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.