and that's why they hadn't taken care of the problem yesterday.

He was really nice about it - including saying that my generator use was completely reasonable - but by then I'd gotten spooked and decided to head on down the road to Asheville, where I was expected Friday night anyway.  I told him that I thought he and his family were trying hard to do a good job here and promised that I wouldn't ding him in online comments.

I'd checked online for availability in Asheville for tonight but decided not to call ahead.  I wanted to see what the campground was like, in case I decided not to stay there for 2 nights but instead to go on to Murphy a night early.  It was 10:25 when we got on the road, with Google promising me the drive to Asheville wouldn't take as long as 2 hours.

today's drive

I saw a sign for the Hiddenite Center Museum, and my reaction was "Huh?"  I hadn't realized I was in the town of Hiddenite - probably because it's not exactly a town but instead a "census-designated place," with fewer than 600 residents.  This museum is in a mansion once owned by "Diamond Jim" Brady himself (he was a gem dealer) and is now a folk art museum that includes furniture and dolls and art, much of it from the 1800s.  Probably interesting if I'm ever in the area with extra time.

I passed a sign for the Bunker Hill Covered Bridge, which I hadn't heard of and wish I'd known about.  It's one of the 2 remaining covered bridges in the state and may be the last covered bridge in the US with Haupt truss construction (per Wikipedia).  As far as I can tell, the Haupt truss is a lattice-like structure that sends compression forces (from something crossing the bridge) directly to the abutments and that, as I understand it, was a design that made the bridges both easier to build and stronger once they'd been built.  Well, that's what I missed here - definitely something to see on the next trip.

I really needed gas but when I got to Hickory found that $3.49 was the best price I could get.  I only got $50 worth and hoped for better in Asheville.

Everywhere I've gone in North Carolina I've seen green.  Of course, this is summer, but having grown up in Texas I can assure you that summer doesn't guarantee green in all states.  In the distance I saw low green mountains covered by rain clouds - very pretty.

And then we started getting steady rain - not so pretty but badly needed.

We crossed the Catawba River and I saw this sign: "Low Visibility Likely Next 6 Miles."  Maybe that's an acknowledgement of clouds covering the mountains?

We entered the Pisgah National Forest.  I knew it seemed green here.

A sign told me we were crossing the "Eastern Continental Divide" at 2,786'.  To get there I drove a 6-mile-long steep hill, and because of the steady rain I was glad to be going up it, rather than down.

Next was the town of Black Mountain, which calls itself "The Little Town That Rocks," which is apparently a double pun.  Meaning #1: the town was named for the train depot called Black Mountain because of being at the southern end of the Black Mountain range of the Blue Ridge Mountains which, in turn, are part of the Appalachian Mountains.  So, lots of tall rocks.  Meaning #2: they also call themselves "The Front Porch of Western North Carolina," and suggest visitors should pull up a rocking chair.  So, the town "rocks."

The driver in the car ahead of me was so short I couldn't really see him/her.  Weird sensation.

Thanks to water on the road (not my driving skill), I hydroplaned half off the road.  Thank goodness for the many years I lived in a very wet climate which helped me develop the skills to stay alive.

Back in Asheville, we went again to the French Broad River dog park, where we've been several times before.  Even though it was lunchtime on a Thursday, this time we were all alone here, presumably because it was still lightly raining.  Dext still had lots of things to sniff but it wasn't as much fun for either of us without companions.  We had lunch and left around 2:00.

Our next stop was the CVS to pick up my prescriptions.  The parking lot of that location is seriously sloped.  Maybe not so bad for cars but a real problem for my RV.  A regular parking space would have the RV almost perched on its side from the slope, which would be really uncomfortable for the occupants and not so great for the RV's various mechanisms (like the frig).  But I managed to find a not quite approved, vaguely level parking space and tried to get out of the store quickly.

I've noticed all along my travels in North Carolina that the DOT seriously needs to trim the trees and other growth that is covering signs all over the state.  I'm sure it wasn't this bad when spring started, but we're half-way through July and it's way past time for them to get out here with clippers.  I've found lots of signs all over that are mostly or almost entirely obscured by untrimmed growth - and some of those signs are important to road safety and navigation.

We stopped at a grocery store not far from the turn for tonight's campground and left there about 3:45.

The KOA said they did have a campsite available for tonight but I'd have to move to another one tomorrow because of the campground being almost full both nights.  I didn't say I might spend only one night because I wanted to see what both campsites were like, i.e. whether they were badly sloped.

Tonight's site wasn't bad, which was lucky, but the rain was increasing so the site itself and the roads in that section were increasingly muddy.  We'd been assigned to a section up quite a steep hill and there wasn't much of anywhere to walk, but with the rain, we weren't inclined to dawdle outdoors anyway.

North Carolina - Day 18 - to Charlotte, Statesville

Statesville/I-77 KOA, Statesville

Wednesday, 19 July 2023

So today didn't start out auspiciously.  (Spoiler alert: it didn't end much better than it started.)  I'd only just gotten up and was still in the bathroom when Dext suddenly wanted a whole lot of attention, which he never does.  That was my first clue that something was really wrong.

I found he'd thrown up all he'd eaten yesterday, which of course made a huge mess all over the floor (which isn't very big to begin with).  He'd messed up the cabin floor, the water dish, the dog beds, the step.  I kept the kittens stuck in their crate while I cleaned it up to keep this bad situation from getting much worse.

Then on our first walk, his stool was completely liquid.  I really hope all this was a reaction to garbage he ate yesterday before I could stop him, but I thought about stopping at a grocery store for more chicken and rice, just in case.

As a side note, Jimmy's started using the litter box as a lounge area, even when it's not clean.  If I can't find him anywhere else, sometimes that's where he is.

And after I'd located him, it was almost 9:00 before we got on the road.

today's route.

You can see that for much of the day we were driving close to the border with South Carolina, before hitting Charlotte and heading north.

I passed a ruined brick building with a historical marker titled "Ida Yarn Mill."  For a welcome change, this marker had some actual detail.  It said this had been the 2nd oldest textile manufacturing plant in the county, it had been powered by water wheels, it had been named in memory of the owner's daughter who died, and it operated from 1882 to 1939.

A little way farther along the road I came to another historical marker, this one back to NC's apparent policy of need-to-know.  It said only that in March 1865, Sherman's Army entered the state near here on its "path of destruction" from Georgia.  

"The rest of the story" is that Sherman, after capturing Savannah, was ordered to take his men by sea to shore up the troops in Virginia.  Sherman convinced Grant to let him continue his "march" through the Carolinas to destroy military sites and to further demoralize the Southerners.  Before he reached this historical marker area, his troops had conquered Columbia, SC's capital, and from here they went on to defeat Confederate Gen. Johnston at Bentonville, which is southeast of Raleigh and northeast of Fayetteville.  Johnston's surrender came 2 weeks after Lee's at Appomattox and essentially spelled the end of the war.

Both yesterday and today a lot of oncoming traffic included trucks carrying pre-formed swimming pools.  Today I saw the first one that actually had escort vehicles, which made me wonder why none of the others had them, because they sure took up a lot of room on the road.

Today we once again had to deal with the AC not coming out of the AC vents but instead coming out on the floor and on the windshield.  It's like the only setting it understands is the one for heat - though thank goodness we're getting cold air.  But when either Dext or I has to sit in direct sunshine, we'd really like it to be working properly.  But it's been doing this for years and I haven't wanted to pay someone to figure out how to fix it.

Richmond County said it was the "Proud Home of Rockingham Dragway."  And since I don't have access to Facebook, all I can tell you is that their racetrack opened in 1970 for auto racing.

North Carolina has a town named Hamlet, and I wondered about the origin of that name and looked it up.  In the late 1800s a few houses built in this area, then called Sandhills, were joined by a woolen and saw mill.  The mill owner mentioned to his friends that back in his native England a small collection of houses like those here would be called a hamlet.  And the name stuck.  I sort of like Sandhills, but at least they didn't name it after Shakespeare's character.  Today it has a population of more than 6,000.

I crossed the Pee Dee River near Lilesville.

Near Wadesboro I saw a billboard that said, "Anson County: 46.83% Vaccinated."  I was curious about that and learned that as of the end of December, this is the percentage here that were fully vaccinated against Covid.  And I learned that it's one of the lowest percentages among all NC counties.  Which means I'm glad I wasn't planning to spend any time here.  I'm still spooked about catching that illness because of it being a respiratory disease, and because people are still dying from it.

At the town of Peachland, I saw a sign for a dentist that said, with appropriate illustrations: "Chickens don't have teeth.  Don't be a chicken."

I'm seeing lots of mimosa, oleander and crepe myrtle blooming.  Really nice.

Near Marshville I saw a sign saying: "North Carolina is too pretty to trash."

At Wingate I saw a historical marker titled "Wingate University."  It's almost getting funny.  This one said, in its entirety: "Baptist.  Est. as Wingate School in 1896; a junior college, 1923; became a senior college in 1977.  University since 1995.  Campus one block north."  These days, it has more than 3,600 students in a variety of liberal arts fields.  It separated completely from the Baptist church in 2009.  One of its alumni is the founder of the Family Dollar stores.

I passed the turn for Jesse Helms Park, a name that brought back unpleasant memories.  Jesse Helms was a senator from North Carolina from 1973 until 2003, the longest serving US senator in the state's history.  He was extremely conservative in his views and used very rough language when touting those views - e.g. homosexuality was a "filthy, disgusting practice" and people with AIDS "deserved what they got" because there's "not one single case of AIDS in this country that cannot be traced in origin to sodomy."  And so forth.  Apparently he was a really nice man if you agreed with him (though he never knew his beloved granddaughter was lesbian).

The park was between Wingate and Monroe, a town established in 1844.

The whole drive this morning I was getting a terrible signal for NPR in North Carolina but finally picked up a signal from South Carolina's.

We reached Charlotte, with a population of more than 2½ million, stopped at a grocery store (for chicken and rice), then drove to the center of town.  I passed a statue of a bronze horseman in full gallop and was curious about it.  And learned the statue is called "The Spirit of Mecklenburg" and represents Capt. James Jack who took the Mecklenburg Resolves to Congress in 1775; Mecklenburg is the present-day name of the county Charlotte's in, and the Resolves declared British law null and void here.  These Resolves grew out of news of the fighting at Lexington and Concord, so not exactly a Declaration of Independence but in that general vein.  Unfortunately, the North Carolina delegation in Pennsylvania were still hoping to reconcile with London and didn't tell the other delegates about Mecklenburg's action, so you could say his 30-mile/day, 1100-mile round trip was for nothing.  Or you could see it as indicative of the rebellious spirit of the residents here.  

This statue is on Charlotte's Trail of History.  I had to do some serious searching to learn that this trail, which runs through uptown Charlotte, is a mile and a half long and aims to teach the community about Charlotte's history.

Actually, I didn't know any of that was there but just happened to pass it on my way to see the Books Monuments.  They turned out to be nothing like I'd expected and, also unexpected, I couldn't find any place to park so we could only drive by.  I didn't find any non-copyrighted photos online but I did find this page that touts not only these statues but other book-related art in the area.  The pictures are worth taking a look at.   https://clture.org/charlotte-public-art

I'd hoped we could walk around that area a bit but didn't despair when there weren't any parking places because we were headed next for a dog park.  Frazier Place dog park looked very nice on Google with a long greenbelt straddling a creek, plus various recreational activities.  The problem was it was around noon when we got there and the only parking was parallel street parking; because it was lunchtime there weren't any spaces available for us.  So I made a loop around the area (lots of condos, mostly) and got to the other end of the street where there was more greenbelt.  I found parking places there, but they were on a very steep hill.  The day was getting hot and I didn't want to walk up and down steep hills in that weather.  Plus I didn't want to trust my emergency brake on that hill.  

But by then we were all desperate for a break so I broke out my hotspot and laptop and figured out how to get us out of there and back on the road I'd planned.  Except that didn't work out right either and I was driving around for a bit trying to figure out where I was and how to get where I was going.  Finally I saw a Hardee's Hamburgers and decided we all needed a store-bought lunch, which would buy us a parking place.  And that's what we did, while I first walked Dext and then once again asked Google for a route out of town - and this time paid close attention to the way intersections and signs looked, and didn't just trust Google's written directions.  

And that worked.  It took us about another hour to get up north to Statesville.  On the way we ran into heavy traffic at Mooresville, and I couldn't figure out why.  I still don't know, but I now know that the town has a bunch of places related to racing: Penske Racing has a large facility in town that houses 3 NASCAR teams, and Kyle Busch Motorsports has auto racing stuff, and the NC Auto Racing Hall of Fame for NASCAR fans.  I hope the traffic I ran into didn't have anything to do with racing.

Near Statesville, I passed a place labeled the Barium Springs Home for Children.  That was its name from 1883, when it was founded as an orphanage, until 2014 when it merged with Grandfather Home for Orphans and became Children's Hope Alliance.  By then both groups had segued from orphans to care for children who had been abused or neglected, and that's the primary focus of this organization today.

We arrived at the Statesville KOA by about 2:30 and discovered it was perched on a steep hill above the interstate.  They'd assigned me a campsite, but when I asked about it being level, they changed me to a different site that, they said, was still inexpensive but much more level.  I bought propane from them and dumped my waste tanks and went on up to the top of the hill to my site.  Which turned out to be not at all level, but one nearby didn't seem so bad and they let me have that one.  I planned to stay here for 2 nights and didn't want to be on a serious slope for that long.  

I took Dext to the nearby dog park, where he pooped for his 4th time today - all of them completely liquid.  I hoped the problem would work through his system quickly.

I had a long list of things I intended to do but ran into a power problem.  Beginning late Wednesday afternoon and into the evening, the power went out 7 times.  At first I thought it was this whole section, until I realized my neighbors were just fine.  By the time I figured out it wasn't going to stop, the office was closed.  I called the "after hours emergency number," which they'd pointed out to me specifically when I registered, but I got a recording.  I left a couple of messages at different times but never got a call back.

See tomorrow for the next thrilling installment of this saga.

North Carolina - Day 17 - Wilmington, Lumberton

Lumberton/I-95 KOA, Lumberton

Tuesday, 18 July 2023

I mentioned in an earlier post that I was still having trouble lifting my left arm, thanks to falling so heavily on that side a week or two ago.  One of the byproducts of that injury is that I can't cover up my windows at night with towels and clothespins, so campground light can - and does - shine in.  This makes it hard for me to fall asleep and to stay asleep, which in turn makes it hard for me to stay awake during the daytime. 

Today is no exception, but I have reservations at other campgrounds so had to work through it.

Before leaving the Wilmington campground, I stopped at the main building to take a shower and do my laundry.  All that took a lot of energy but it's great to have everything clean again.  As a result, it was nearly 9:00 before we got on the road.

today's route

I had a series of errands to run before leaving a sizeable city like Wilmington.

First, we stopped at a tire shop, because of that noise I'd been hearing since New Bern.  The guy there said the tires felt fine and had great tread, and even if I needed new ones he couldn't do it because his small shop didn't have the right kind of jack.  But he said all-terrain tires, like I have, often make sounds others don't because they develop a sort of wavy surface.  Still he thought they were safe for me to drive on through North Carolina's terrain.

From there I stopped at a PetsMart - it's incredible how fast those kittens go through food.  I know they're still growing, and we all know that growing boys need a lot of fuel.  But even though I stick to the recommended feeding amounts, they still seem to really plow through it.

Next I stopped for gas and got a very slow pump.  Worse, it got slower as other people around me started pumping into their vehicles.  That took longer than I'd expected.

The next stop was at a Dick's Sporting Goods.  I've been wearing the same Reef flip-flops nearly daily (except for serious winter) since Anna helped me buy them a few years ago.  I like that brand because they don't fall apart - I have to wear the soles down and they still don't fall apart.  And wearing the soles down is exactly what I'd done to this pair - they very nearly had holes in them.

Dick's didn't have much of a selection in my size but I did manage to find a couple of new pairs, which should last me a while.

We were by then almost across the street from that dog park we'd visited 2 days ago, and that's where we went next.  Several large muddy puddles had appeared since before and some of the dogs today were really happy to wade or lie down in them.  Fortunately for me, Dext doesn't like muddy puddles any more than he likes clean ones; in his mind, water is for drinking, period.  Today he was the smallest dog - there was a Great Dane, a pair of German Shepherds, a large energetic bouncy dog that looked like maybe a tall thin hound (my knowledge of dog breeds is limited) and a few other miscellaneous breeds or mixes.

Size doesn't seem to bother Dext much - larger or smaller or the same as he is - so he was okay with the other dogs.  But today was really hot and humid and Dext was ready to leave after about 20 minutes.  I turned on the RV's generator and the AC while we ate lunch.  Jimmy had decided to tear up a paper bag while we'd been gone, and it took me a while to clear all that up.  We pulled out a little after noon, at which point I discovered I'd forgotten to close the cabinet door I'd opened for the cleanup, and I had to find a place to pull over so it didn't bang around all afternoon.

We crossed the Cape Fear River, followed by the Brunswick River, and started to head west.  At that point I figured out the source of the odd sound I was hearing: I'd forgotten to turn off both the generator and the AC and both were running.  So once again I had to find a place to pull over and get myself pulled together.  I'm going to blame the heat and humidity for my brain malfunctions.

Today I was mostly on US-74, and a sign told me it was the "Future I-74 Corridor."  Myself, I prefer US numbered highways to interstates that bypass so much of America.

I saw a fair number of filled logging trucks on the road today.

I crossed the Lumber River, which a sign told me was designated a North Carolina Natural and Scenic River.  More than that, it's the only blackwater river in the state to win a National Wild and Scenic River designation from the US Dept. of the Interior.  Actually, I couldn't remember what a blackwater river is, but now I can say it's a river with a slow-moving channel that flows through forested swamps or wetlands.  And most of the world's supply of these are either in the Amazon Basin or in the southern US.  The Lumber River eventually flows into the Little Pee Dee River in South Carolina, and that flows into the Pee Dee River, and that flows into the Atlantic Ocean.

For a KOA, the one we reached at Lumberton was fairly no-frills - even somewhat stark.  But our site was fairly level and, because today's a Tuesday, there weren't many other campers here so we had plenty of room to walk.

On one walk, we found a small cemetery that I'm guessing was for earlier owners of the land.  The markers were for the Howell family and dated back to 1889, 1895 - like that.

I had an odd experience when I called the CVS in Asheville so they'd have my blood pressure meds ready when we got to town.  They said they could fill one of them, but the other was already being filled somewhere else, and they couldn't figure out where.  They said it wasn't in the CVS computer so I'd have to call Medicare to figure it out.  

I thought that might be a lost cause - calling such a large bureaucracy as Medicare late in the afternoon - but I needed the pills so I gave it a shot.  And no problem at all, I got a human being who figured out the Rx was in fact being filled at a CVS in Georgia, and she called that pharmacy and told them to stop it and release the hold.  Really nice.  And later I called Asheville back and they said yep, they saw the release in their computer and I could have everything by Friday.  It took an extra half hour when I was hot and tired and the kids all wanted supper, but I'm glad I took the time.

North Carolina - Day 16 - in Wilmington campground

Wilmington KOA, Wilmington

Monday, 17 July 2023

We spent today resting in the campground.  We've spent the last 4 days traveling nonstop, and I've finally learned (after only 5½ years) that my brain and my body reach a saturation point where it all starts to be a blur.  So today was an attempt to reset the blur.

Actually, it was a fairly productive day.  I figured out where I wanted to go for the next couple of days and what I could see in the available time and worked out driving directions.  I wanted to do errands in Wilmington before leaving town tomorrow and discovered we had some long driving distances and driving times ahead, so I'd have to skip Fayetteville.  I'd wanted to at least take a look at this town I'd heard so much about, but that's going to have to wait for another trip.  And while I was making plans, I also planned errands for when we get to Asheville - get prescriptions filled and so forth.

I'm discovering there aren't many interstates in North Carolina and there is quite a bit of mountainous land.  These bits of reality mean that even the US highways take time to drive on, let alone the local roads.  Plus, it turns out that North Carolina is larger than I'd expected - likely because its land is spread out sideways, rather than being compact like, say, Arkansas, which is nearly the same number of square miles.

And I called my wonderful credit union in Washington state to move a CD into one with a better interest rate.  I learned that the rising interest rates don't bode well for home ownership, but they're pretty good for savings accounts.  You win some, you lose some.

A fly got inside the RV and the kittens spent half the day trying to catch it.  They didn't.  They have a very strong hunter instinct and no apparent skill at it at all.  But it's fairly entertaining to watch, even though I had to kill the fly in the end.

Dext got the last of the real chicken and rice for breakfast - thank goodness that's done - and I started him back on Purina ProPlan.  (The chicken and rice flavor, of course.)  He seems to be well now, but the next few days on the store-bought food will show for sure.

Today was extremely hot and humid (by North Carolina standards).  The high was only in the low 90s, but with the humidity it was uncomfortable for any length of time doing much of anything - like dog walking.  Even though I was completely out of clean clothes, I decided not to try carrying my laundry all the way over to the laundry room (and all the way back again) but instead to wait until we were ready to leave tomorrow and drive over there and park while I did chores.  The weather was just too uncomfortable to push it when there was an alternative.

Yesterday I'd thought at first my back pains from that fall had gone, but after driving for a while I discovered they weren't ready to be forgotten.  Still, even though I'm pretty sore, I'm glad to report that improvement is happening.  Let's hear it for our bodies' ability to heal themselves!

North Carolina - Day 15 - New Bern, Jacksonville, Wilmington

Wilmington KOA, Wilmington

Sunday, 16 July 2023

I didn't get much sleep last night because of it taking hours for me to fall asleep in the first place and then I couldn't stay asleep, which meant today's drive could be problematic.  Google says my preferred route will take about 4 hours, which of course means all day for me, so I got on the road soon after 7:30.

today's route

We spent the whole day on US-17, aka Historic Albemarle Highway.  And for some reason there were quite a few police cars out, checking people's speed.

There was another barbecue place along the road where I'd thought of stopping, but I accidentally checked it online ("accidentally" because I wasn't organized enough to think of it on purpose) and learned it had recently closed after 74 years of operation.  Just my luck.  Yet another NC bbq experience lost.

tobacco plants

I passed quite a few fields that looked like this one, as well as quite a bit of corn growing and other crops I couldn't identify from the highway.

We crossed the Tar River again and passed large swaths of trees.

North Carolina has quite a few solar fields scattered around the state.  It seems odd that Congress - or at least the Republican contingent there - is so opposed to supporting solar production when so many constituents around the country are obviously supporting it.

I passed the turn for the Edward R. Murrow Transmitting Station.  I had no idea what that was and no sign enlightened me, but I was curious because of Murrow's name and looked it up.  It turned out to be the shortwave broadcasting station for Voice of America and has been since the 1950s.  It broadcast through the Cold War, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the 9/11 attacks.  During the Haiti earthquake, this site transmitted Creole broadcasts that helped save lives.  Its primary arena is Latin America, Cuba and Africa, but it's also capable of reaching China.  Who knew?

I passed a house with a big sign: "Pop Pop's Bees," with dozens of bee boxes in the side yard.  Since I can't get to Facebook sites, the most I could find suggested this business helps other people get started keeping bees themselves.  They apparently provide bee boxes and instructions and paraphernalia (like protective suits) for clients.  I thought they were like other bee businesses I've seen around the country that place their bees at a client's field to do their pollinating thing, and then take them to another client's field.  But instead it sounds like they help hobbyists get started with the hobby of bee-keeping.

The town called Bridgeton (guess why) was near a very long bridge over the Neuse River.  And try as I might, I can find nothing online about how long it is.  I learned that it's called the Neuse River Bridge, and that it was built in 1999, and that it's "massive," and that's it.  The Neuse River is joined by its tributary the Trent River just above this bridge, and not too much farther east the Neuse flows into the Atlantic, which means there's a lot of water to cross here.  And I just can't figure out why nobody wants to tell me how long that stupid bridge is.  (If I have to cross these lo-o-ong bridges, I want to quantify my accomplishment.)  The bridge had a very high section that I assume was for ocean-going boats.

And then we were in New Bern, where I'd wanted to do a little sightseeing.

I first drove past the Tryon Palace (unable to find a parking place) and it looked more spectacular than I'd expected.

Tryon Palace, New Bern

The historical marker here was as laconic as the others I've seen in this state.  It said only that this was the historic Capitol and governor's residence 1770-1794.  It burned in 1798 and was rebuilt in the 1950s.  And it's open to the public.  What that leaves out is that these governors were originally the representatives of the British government.  The Tryon it's named for convinced the legislature to increase taxes on folks to pay for this palace, and then went to Pennsylvania to hire workers because he was sure local ones wouldn't know how to build such a place.  As he should have foreseen, local folks were pretty peeved by all this and, a year after the palace was built, Tryon had to leave the state.  (He ended up the governor of New York, and Fort Tryon Park in Manhattan was named for him.)   

The palace was seized at the beginning of the Revolutionary War in 1775, its opulent furnishings were auctioned off to pay for running the new government, and in 1789 NC was admitted as a state in the Union.  The capital was moved to Raleigh a few years later.  That all seems like a lot of excitement to leave off a historical marker, but what do I know.

From there I turned a few corners to get to downtown New Bern and passed a historic marker titled "Caleb Bradham."  The marker gave his dates - 1867-1934 - and this: "'Brad's Drink,' which he created in pharmacy [sic] here, was marketed as Pepsi-Cola after 1898."  Seriously, North Carolina needs to hire someone to add detail to their historical markers.

What that doesn't bother to say is that Bradham was a pharmacist and had a soda fountain in his pharmacy.  He invented "Brad's Drink" which was such a hit that he went full-time into producing and marketing it.  After WWI, the price of sugar reached an all-time high, which Bradham paid, only to have the price plummet soon after, throwing the company into bankruptcy.  The assets were bought out and Bradham went back to his pharmacy.  But his invention happily lives on.

As we were driving through this very pleasant-looking town, not able to find a parking place so we could walk around, I suddenly heard a strange sound in the right rear wheel.  I stopped where I shouldn't be and took a look.  But I didn't see anything shoving on the tires or hanging from the RV so kept going.  The sound kept going too, and I resolved to find a tire place when we got to Wilmington.

Back on the road, I saw signs saying "Watch For Bears Next 11 Miles."  You know, this area isn't exactly wilderness, which makes me think the wolf and bear populations must be fairly healthy if they warrant road warning signs.

I came to Jacksonville and noticed another of those "Bird Sanctuary" signs, which makes sense given the town's position by the ocean and on the Atlantic Flyway (for bird migration).  Online I'd found a place called Riverview Park with a walking path, where I planned a rest stop.

I came here hoping to maybe see something of Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune (their full name).  They call themselves the "Home of Expeditionary Forces in Readiness."  Three Marine commands and one Navy command are stationed here, and it's one of the largest (by population) of US Marine bases.

Sadly, I failed both in finding Camp Lejeune and in finding Riverview Park.  The problem came when Google's directions had absolutely no relation to reality.  Nothing was what they'd claimed.  All the exits I passed were numbered but Google hadn't given me exit numbers.  It gave me names, none of which were on the signs.  It said there'd be an exit near the 31-mile mark, but there wasn't one anywhere near there.

But by this time we really needed a break, and I got lucky - I caught a break and that let us all have a break.  I ended up on the Wilmington Highway completely by accident and noticed a closed-for-Sunday drivers license office, so we stopped in the parking lot.  There wasn't much room for Dexter to walk, but we did our best with the space we had.

Because of having stumbled onto the correct road to Wilmington, it was easy to get moving again after we'd had lunch.

We passed a sign saying "Warning When Flashing" (they were) and "Military Training in Progress" (we didn't see anything).

The town of Holly Ridge farther down the road was another "Bird Sanctuary."  And I was having a really hard time staying awake.  In fact, it was a battle the whole way south today, but we managed to make it safely.

A road sign told me I was in the Cape Fear region.  The name Cape Fear refers to a headland and the nearby river and the coastal plain of the same name.  The name comes from 1585, when a ship sailing from England to the Roanoke Island settlement became trapped in the bay here.  The sailors were afraid they'd wreck (which they didn't), thus giving rise to the name.

That same name also refers to 2 movies , and I saw the 1991 version (a remake of the 1962 version) which terrified me so much I still haven't forgotten it.  But though it wasn't filmed here, the movie was set here, hence the name (which after all is a pretty spooky name for a movie). 

And as a matter of historical interest, this area is also likely the place Giovanni da Verrazzano made landfall in 1524 when he was sailing here from Europe.  (He was the first European to reach New York and lives on in the name of the Verrazzano Narrows Bridge, one of the world's longest suspension bridges.)

We managed to make it into Wilmington less than 5 hours after we'd started, and coming not too far off Google's projection was likely because we weren't on interstates.

In Wilmington, we went first to the dog park at Empie Park, which seemed a strange name but was very popular on a Sunday afternoon.  It was good for Dexter to have other dogs and places to sniff.  One dog in particular seemed to attract his attention, and he followed that dog around for a long time.  The owner told me she'd often seen dogs doing that with hers, though she hadn't had the dog long enough to have figured out why.

From there we made a stop at a Petco for cat supplies and then went back to the campground, which we'd passed on the way into town.  I'd reserved a site with water and electric only, so I dumped my waste tanks before going to our site.

North Carolina - Day 14 - Kitty Hawk, Rodanthe

Pierce RV Park, Williamston

Saturday, 15 July 2023

On our 2nd walk this morning, Dext and I followed a wild turkey for about half the distance we walked.  The edge of the campground is bounded by a long line of thick trees, and the turkey came out of the trees ahead of us and started walking in the same direction we were.  I'm pretty sure it knew we were there but didn't seem concerned, except to keep an eye on us.  I held us back a bit to keep from spooking it, and onward we all walked for maybe 10 minutes.  It was pretty neat.

We got on the road at 7:40, aiming for the Wright Brothers Memorial (again) as well as the town of Rodanthe, farther down the Outer Banks.

today's route

We passed lots of crops, lots of farmhouses.  Lots of curves in the road.  But no street signs, so I was having to take the route in Google on faith, which in my case is limited.  But we did get to the right place in the end.

We came to a town called Coinjock (really), and I've learned that name came from a Native American word meaning "the place of blueberry swamps."  Sounds like a nice place just based on the name.

At Jarvisburg we passed the Historic Jarvisburg Colored School.  It comes by the "historic" designation honestly, having been established in 1868.  It's on the National Historic Register as representative of the "colored schools" in segregated Currituck County, NC.  It's now a museum to help educate people who didn't live through the segregation era.  And I stopped in town for gas when I found it for $3.15/gallon.

It wasn't much farther to the town of Kitty Hawk, and then a little farther to Kill Devil Hills, "Birthplace of Modern Aviation," they say.  .

And speaking of names, the town of Kill Devil Hills doesn't seem to know where their name came from but suggests at least 4 options.  Here's a link.   https://www.outerbanksvacations.com/name-kill-devil-hills  My favorite involved trapping the Devil in the sand dunes.  

Of course I was here to visit the Wright Brothers National Memorial.

At the memorial, my federal senior pass once again got me in for free.  (And considering how many of us live on fixed incomes, I'd say any senior who doesn't get one of those cards and use it as much as they can is missing a serious bet.  It almost makes up for the common indignities of old age.)

Driving into the site, I passed a lot of very large kites, some in the air.  It looked like it might be a club - and surely a lot of fun.

The memorial protects the actual hill the Wright brothers used in their first flights in 1903.  Here's what they did and why they're celebrated, according to the National Park Service brochure:

"For the first time, a manned, heavier-than-air machine left the ground by its own power, moved forward under control without losing speed, and landed on a point as high as that from which it started.  Within the next 2 generations, people flew for routine travel, heard an aircraft break the sound barrier, and watched a man walk on the moon."

Kill Devil Hill (the hill, not the town) is a 90' sand dune, not an earthen hill.  Grass has been planted on the dune to keep it from the inevitable fate of sand dunes by the ocean.  At the top of the hill is a 60' monument.

This is the hill the Wrights and their helpers trudged up over and over,
carrying their 605-pound airplane.

The 60' monument at the top of the sand dune.

The day was already getting warm, and I decided the hill was just too tall for Dext and me to walk up.  But we did walk around the grounds a bit and found the nearby life-sized sculpture of the historic first successful flight:

From this angle you can see the onlookers at the side,
with Wilbur Wright urging his brother on.

This angle includes the photographer who recorded the event, and gives a clearer view of
the airplane.  Orville Wright is barely visible, lying in the center of the lower wing.

The flyer in the sculpture weighs 10,000 pounds (unlike the Wrights' flyer at 605 pounds).

The main reason I came here was, once again, to honor my sister.  After she died in a skydiving accident, my parents donated her body to Duke Medical School.  A year later, they returned Louise's ashes to my parents.  Daddy and I drove from Texas to North Carolina, Daddy chartered a plane from the company Louise had been flying with, and he and I scattered her ashes at this memorial from the air.  That was in 1974 and I feel sure we wouldn't be allowed to do it today.  But it seemed fitting.  Fifty years later, I still miss her.  Grief is an odd thing.

Back on the road, we passed deep sand dunes and old fashioned houses and the town of Nags Head.  Nobody seems to know for sure where the town's name came from, though there are multiple competing local legends to explain it.  Your guess is probably as good as anybody else's.

Continuing south on the Outer Banks from there, we came to the Cape Hatteras National Seashore, established in 1937 to protect its history (shipwrecks, lighthouses and the US LIfesaving Service), its variety of habitats (e.g. shorebirds and sea turtles nest there), and its importance as winter habitat for migrating waterfowl.

A 3-mile-long bridge took me to the separate Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge.  It too was established in 1937, 3 months before the next door Cape Hatteras National Seashore, in order to protect year-round habitat for a wide variety of birds.  I was interested to note that the US Fish & Wildlife Service manages this refuge, while the National Park Service manages Cape Hatteras National Seashore (in conjunction with the Wright Brothers' Memorial and the farther inland Roanoke Island colony historical site).  Shows the difference in focus/purpose of the various sites.

I passed another terse historical marker on Pea Island titled "Pea Island Lifesavers."  It said that from 1880 to 1900, a US Lifesaving Station operated here, and it was the only one that was staffed with a Black crew.  North Carolina isn't very chatty with its historical markers.  There were sand dunes on both sides of the road and a little residential growth, though only on the side of the road away from the ocean.

From Pea Island another 3-mile bridge (I clocked them both) took me to the seashore town of Rodanthe.  This town is known as suffering the highest rate of erosion on the Outer Banks, and I saw videos on the news of entire houses being knocked down by the encroaching ocean tide.  People have built their dream retirement homes on the beach, only to find now that climate change is eroding the beaches and increasing tidal action in the ocean.  Some of them were moving their entire houses as far from the water as their property extended, spending the money that cost in hopes that they can buy more time to figure out a solution.  I found an article that explains the problem is by no means entirely the fault of the homeowners being shortsighted.   https://coastalreview.org/rodanthes-doomed-houses-myriad-problems

I wasn't actually able to get close enough to the beach to see any of this, instead passing a few housing areas that looked like pretty ordinary housing areas.  I stopped at the Rodanthe Beach Access, only to discover that it wasn't quite the situation I've found at beach access areas in other states.  This one was a small parking area by the road, and a long path/road that led to sand dunes and, presumably, the ocean.  It was a hot day, the road was rough, it was a quarter mile long, and I wasn't convinced we'd be glad we made the trek.

Instead, Dext and I walked around the parking area and discovered a tiny hidden graveyard.

All the stones were old and one marked an 1832 grave.

As we drove back toward the mainland, I noticed that the sand dunes were white but the beach sand was yellow, the color of Texas beaches.  Unexpected.

I went back across both those 3-mile bridges to US-64.  And I just want to note that I'm finally getting used to driving on bridges.  Maybe 5½ years late, but better late than never, right?

US-64 is the highway I was on yesterday in that accident-caused traffic jam, and at this end it crosses Roanoke Sound and Roanoke Island.  A sign there said "Birthplace of America's First Child."  Of course, that just means she was the first child born to European parents (ignoring the many generations of children born to Native Americans).  This girl was Virginia Dare, she was born in 1587, and she was named in honor of the Virgin Queen Elizabeth I.  This was the site of Sir Walter Raleigh's ill-fated first colony.

Then to the town of Manteo (as in "Manteo to Murphy") and another very long bridge - 2.7 miles per Wikipedia.  While I was still on the bridge, we got an extremely heavy rainfall, which was a little disorienting.

That brought us to the Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge, established in 1984 to protect some unique wetlands habitat that is home to such wildlife as black bears, red wolves and a wide variety of bird species.  And I passed a sign saying "Endangered Red Wolf Crossing Next 12 Miles - Drive With Caution."  Counterintuitively, it's also the location of the Dare County Bombing Range.  It's managed by US Fish & Wildlife concurrently with Pea Island.

A short distance down the road I crossed another long bridge - this one a drawbridge - and then a sign for the state's Palmetto-Peartree Preserve.  This area was set aside, at least in part, to protect habitat for the endangered Red-cockaded Woodpecker.  However, it's been in charge of the NC Dept. of Transportation, which hasn't had the funding or the interest in protecting the area.  Five years ago, ownership was transferred to the NC Wildlife Resources Commission, and the local hope was that this neglected area would be revived.  Sounds like a good place to visit sometime soon.

You can tell that this whole area of North Carolina is being protected one way or another for various living beings - including the water (which seems alive to me).

Then the town of Columbia again, where we'd been yesterday, and the Scuppernong River.  Farther along the road, we came to the town of Plymouth, "A World Center for Wood Products," they say.  I'm not quite sure of the basis for this claim, but I did learn that the wood mill founded in Plymouth in 1937 has been bought by Weyerhaeuser which, of course, has an extensive reach.  And I learned that this plant ships wood pulp to 21 countries around the world and is now a major producer of a product called "softwood fluff pulp."  It has extremely absorbent qualities and is used in adult incontinence products, baby diapers and other such needed products.  And all this in a town of 3,300 folks.  (You could probably use that phrase "softwood fluff pulp" to see if the guests at your next party are safe to drive home.)

Plymouth, like Elizabeth City yesterday, says it is a Bird Sanctuary.

I saw several big Trump flags.

Then back to Williamston, another Bird Sanctuary, according to their sign.  I stopped for groceries and we were back in that strange campground-cum-trailer park by 3:00.

In the evening, the drizzle we'd had for much of the afternoon changed to heavy rain and thunderstorms, upsetting Dexter.

Compared to yesterday, my body was doing much better today.  It's still painful to cough or sneeze and I still have to be careful how and what I move, but I'm much more flexible than before.  My left arm is still too sore - and attached to other sore body parts - to hang towels over the windows at night to block out the campground lights, but everything's gradually getting better.

Equally good news is that the kittens are now sleeping much more than they used to.  They're still a long way off the amount Lily sleeps, but they're gradually starting to act like adult cats.  They're about 6 weeks away from their 1st birthday, and for my money they can't grow up too soon, though apparently that's not something I have any say over.

North Carolina - Day 13 - to north coast

North River Campground, Shawboro

Friday, 14 July 2023

I woke up at 2:00 again this morning and again felt sleepy before we even set out, again boding trouble for the drive, although yesterday turned out okay.  Also my back is still pretty sore from that fall, and I still can't cough without a lot of pain, and I'm still getting muscle spasms in my lower back - but none of that's as bad as it was a few days ago.  I can tell I have slightly more mobility now, which augers well for recovery.

And I was looking forward to this trip because I'd planned to visit the Wright Brothers National Memorial at Kill Devil Hills (what a name) on the Outer Banks.

But then before we left the campground, we got rain and thunder and lightning, making it hard for us to get on the road - I really didn't want to be outside unplugging the electric cord in a lightning storm, and especially didn't want to walk Dexter in one.

We finally got on the road at 9:30.

today's route

This area is all farming country - lots of silos, lots of crops of various kinds.  Actually, a good part of North Carolina seems to be farming country.

I started to see warning signs for bears.

We crossed the Scuppernong River.  One of the things I've enjoyed about this trip is the unique names for places - and especially rivers - I've found around the country, this name being a good example.

At the town of Columbia, we took a break at the town's visitor center, which doubles as the visitor center for the Poconis Lakes National Wildlife Refuge.  There's a nice Riverwalk Trail that Dext and I took for a short way.  We saw about 6 folks on the Riverwalk boardwalk under a bridge (it was sprinkling intermittently) fishing in the Scuppernong River.

A sign at the visitor center had information about Red Wolves including a website that I thought I could remember but didn't.  However, I have found a web page about the Fish & Wildlife wolf recovery program   https://fws.gov/red-wolf-recovery-program  and an article written for non-scientists, meaning it's very interesting and easy to read   https://www.washingtonpost.com/red-wolves-pups-born.  We stayed there for about an hour, including lunch, and took off at 11:45.

At someone's house I saw a Trump 2024 flag.

And I saw a highway sign saying Red Wolf Crossing Next 10 Miles.  So it really is Red Wolf country around here.

About 8 miles out of town, the traffic stopped.  Try as I might I couldn't see a reason.  Several folks behind me were clearly antsy to pass, but gradually we could see flashing lights ahead.  The road was only 2 narrow lanes with no shoulder, so the occasional oncoming traffic moved over to the grass to let an ambulance and fire trucks pass.  Many people in front of and behind me turned around, but I didn't know of any alternate route so stayed where I was.

I saw a helicopter making a couple of passes.

Forty-five minutes later we were still sitting there and emergency vehicles were still coming, though the line had gotten shorter because of the people in front of me turning around.  Folks were standing around making friends with others.

I saw an ambulance heading back toward Columbia without flashing lights and saw that people ahead of me had flagged him down for information, so I did the same.  He said the highway would be closed for at least 2 hours because of a really bad accident ahead.  By this time it was 1:20 and even if we got moving then, I'd still have a 2 or 3 hour drive ahead, not counting a stop at the Wright Memorial.  So I looked at my trusty AAA map and saw that there was another route using back roads, so I turned around.  People were really nice about helping me - giving me extra space and so forth.

As I drove back, I stopped now and then to tell people in the mile-long line behind me what the ambulance driver had told me.  One guy asked where I had been headed and, when I mentioned Kitty Hawk, he claimed I shouldn't go back because even waiting 2 hours would still be the right choice.  My first reaction was - this total stranger is mansplaining my decisions to me?

The roads I'd found on the AAA map existed, though not quite where I thought they'd be and not labeled like I expected, so I had some anxious moments when I didn't come to the intersections when I expected.  They were little more than country roads, with highway name signs that must have dated back 100 years, from the looks of them.  I remembered seeing signs like these in rural Texas when I was a kid.

When I stopped finding any that matched what I expected, I stopped at the Scuppernong Church of Christ (est. 1871) to walk Dext and try to reorient myself with the map (we were so out in the country I didn't bother trying my hot spot).  

A short distance farther along the road I pulled over at a very dusty, very old store that was clearly literally a mom-and-pop store (I saw them).  I wore my face mask inside to ask directions, even though I was afraid it might prejudice them against helping me, but the pop gave me very vernacular but accurate directions to get where I was going.

We crossed the Albemarle River on a very long bridge, and it's just as well I didn't know before I got there that it was 3.5 miles long.  If I keep doing crossings like this, I may be able to go back and try that incredible bay bridge in Maryland that gave me fits a few years ago.  Or the Mackinac Bridge in Michigan.  Guess I just had to work up to it.

The town of Hertford says its original charter was dated 1758, and it's the Home of Jim "Catfish" Hunter.  If you're like me and have no idea who this guy is, I can now tell you that in the '60s and '70s he was a top pitcher in major league baseball, setting all sorts of records.

We crossed the Perquimans River to Winfall and a historic marker titled "Quaker Activity."  I was curious and learned the marker was short and sweet: it said in 1672 two Quaker missionaries held religious meetings in this area.

We crossed the Little River and came to Elizabeth City, the major town in this area.  There was also a sign saying it's a bird sanctuary.  I haven't mentioned these signs before, but I've seen them quite a few times as I enter a North Carolina town, so I thought maybe it was a state program.  If it is, I can't find it and can't find why Elizabeth City has this designation.  My guess, though, is that it's close enough to a variety of water bodies (rivers, bays, ocean) that it's likely to see a variety of migrating species pass through the area.

We stopped again at the local First Church of the Nazarene to check Google for fresh directions, now that I was back on chartable territory and coming at tonight's campground from a different direction than I'd planned.

Past the Pasquotank River, we saw a historic marker titled "Isaac Gregory."  I couldn't see the inscription but looked it up - another short and sweet one.  This said he was a member of the provincial congress, a brigadier general in the militia for the Revolutionary War and held other civic posts.  But I found another web page with a great deal more detail to explain why they thought Gregory was a hero and "the most notable person ever to have lived in Camden County."   https://www.camdencountync.gov/brigadier-general-isaac-gregory

I knew the unincorporated town of Gregory was near tonight's campground, though I never saw it.

And at 4:30, we finally made it to tonight's campground.  This one is quite large and seems to see itself as something of a resort.  And some of the campers I saw apparently also saw it that way, based on their activities.  More than half the campsites are ranged around a 5-acre lake and there's lots of well-kept grass.  But I wasn't very impressed because I'd specified a campsite but the owner decided I'd rather have a different site and moved me without explaining what she was doing.  And because the dog park, which was hard to find, was tiny and practically on top of a campsite occupied by a couple of large dogs that weren't allowed to come meet Dexter.  So the place was pleasant, but not impressive.  Though after today's drive, we were glad to be off the road.