North Carolina - Day 12 - to Rocky Mount and Williamston

Pierce RV Park, Williamston

Thursday, 13 July 2023

today's route

We left the campground at 8:45, and as we drove away I thought about the area and the towns we'd visited and came up with conclusions: Durham was smug; Chapel Hill was laid back, Raleigh was comfortable.  Accurate or not, those are the impressions they left with me.

I crossed the Neuse River, which begins in the Piedmont Region (where we've just spent 6 days) and flows to the Atlantic Ocean.  It's the longest river entirely contained in NC.

I saw a sign that I think was an official road sign that said Sir Walter Raleigh's original colony was 3 hours from Raleigh.  I thought that was a weird sign - 3 hours away?  And no directions or other information?  

Anyway, Sir Walter Raleigh's original colony was founded in 1585 on Roanoke Island.  Roanoke Island has no relation to the town of Roanoke (VA) and lies between the Outer Banks and mainland NC.  It's where the town of Manteo (pronounced MAN tee oh) is - remember the expression "from Manteo to Murphy" to describe the extent of NC?  Anyway, this small colony of about 120 people mysteriously disappeared some time in its first 5 years - including the child Virginia Dare, who you may have heard of.  If you're interested in more information, here's the Wikipedia page.   https://en.wikipedia.org/Roanoke-Colony

At the town of Zebulon, I saw a sign: "Welcome to Nash County - Where Business Meets Opportunity."  The county has about 95,000 residents, and Zebulon has only about 7,000 of them.  I was surprised to learn that the town's name came from a 19th century NC governor, Zebulon Vance.  My surprise is because they chose his first name, where the last name is much more usual.  Nash County was the home of the first Hardee's restaurant in 1960, and it ranks near the top of NC counties as a solar power producer.  So maybe their slogan makes sense.

For some reason, that name Zebulon was ringing a bell, which is why I'd looked it up in the first place.  I finally remembered the explorer Zebulon Pike (as in Pike's Peak) had that name, and I think that's where the ringing bell came from.

We crossed the Tar River, and I was curious about the name.  Apparently nobody knows exactly where it came from, but the theory is that the area used to be home to extensive long-leafed pine forests, and those trees were once important for the tar they produced.

I got up at 2:15 this morning and I'm already sleepy, which doesn't bode well for the rest of the drive.

We came to a road work area and a long single line of traffic trying to get through the area.  It took miles before we saw even one road worker, which is frustrating.  The 65 mph speed limit signs when we're stopped dead or rolling stop-and-go are also frustrating.  But traveling in the summer means road work.

We got to Rocky Mount at just about 10:30, stopped at yet another grocery store, and then went on to the local dog park.  By the way, there are several reasons for these frequent grocery store stops.  Partly it's because I have limited storage facilities and can't buy ahead - especially fresh stuff.  And partly it's because I really have my preferred brands of lots of products and often have to visit several stores to find what I want.  And partly it's because, try as I might, I'm just not organized enough to avoid the multiple trips.

Anyway, the dog park was apparently new and certainly very fancy - 9 acres, they say online.  It has 3 fenced areas: small dogs, large dogs and agility training.  That last had a lot of equipment in it, unusual in a public park.  Dext spent some time sniffing - only one dog came and didn't stay long - and then we all had some lunch before getting back on the road.

The folks (of all ages) I talked to in Rocky Mount said it was a good place to retire but not good for finding a job or starting a business.

A highway sign warned that "Slow Moving Farm Equipment Uses This Highway - next 14 miles."  I don't remember seeing that sign before - although I may have seen some variation on the theme.  A lot of states have a lot of farm equipment moving on its roads.

We crossed the Tar River again, passed the towns of Tarboro and Princeton (odd assortment of names) and came to a sign saying we were on the Historic Albemarle Highway.  Unlike most scenic highways around the country, this one doesn't follow a specific route but instead includes pieces of quite a few local highways and the places they connect, such as the oldest continuously inhabited house in North Carolina.  The state legislature established the route in 1975 and expanded it in 1978, so it's been around a long time.

As I got close to Williamston, Google's directions tried to send me on a bizarre detour, believing there was road construction.  Online I found info that said Google was wrong so I prepared alternate directions, just in case.  It turned out we were both right - there was a detour but it was much shorter than Google claimed and not in the location it claimed.

Google had also said today's drive would take me about 2½ hours, but as usual I drove slower than they expected and stopped for nearly 2 hours in Rocky Mount, so we didn't make it to tonight's campground until 3:00. 

Actually, I'd intended to make the drive even longer by going farther down the road to the Old Colony Smokehouse in Edenton for some BBQ, but their website says they open at 11:00 and stay open "until the food runs out."  By the time I finally got into the vicinity, I figured my chances of finding food might be slim, and I just wasn't up for an extra hour+ of driving that was likely to get me only disappointment, so I passed it up for today.

Tonight's campground turned out to be a strange place.  First, when I'd made the reservations the owner told me to call 30 minutes before I arrived.  But when I did that, she sounded impatient as if I were doing something strange and unnecessary.  

Second, it was a thoroughly mixed group of mobile homes and RV sites.  The owner led me to an RV site but, after she'd left, I found the electric plug didn't work and called her.  She kept telling me on the phone I hadn't flipped the breaker switch, but of course I had and persisted until she agreed to come back (she'd gone to get groceries).  She came back and, sure enough, couldn't make it work so moved me to another site.  Which also didn't have working electricity.  Third time was the charm, fortunately, so we were able to settle in.

Third, the road in the campground was entirely dirt, so Dext and I had a couple of hot dusty walks around the place.  I wiped us both down with damp paper towels before we went to bed.

North Carolina - Day 11 - to Durham, Chapel Hill

Rolling View Campground, Falls Lake State Recreation Area

Monday, 10 July 2023

I finally got worried enough about Dexter's unusual vomiting (it's rare for him) that I made an appointment with the Banfield vet in Raleigh.  I figured most local vets would refuse to take new patients or would relegate us to an appointment next month, because that's what I've been finding everywhere.  Clearly, if you're at all interested in animals and willing to go through the extensive schooling, being a veterinarian is a growth industry.

Banfield had called me the day before to confirm and mentioned they expected me to drop Dext off and leave him there.  But I told them I wanted to be present when they did the exam, so they gave me an earlier time to arrive today.

today's route

On the way into town, we were passed by a yellow Mustang with an NC license plate that said "VVROOM!".  (The exclamation mark was part of the plate.)

We were at the vet's for just over an hour.  Their conclusion: they wanted to do x-rays, several blood tests for various reasons, anti-nausea meds and anti-diarrhea meds.   When I asked about the anti-nausea medicine, they said it was so if he vomited despite taking it, that would indicate a significant problem.  I said because he's now gone almost a week with only vomiting once, then I'd regard any vomiting now as a significant problem, with or without meds.  And since Dext hasn't had diarrhea, I asked about that and they didn't seem to have an answer.

Anyway, any of that would cost a fair amount of money (they gave me an estimate), let alone all of it together, so since he seemed to be getting better anyway thanks to the chicken-and-rice diet, I nixed all those ideas.  Especially since they couldn't come up with a diagnosis.

They said to keep him on the chicken-and-rice regimen another week and then start him back on Purina ProPlan, which is what I had been giving him before I ran out and started switching foods, which may have been the cause of all this anyway.  So that, I figured I could do.

From there, we drove a half hour to a recycling place in Durham.  (Raleigh had one but said it was for residents only and dumpers would be required to show proof of address.)  At Durham, that was a strange experience.  They made me (and everyone) get on a scale and say specifically what I wanted to dump.  When I explained, they said it would be free because I had only a small amount, and I was to follow the signs for "Hand Unload" down a seriously bumpy and muddy road.  I did that and had quite a job convincing the workers that I didn't need to back up to a big pit other people were tossing truck-loads of stuff into - I guess the size of the RV had them confused.  They finally directed me to the one dumpster for recycling - labeled "Hand Unload" - and it was so nearly full I barely got my few things in.  But what I tossed was small only compared to others; compared to the amount of room I had in the bathroom once I got rid of them, it seemed huge.

From there I drove through some back streets (a little joke of Google's) including an encounter with the famous Can Opener.  It's a low railroad bridge over a city street in Durham, but with an 11' 8" clearance, it's known for peeling off the tops of trucks that are too tall.  It was originally built to the standard height back in the 1920s - but since then trucks have gotten much bigger so it's now more than 2' lower than the standard.  In 2008, a guy set up a video camera and posted it to YouTube; in the following 8 years, he'd recorded 101 crashes.  In 2016, the city set up a series of lights and huge warning signs, and even raised the height of the bridge by 8".  And less than a month later, yet another idiot ran into it.  Part of the problem seems to be that GPS still routes drivers under the bridge, though that doesn't explain the obliviousness to the warnings.

With my 11' clearance, I knew I could make it, so I can attest that the warning signs are indeed functioning and, honestly, I don't know how someone could miss them.  But I made it safely into town to the campus of Duke University.

I came in memory of my sister Louise, who attended here for 3 years until her death the summer before her senior year.  On the map I'd spotted the Visitor and Alumni Center, strategically located so I could park and Dext and I could walk around the campus a little.  Except once there I found they charge for parking.  As far as I could tell, they charge everybody, not just visitors.  I'm not used to a college refusing to make accommodations for their graduates, or for their visitors for that matter, so this seemed weird.  And greedy.

So we didn't stop there but instead drove over toward the famous Duke Chapel.  And couldn't get there because the road was closed to regular traffic and any place I found to park required a permit.  I was disappointed but gave up and headed toward Chapel Hill.

Online I'd found a dog park in Chapel Hill so we headed to that.  Actually I found several dog parks in Durham too, but they all required advance online registration and some other hoops to jump through - these are for the public dog parks, you understand - and I thought that was ridiculous.  Especially since this one in Chapel Hill was open to the public like all the others I've found around the country.

When we got there, we were the only ones in the dog park - and then suddenly a guy pulls his car to the wrong side of the narrow 2-lane road, puts on his flashers, and lets his dog into the park, ignoring all the cars having to inch past his that's illegally parked.  Dext and the dog meet, Dext looks interested and then goes blah like he's been doing lately, the man's dog poops and the guy just watches it, and then they leave.  Weird.  And selfish.

I was once in Chapel Hill about a lifetime ago when I visited Louise in Durham, and I was straining my memory to find anything at all I recognized.  I thought maybe the iconic Old Well on the campus of the University of North Carolina might do the trick, but when I got there, I found the view almost completely obscured by construction around it and was barely able to inch past the equipment.  So much for a stroll down Memory Lane.

This is what I should have seen.

For comparison, this is an 1892 photo.

Just as a note of interest, the "new" version was designed and built in 1897 and modeled after the Temple of Love in the Gardens of Versailles.  As you can see by the old photo, the well was actually a well and supplied all the water for the school.  They still have a water fountain in the center of the structure, which is now the symbol for the school.  Sorry the construction stopped us from visiting.

One thing that surprised me about this area was all the greenery.  Massive amounts of plants, bushes, trees everywhere, and the roads seemed almost overgrown in both towns and along the Durham-Chapel Hill Road between them.  You know how memories are, and in my mind's eye it was still late fall here as it was when I'd visited before, and all this green stuff was disorienting.

I stopped at yet another grocery story - a Food Lion this time - and then drove on to yet another BBQ place, this one called The Original Q Shack in Durham.  Except the directions Google gave me didn't match reality.  The highway exit signs didn't say anything like Google had said.  I drove for miles past where the turn was supposed to be, with no luck.  And I wasn't at all clear about Durham's geography so didn't want to just try and flounder my way to the place - so yet again I lost out on North Carolina barbecue.

I heard something on the radio about "celebration of the '70s featuring artifacts of the era," and it did a number on my head (as we used to say back in the '70s).  My old stuff is now an "artifact?"

We got back to the campground, I dumped the waste tanks, and we were back in the campsite by 2:45.  Looking back on the day, the only things I really accomplished were dumping recyclables and dumping my sewage.  Another strange day.

To end the day, I compounded the strangeness.  Given the vet's instructions about Dexter's diet, I decided to get rid of the 2 opened bags of food I wouldn't be able to give him once we'd gotten off the chicken-and-rice, so I took them over to a nearby campsite where I knew they had large dogs.  And they accepted them willingly.  It was only a few days later that I realized I'd left a measuring cup in one of them.  And this wasn't any measuring cup - it was part of an old set (older than I am) that my momma used.  And now all I have are the ⅓ cup, the ½ cup, and the 1 cup measurers.  Gone forever is the ¼ cup.  Taking part of my childhood with it.

North Carolina - Day 10 - to Raleigh

Rolling View Campground, Falls Lake State Recreation Area, Durham

Saturday, 8 July 2023

The official address of the campground where I'm staying is Durham, but to me it seems closer to Raleigh, or maybe about equidistant between there and Durham, not counting some smaller towns in the area.  Anyway, I decided to go to Raleigh today, to see the state capitol and run some errands around town.

today's route

The easiest route to town from the campground led me past a statue I associate with Scottish Rite children's hospitals, but I didn't see a sign saying there was a hospital there so I looked it up.  And learned that the statue marks the location of the local Scottish Rite chapter, not a hospital.  But I have no idea why they used the children's hospital statue instead of a marker with the group's name on it.

I stopped at a PetsMart, then at a U-Haul for propane, then at an ABC liquor store (they're all state-run).  I also managed to find gasoline for $3.09/gallon - about the cheapest I've run across lately.

My next stop was supposed to be a Wegman's grocery, but once there I got an unpleasant surprise.  They had a decent-sized parking lot, but the entire lot was cordoned off with those clearance bars like you see at fast food drive-in windows.  This one was labeled "7' 11" Clearance," which was several feet too low for me.  I drove all around the entire lot, but the entire place was surrounded.  A sign said this limit was "for the convenience of customers," which I found irritating because it wasn't convenient for me - though it did ensure I wasn't a customer.  There was an open lot, but it was on a different level and I'd have had to climb a bunch of stairs to get to and from the store, and besides not wanting to drag myself up them I didn't want to drag a bunch of groceries either.  So chalk up one disgruntled would-be customer.

From there we stopped at an off-leash dog park that was very nice.  It was quite large with lots of trees, and Dext met a few dogs there.  

While we were stopped, I got on the computer to find another grocery store, and we went from the dog park to a Harris Teeter.  On the way from there to the state capitol, I passed the William Peace University, which was a new one on me.  They say they were founded in 1857 and it's a nationally ranked private college that used to be related to the Presbyterian church.  Out front I saw a sign: "Esperanto Spoken Here."  I couldn't remember what that was either but learned online that it's a made-up language, well over 100 years old, that was intended to be used as a universal 2nd language.  

When I got to the capitol, I was really disappointed to find that it was impossible to get an unobstructed view of it from any angle.  I drove all the way around it, only to find scaffolding and other construction impediments.  Too late, I saw online that renovations started in May and will go on until they're done.  I would have liked to find a parking place so Dext and I could walk around, because I saw quite a few statues on the grounds.  But not only couldn't I find a spot, but also I wouldn't have been able to get close to the building, so I didn't stop.  But here's what it should have looked like.

North Carolina State Capitol

The cornerstone for the building was laid by North Carolina's Grand Master of the NC Masonic Lodge in 1833, soon after the original capitol burned.  This building (above) was completed in 1840 in the Greek Revival style and has been in continuous use ever since.  I think the 4 sides are roughly equal in size, and the dome is copper.  An attractive building.

One of the statues on the grounds looked like it had several people together, so I looked it up and learned it's a statue of the 3 US presidents North Carolina lays claim to: Andrew Jackson, Andrew Johnson, and James Polk.  They've also got a large statue of George Washington and a large Vietnam War memorial and several others scattered around the grounds.

A short distance away, I came to a low clearance bridge: 12' 4".  Fortunately, I could fit underneath that level because I didn't have a Plan B route.

I passed Wiggins School of Law, which I hadn't heard of and was founded comparatively recently - in 1976.  Most law schools are part of a larger university, but this one seems to be standalone.

And nearby I passed the attractive campus of North Carolina State University.  It's a land grant college, founded in 1887, and is now the largest school of higher education in North Carolina.  It was originally established as NC A&M, with programs for military and agricultural and mechanical training in addition to the liberal arts.  Some years ago it somehow became part of the University of North Carolina, but students, alumni and faculty were so peeved about that fact - and the intent to rename the school as "UNC at Raleigh" - that the name finally became NC State University.  Interesting how attached people can be to their school.

From there, I aimed for Sam Jones BBQ - and found it.  And I really wanted to stop because it has a good reputation.  But it sits at the corner of 2 narrow streets, one of them a hill and both of them requiring parallel parking.  Which I might have been able to pull off, but even in the middle of the afternoon lots of other people were stopped there too, and parking places weren't available for a vehicle my size.  Plus the restaurant didn't have a parking lot of its own as far as I could tell.  So regretfully I gave it a miss.

We started back on the drive to the campground - took the best part of an hour - arriving at 3:15.  I spent quite a while trying to find any part of the campsite that was level and was only partly successful.  It was a big site and I tried all kinds of positions, none of which really worked.  But that's what we had.

When I took Dext out, I found that while we were gone, someone had taken the tag I'd gotten when we checked in the first day - the one they want posted at the site.  I didn't care but also didn't want trouble from the campground, so I called the office and their solution was that I drive back to the entrance and get a new one.  I said I only had the one vehicle, was already parked, and if they wanted me to have a tag they could bring one by when they made their rounds.  I also said that I didn't see why they'd decided I'd checked out when I still had several days paid for.  I pointed out quite a few campers had only one vehicle and might leave a campsite empty for a short time.  Deaf ears is what I think they had.  Anyway, they never brought a substitute tag.

On our walk, Dext and I found it to be so very warm and humid that it sapped our energy and - for me - my breath, so we cut it short.  I still had to cook more rice for him anyway.  And in fact, it was so humid it finally gave up and started raining at 6:15.

I had bags of stuff from my various shopping forays but didn't even finish emptying them because I was too tired.  This left the cabin absolutely chaotic because of so many things being out of place.  In a small space like this, already cluttered with living, moving beings, I keep my sanity by trying always to put things where they belong.

Tonight I was cooking the rice and warming up Dext's refrigerated chicken and my food and feeding all the critters and trying to fix myself a vodka tonic but having no extra counter space and couldn't put anything at all edible on the table because the kittens would grab it and I was having muscle spasms in my lower back every time I straightened up after bending and the glands in my throat were swollen and sore and I felt dirty and hot and needed a shower (which would likely have made me feel hotter and which I couldn't bring myself to do with no privacy) and it was all very uncomfortable.

Strange day.  But I liked Raleigh.

North Carolina - Day 9 - in Falls Lake campground

Rolling View Campground, Falls Lake State Recreation Area, Durham

Friday, 7, Sunday, 9, Tuesday - Wednesday, 11 - 12 July 2023

We were here for 6 days, spending 2 of them touring the area (see next 2 posts) and the other 4 days here in the campground.

It was pretty quiet here, because the campsites are fairly well-separated and scattered through some thick trees.  Occasionally some of the neighbors would be a little loud, but nobody got rowdy or anything like that.

The showers in this campground are incredible.  Each shower stall has a shower curtain but no other privacy.  The hooks for towels or clothes are at least 3' away from the shower area, and the only possible way to hope for any privacy is to go super early in the morning (before anyone else gets up) and take the last stall in the row.  Not an enticing prospect.

I managed to get some level of internet access now and then, but for the most part it was pretty terrible.  I did finally complete a couple of posts for early this month, but with the lousy access it went really slowly.  In fact, loading photos was out of the question and I couldn't even check to be sure I'd actually saved something I'd written because it all went so slowly.

One morning I was reaching up to pat Lily on the top bunk and put my hand on the back of the bench seat to balance.  Jimmy was racing around the cabin and jumped on my hand, dug in his claws to give himself a good purchase, and then launched himself up to the upper bunk.  He left 3 puncture wounds on my hand that were deep enough that 2 of them bled all day.  I had to put Band-Aids on them to keep from bleeding all over the cabin, and every time I checked to see if I could take them off, I started bleeding again.  He really dug in.

But sadly, that wasn't the worst damage he caused me.  One night at bedtime, I put Bucky in the kittens' carrying case and then tried to retrieve Jimmy.  He was on the top bunk, up against the far wall, and wouldn't come down.  So I climbed up on the front bench seat, climbed up on the back of the seat, climbed up on the top bunk, got him, and then reversed the operation.  But when I was either on the back of the bench or on the seat of the bench - I couldn't remember after it happened - I put my foot down toward the next level but my foot couldn't find it.  Unfortunately my momentum was moving me down, while holding Jimmy of course, and I didn't have a spare hand to save myself so fell hard on the floor just behind my left side.  I was somehow still holding Jimmy, but naturally this all scared him and he jumped to the seat - but didn't scratch me (miraculously) and stayed waiting for me on the seat (amazingly).  So I managed to pick myself up and put him into the case with his brother and took stock of my situation.  Sore, was the answer.

As the days went by, the soreness got worse instead of better.  It felt like I'd bruised a rib, though the time I did that before the soreness seemed close to the surface of my skin, whereas this time the pain seemed farther inside.  Over time I came to the conclusion that I may very well have bruised one or more ribs.  I'd forgotten that the rib cage runs all the way around the body, so the ribs in my back might have gotten whammed when I whammed into the floor.  From what was a considerable height.

And as the days went by, I began to notice clearly that it was a big mistake to cough.  The problem with that is that I've been coughing frequently because of my asthma acting up, only now the level of pain that results is more than I want.  Oddly, my body thought that too - it wasn't just my mind that decided it - and I started noticing my body actually refusing to allow coughs to happen without me even thinking about it.  Odd sensation.

On the other hand, I was able to bend over the kitchen sink to wash my hair (since I refused to use those ridiculous shower facilities).  So I guess I didn't do any major damage, if I can bend over.  I'm learning not to lift my left arm - and other accommodations for the injury.

I've also learned not to do any serious groaning because when I do, every one of my critters looks at me with real apprehension.  I don't know how they know there's something wrong beyond just the usual out-of-shape old lady problems, but they do and they don't like it.  So I'm starting to keep my feeling sorry for myself inside so as not to upset the babies.  Probably just as well.

I went to the trouble of looking up the closest walk-in clinic - even got directions to it.  But I finally decided I've lived through a bruised rib before - and a pulled shoulder, as far as that goes - so I can live through this little situation.  I doubt if they could do anything for me anyway, if some internal bruises are all it is.  I can't take most pain-killers because I can't take any kind of opioids, and I wouldn't want to take them anyway because of needing to be alert to drive.  So I ended up not going.

One night I decided to celebrate my sister's life, since it was mainly her memory that brought me here - she spent the last 3 years of her life in Durham and died here so it's been impossible for me to come to this area without thinking of her.

Because she was only 21 when she died, we had no time together as adults - so I was really only celebrating by doing things my memory connects with her.  I had some Stouffer's lasagna, because I remember eating lasagna at an Italian restaurant either in Durham or Chapel Hill.  And I had some chianti, because it seemed to fit somehow.  And I watched the movie Denial, because I think that situation would have meant something to her.  That's the movie I've mentioned before about a trial in England brought by a holocaust denier who sued an American professor for libel because she'd said he was a holocaust denier.  (She won.)

I know Louise was thinking about going to law school not long before she died and I think this trial would have resonated with her.  

North Carolina - Day 8 - to Winston-Salem, Greensboro

Rolling View Campground, Falls Lake State Recreation Area, Durham

Thursday, 6 July 2023

On our first walk today, Dext and I stopped in the pre-dawn dark on the bridge that crossed the creek in the campground.  I was enjoying listening to the creek and the insects and the birds when Dext suddenly whipped behind me and almost pulled me over while he chased a critter.  I could just see a tail as it dropped down by the creek below the bridge - a bushy grayish tail, I thought.  But I also caught a whiff of skunk smell - and Dext caught more than a whiff.  Thank goodness that skunk was spending its time running away instead of spraying, but Dext still ended up with a vague aura of skunk about him.

He needed a bath anyway and now he really needs one.  But I've got no ability to give him one so I wiped him down a few times with wet paper towels, which seemed to help.  But what a way to start the day.  Thank goodness this is his first - and I hope only - skunk encounter.

Then, just before we left the campground I discovered stale vomit by the passenger seat.  Apparently that's what I was smelling a couple of days ago after I'd cleaned up the batch by the driver's seat.  

At least, I hope it was from that era.  I've been feeding Dext chicken and rice at each meal and it's surprisingly time consuming.  I bought and cooked chicken breasts, and now I'm hand shredding the meat for each meal.  Plus, since the meat and rice are stored in the frig, I feel like I should heat them up at least a little before giving them to Dext.  I mean, I don't want to eat cold rice so can't assume he'd like it either.  But I do all of this because I'm assured it could help prevent this vomiting I'm cleaning up, which I'm certain isn't good for him.  And so far, he hasn't seemed to throw up the chicken and rice, so I'm hoping.

Anyway, between the skunk and the vomit, we did not have an auspicious start to our drive.

today's route

At least it was a pretty, sunny day.

From the campground, we crossed the Yadkin River, where a sign told me it was part of the Yadkin-Pee Dee River Basin.  I connect the Pee Dee River with western South Carolina so I looked this up - and had to keep looking things up for a while before I finally learned that the Yadkin River, which begins just south of Boone, flows north into Virginia, then flows south and east and, part way through North Carolina, becomes the Pee Dee River.  The Pee Dee River seems to begin at the point its name stops being the Yadkin River and starts being the Pee Dee River.  

This seems weird to me.  I could understand it if the name changed with the state's boundary - you know, if South Carolinians had a different name for the same river - but all this name changing happens within North Carolina.  Well, whatever.  This system is North Carolina's second largest river basin.

Speaking of water, I heard on the radio that Joshua Trees in the Mohave Desert are dying from lack of water, from wildfires, and from development that's splitting the breeding populations.  Like so many other people, I developed a real fondness for those strange plants and would hate to see them endangered.

I continued to see signs for vineyards and wineries during the drive.  In fact, I've been seeing these signs everywhere I've gone in this state.

I woke up at 2 AM today and couldn't get back to sleep, so now I'm having trouble fighting off sleep.  Very inconvenient.

We passed quite a few smaller towns like Yadkinville and Lewisville, and then came to Winston-Salem.  I was curious about that hyphenated name and looked it up.  Salem is by far the older town, established in the 1750s and 1760s as a settlement for members of the Moravian Church.

The congregation sold land north of Salem to the county in 1849 to establish a county seat.  This town was named Winston in honor of a local hero of the Revolutionary War.  At a centennial celebration in 1876, a speaker referred to the two towns together, followed by the US Postal Service doing the same thing a few years later.  A referendum in 1913 made the hyphenated name official.

By the time of WWII, R.J. Reynolds Tobacco and Hanes textiles had become the leading employers here.  Oddly, Reynolds imported so much French cigarette paper and Turkish tobacco to make Camel cigarettes that the federal government designated Winston-Salem as an official port of entry (yes, it's 200 miles inland).

I drove around town a bit because I'd understood the Home Moravian Church was there and I was curious.  This congregation was founded in 1771 and services are still held here regularly.  In fact, they've held an Easter sunrise service there since 1772, and people now come from around the world to attend.  Sadly, I wasn't able to find either the church or a parking place so Dext and I could go look.  This area of town is called Old Salem, and maybe you can see why from this photo.

This photo is deceptive, because the streets are much narrower than they look here.  In fact, I was worried about squeezing the RV between the parked cars for the little driving around I did.

One of the houses I passed had a sign saying it had been a doctor's house and was built in 1802.  Those white houses you can see in my photo aren't the usual clapboard-type construction.  This is a very old town, with buildings of old brick and rough hewn wood.

Winston-Salem was also the site of the first Krispy Kreme doughnut shop.  It opened in 1937 but is no longer at that site.  I looked.

site of the original Krispy Kreme

This really is the spot - everything I consulted said so - but the building is gone.  What surprised me was that there wasn't any kind of sign or historical marker here.  They seem to have those markers for everything else - just not doughnuts.

I also drove by a local landmark.

Mickey Coffee Pot

This coffee pot dates back to at least 1858, when it was advertising in front of the tin shop owned by the Mickey brothers here in Salem.  They were descendants of original Moravian founders of the town.  This photo too is deceptive - this pot is 7' tall, though it doesn't seem like it.

Apparently, at Halloween in 1930, a large group of local idiots tried to blow it up - but the scrap paper they used for their fuse was stationery with the printed address of a grandmother of one of the kids.  The kids were caught, they all paid to repair the pot, and it's remained unharmed ever since.

The country around this town is lovely and pastoral.  I drove the half hour or so from there to Greensboro, the second city in the Piedmont Triad.  (I didn't end up getting to High Point, the third Triad city, this trip.)

Driving into the main part of town, I passed a place called Blandwood Mansion, which was built in 1795 as a 4-room farmhouse.  When then-Gov. John Morehead bought it in the first half of the 1800s, he turned it into what's now the oldest example of the Italian Villa Style in the country.  It wouldn't have been our oldest example if preservationists hadn't saved it from from demolition in 1964.  I'm sorry that I couldn't find any uncopyrighted photos online - but it looks a lot like a LaQuinta hotel - a 2-story house in a regal shade of yellow, with a red tile roof and a 3-story tower at the entrance.  Today it and its gardens are a museum.

I passed a historical marker for someone named Lunsford Richardson and would have ignored it but happened to notice the text said he'd invented Vicks VapoRub here.  I'm a fan of that stuff when I've got a cold, so I was curious and looked it up.  In 1890, Richardson was a pharmacist, operating a drug store here in Greensboro with a partner, and spending a lot of time inventing various kinds of medicines.  Among those were cough syrups and cough drops, produced in the 1930s and still being used as Vicks products today.  Remarkable staying power for being simple medicines.

Below is the building I came to Greensboro to see: the site of the famous 1960 lunch counter sit-in.  It was by no means the first such sit-in, but it gained massive publicity nationwide and the support of then-President Eisenhower.  And it eventually worked.

site of the 1960 Woolworth lunch counter sit-ins

For more detailed information about this series of events, here's the Wikipedia page.   https://en.wikipedia.org/Greensboro-sit-ins

These days, this store is part of the International Civil Rights Center & Museum, which is headquartered in the building next door.  Sometime when I have more time and energy I'd like to come back and visit the museum, but today wasn't the day.  Too hot.

So there I was driving down Market Street and suddenly, with no advance warning, I came to a bridge with a small sign that said "Low Clearance - Edgeline 10' 4" - Centerline 13' 10"."  I know I can go under 11' clearance bridges but I wasn't willing to test the limits right here in Greensboro, so I waited until I could drive in the middle of the road to go under the bridge.  It would have been helpful if they'd posted a warning sign in time for me to go around, but they didn't bother.  Market Street is a main road in town so I'd have thought trucks would use it and they'd post warning signs for them.  It sure got my adrenaline going for a bit.

From there, we went on to a park I'd found online so Dext could take a walk.  We discovered an odd sort of set-up that looked like a place for little kids to ride in little cars, with intersections and road signs and stuff.  I've seen a race track for little kids, but it wasn't that.  I asked a couple of women who were standing around, but they didn't know what it was either.  So I finally asked a maintenance worker who said it was called Safety Town, and they have peddle cars for kids, and the intent is to teach them the rules of the road.  Can't start too early, in my opinion, since it's remarkable how many people seem to get licenses without a firm grasp of them.  Anyway, the man said it's only operated at specific times and is so popular that people should make reservations.

One of the things I've wanted to do while I'm in North Carolina is check out their version of barbecue.  Apparently, in the bbq world, NC's version is acknowledged to be as distinct at that in South Carolina and that in Georgia,  Today I planned to stop at a well-known local establishment called Staney's BBQ, and I did stop there.  But once there I realized all they offered was chopped beef, usually on a bun, and chicken.  No ribs.  Apparently not even any brisket that's in unchopped form.  I like chopped beef on a bun just fine, but I eat in restaurants so seldom that I didn't much want to buy something I can make for myself in the RV.  Actually, I could theoretically make ribs myself too, but that would require a decent-sized bbq grill, which I'm not carrying with me.  I've fixed ribs in the slow cooker, but that's nothing like cooking them over a fire.

So I gave Staney's a miss.  What a shame.

I passed a very large facility labeled Prepac Distribution.  I hadn't heard of this company, which seemed odd with such a large plant, so I looked them up and learned they "design, manufacture and ship" ready-to-assemble furniture for the home.  Basically, a home-grown Ikea.  Well, sort of home-grown.  Their headquarters are in British Columbia.  They must be providing a whole lot of local jobs.

The locals think the company locating here just makes sense, because nearby High Point claims the title of Furniture Capital of the World.  They say they have more than 2,000 furniture manufacturers and 150 showrooms.  That sounds like a lot, considering High Point isn't particularly large - only 114,000 residents.  On the other hand, it's less than 20 miles from Greensboro, with a population of more than 300,000, which I suppose is how those manufacturers find enough employees.  

Just a few miles from Greensboro is the Guilford Courthouse National Military Park.  This was the site of a Revolutionary War battle that I mentioned in my post about the Battle at Cowpens in South Carolina.  The encounter near the Guilford Courthouse here was the third battle of an odd series: in 1780 the Americans had lost many battles - the fall of Charleston and the Battle of Camden, as examples; but in October 1780, American forces surprised and decisively beat Loyalist forces (Americans who were loyal to King George) at Kings Mountain in SC; exactly one week later, American forces once again surprised and decisively beat British forces in the Battle of Cowpens, also in SC; then in March 1781, some of the same troops met here at Guilford Courthouse.  As the National Park Service phrased it: the general "who chose the ground lost the day - and the one who kept the field lost the war."  

General Nathaniel Greene and Lord Cornwallis had been pursuing and sparring with each other for months, but in March Greene had just received reinforcements and chose this area as a battleground.  The result was considered an American defeat because they were the ones who retreated at the end of the day.  But that evening, Greene discovered his losses were relatively light while those of Cornwallis were overwhelming.  Cornwallis began his own retreat, heading for Wilmington, NC, and intent on conquering Virginia.  Greene chose to let others fight Cornwallis and instead he spent his time and troops reconquering South Carolina.  Cornwallis, on the other hand, was eventually defeated and surrendered at Yorktown in VA in October 1781.  And though the war continued 2 more years, Yorktown marked the beginning of the end.

I hope I've learned enough on this trip to be forever rid of the idea that the Revolutionary War was entirely fought in the northern colonies.  On the contrary, some of the war's most decisive battles were fought in the southern colonies.

Back on the road, I passed towns like Burlington and Graham and noted once again that there seem to be lots of breweries in North Carolina.  The state has road signs directing people to breweries as well as wineries, and I've already seen a lot of both in just a few days of driving around.

Tonight's campground in Falls Lake state park was surprisingly hard to find on Google.  It turns out that the park - actually a state recreation area - has 2 main areas that are fairly widely separated from each other.  On Google I had to ask for this campground - Rolling View - by name before I could get directions.

The section my campsite was in was heavily wooded, and Dext and I found out right away that the campground is very hilly.  Today was very warm - hot by local standards (about 90°) - and very humid, so walking around the campground wasn't very pleasant.  Besides, I was really tired for some reason (maybe the weather).

We were in our campsite before 2:00 after dumping the tanks, and I cooked more chicken and rice for Dext.

North Carolina - Day 7 - in Stone Mountain campground

Stone Mountain State Park, Roaring Gap

Wednesday, 5 July 2023

I'd heard that Stone Mountain was a prominent landmark on the edge of the Blue Ridge Mountains and it sounded interesting, which is why I'd booked our reservations here - that plus I'd actually managed to find a campsite available here on July 4th (yesterday).  But sadly, I was never able to see the mountain so can't tell you what it looked like except from its pictures online.

Stone Mountain

It's described as an exposed granite dome more than 600' tall.  The summit lies at 2,305' elevation.  Note how much lower these eastern mountains are than those in, say, Colorado.  Scientists say it's because these eastern mountains are significantly older than the western ones and have been worn down by time.  This particular hunk of granite is from an era dating between 419.2 to 358.9 million years ago; compared to the Rocky Mountains forming 75 million years ago that's a lot more years to have gotten worn down.  Because it's "the best example of a monadnock in massive granite in North Carolina" (per Wikipedia) it's been designated a National Natural Landmark.

The map of the state park shows numerous hiking trails, all of which looked much more strenuous than either Dext or I was in condition to tackle.  I guess there's a park road that would take us completely around the dome, but what with all the tall green trees (the photo above was taken in March and already shows a lot of greenery), I figured if I couldn't see anything either from the drive in or from the campground then I couldn't count on getting a view from the road, especially since no viewpoints were marked on the map.  So I missed the mountain.

Otherwise, this was a nice campground - paved campsites and roads, lots of trees and bushes, a stream running through the middle of the campsites.  The stream was called Big Sandy Creek and there seemed to be a healthy flow of water in it, which helped cool the air.

I heard a woodpecker that was so loud I figured it was likely a Pileated Woodpecker - our country's largest since the Ivory-billed Woodpecker is now probably extinct.

This afternoon Dext and I went out for a walk, but got caught in rain.  Actually, it started sprinkling soon after we started but I kept going - until the sprinkling got strong enough to qualify as rain, so we went back.  We were only gone about 15 minutes but in that time I found the kittens had jumped on the table, thrown my new computer mouse on the floor, and started ripping up my pages of notes.  I lost it.  I started screaming at them.  And I saw it as a compounding injury that I had to clean up the mess besides being the victim of it.

After a bit I stopped screaming so Jimmy came sauntering out of hiding like nothing was wrong - and I started screaming at him again.  This happened twice and finally he was so cowed he was afraid to come out to eat his supper.  Bucky, having a reasonably functioning brain, had stayed lying low the whole time and was able to recognize that he was allowed to come eat supper.  But Jimmy, having almost no ability to form rational thoughts, couldn't do any of that.  He did finally come out to eat at the last minute.

I keep thinking I'll be glad when they grow up - and I can see that with Bucky he's beginning to mature.  But I'm also starting to see that with Jimmy I will always have a child - never an adult.  I'm not sure he'll ever be anything but a child for his entire life.  And for someone who prefers an orderly life, that's a mildly depressing thought.  But we just keep on keeping on, and hoping for the best, I guess.

We were so far into the hinterlands here that I didn't even bother checking to see if I could pick up an internet signal.  Instead I worked with the word processing program on recent travel notes.

North Carolina - Day 6 - east to Mount Airy, Stone Mountain

Stone Mountain State Park, Roaring Gap

Tuesday, 4 July 2023

On our way out of the campground, I stopped to dump the trash and discovered that Dext had vomited on the floor beside the driver's seat.  I did my best to clean it up and used Clorox wipes that, to me, have a strong odor.  But as we were driving on the road, the vomit smell was still so strong it made me feel queasy.  Always something, isn't it?

today's route

The drive from Boone (last night's campground) to Stone Mountain (tonight's campground) was so short that I decided to seize this chance to visit Mount Airy, home of Andy Griffith and supposed model for Mayberry.

As you can see, we crossed the Blue Ridge Parkway, then eventually doubled back to it again for the night.  We went from near Tennessee (west) to near Virginia (north).

The route included a very steep hill with a sign saying "Truckers Warning: 8% Grade - 4½ Miles - Sharp Curves."  And it was all true.

I came to a pair of highway signs: one said "The Great State of Wilkes" and the other said "Welcome to Wilkes County."  The county paid for the "state" signs while DOT paid for the "county" signs - and that's all the information I could find online.  The county commissioners meeting where they discussed this didn't breathe a word about where the "great state" business came from.  Maybe it's the mountain air.

At the town of Wilkesboro - "Where the Mountains Begin" - gasoline costs $2.94, which is substantially less than the $3.17 I paid in Boone.  At North Wilkesboro, I passed the Benny Parsons Grandstand.  No sign about what the grandstand was for, but online I learned that Benny Parsons was a NASCAR legend, so I'm guessing this was a racetrack.

NPR played a bit of the 4 Tops singing "Reach Out (I'll Be There)" and I felt like I'd gotten whiplash.  I was suddenly almost dizzy with the speed of my brain being shoved back into the 1960s.  Strange feeling.  This was one of the songs that the Library of Congress has decided to preserve in the National Recording Registry.  They also selected some recordings of Dorothy Thompson's commentary on the events at the beginning of WWII.  I guess she came by her opinions honestly: she was the first American journalist expelled from Nazi Germany.  A profile of this remarkable woman is at this link.   http://www.theheroinecollective.com/dorothy-thompson

The highway provided lots of green trees and grass and blooming mimosas.  Very pretty.

I came to Yadkinville - "Gateway to the Yadkin Valley" - and found a gas station offering regular at $1.77/gallon.  No surprise, there was a long line waiting their turn.  Surprise, the gas station across the road was charging $3.23.

All over this area I kept seeing signs touting the Yadkin Valley.  It seems to be a very rural area with fewer than 40,000 residents in the very spread-out county.  But they also claim numerous wineries here, which sounds like a reasonable use of all that land.

I also saw all kinds of other crops, of which I recognized corn and maybe tobacco.

Another one of those gas stations (it was the Sheetz brand - I've seen them around here and there) with $1.77 gas was in Mount Airy with an even longer line waiting.

Mount Airy says it's "A Piedmont Triad Community."  I had to look that up and learned that the Piedmont Triad is a rough triangle that extends south from the Virginia border and includes the 3 cities of Greensboro, High Point and Winston-Salem, which are all south of Mount Airy.  As of 2012, the area's population was 1.6 million, though I'm sure it's larger now.

As I crossed Main Street, I could see the streets lined with folks obviously waiting for a July 4th parade.  And to tell the truth, until then I'd completely forgotten that's what day it was today.  So Happy Birthday! to our country.

Dext and I walked around Riverside Park and the Granite City Greenway, but we couldn't really do it justice.  It just felt too hot - we were there about noon - and we didn't want to be out too long.

I saw a Virginia license plate there that said DGMOMMY

I'd learned from Google's town map that there were several Mayberry sights to see, so I mapped out a little route to take a look.

Mayberry Courthouse and Jail

It actually says so on the building.  And the signs say Mayberry Hotel and Foley's Market and Emmett's Fixxit Shop and Fred's Radio and TV Repair.  I think this is a stop on the usual tour which, of course, they're not having on the 4th of July.

Andy's Homeplace

This house was apparently actually Andy Griffith's home from 1935 till 1966.  That police car pulled up just as I got there, sat there while I took this photo, and then drove away.  Part of the entertainment, I guess.  The sign on the right says the house is occupied and will people please respect their privacy.

Driving through town I also saw the Andy Griffith Playhouse and Bee's B&B.  Mount Airy is a very hilly town, which I guess makes sense since it sits in the Piedmonts.

The state park was about 20 miles west of town, and we were in our site by 3:45.

I'd talked with Anna and David while we were at that park, and told them I was worried about Dext's frequent vomiting.  They urged me to feed him plain boiled chicken and plain cooked rice - no oil or spices on either one.  So I stopped at a grocery store back in town to buy these items and, before taking Dext on a walk or doing anything else I cooked the chicken and rice.  I figured they'd need some time to cool before I fed supper to the critters.  That usually happens about 4:15, but tonight it got delayed.

I put the chicken on and started the water boiling for the rice, measured out the rice and set the cup down on the table to read the directions.  Jimmy decided the measuring cup was a new toy and pawed it.  I stopped him, read some more, saw him reach out his paw again and swatted for him, and either he or I knocked that measuring cup over.  That put at least ¼ cup of rice scattered everywhere: on all 3 dog beds stacked under the table, stuck in my flip flops, stuck into the cushions on the seat, and the kernels slithered down through the cracks all the way to the water pump under the plywood cover that's under the bench seat.

Both the chicken and the rice were cooked by the time I shook out the beds and pulled up the cushions and the sheet of plywood and swept the inside of the water pump compartment and so forth.  By then, of course, Jimmy had forgotten all about it and I was furious.  We have really different attention spans - his is nonexistent.  I guess I chalk this one up to the full moon too.  I saw it when we went out on our first walk this morning, by the way - a big full moon.  Quite lovely and showing no sign of the havoc that it wreaks on our lives.

Dext and I went out for a walk, but it was very warm and Dext was panting soon after we went out.  I was tired from the heat and the driving and the tension so we cut our walk short.

I hope that chicken and rice helps him.