Headin’ On Down the Road

We left Havelock, and the kids’ driveway, on Valentine’s day, getting up early to tell everyone goodbye. It was an awful way to start the day, puffy eyed and sniffling for about 100 miles! Highway 17 South was a new road for us, always exciting. We were set to leave a day earlier, but a big storm came in. Storms here mean a deluge of rain and very high winds. A fatality was reported just a mile or so away when a tree branch blew down and in through a car window, killing the passenger.

Everyone has a ditch here. Water runs off the road, off the lawn, into a ditch. The water table is so high that the level (mostly) front lawn will have standing water in less than two hours. When we left, Jason’s front lawn had a visible nap, the bent grass all pointing to the ditch.

A Marine Harrier jet went down over the weekend not far from here. It landed in a field, nose down, the pilot parachuted to safety. They
don’t call them North Carolina lawn darts for nothing. A 20 million dollar lawn dart, too!

The military is a huge presence here, with the Marine Air Station at Cherry Point in the back yard, and Camp LeJeune 40 miles down the road. Lots of barber shops.

This part of North Carolina is very flat and full of pine trees. I’m not sure what kind of pine, Long Leaf, I think, but it resembles a real good looking lodgepole. The ins and outies of the North Carolina coast make it a boater’s paradise. Tourism seems stable and healthy;
they come from New England and Canada in the winter and Florida in the summer. A lot of the RV parks here are actually permanently placed mobile units of some sort that the owners visit. Diesel is $3.34 per gallon and lettuce is $1.79 a head. Cooking for eight has been a real experience. I really loved it, but was horrified to realize what it costs. To put a green salad on the table is about $5.00. That seems un-American to me.

Things we learned in North Carolina:

• Grits are purty darn good.
• You can go barefoot in January.
• Restaurants are not smoke free in a state supported by tobacco crops.
• Don’t knock a deep fried twinkie until you’ve tried it.
• You don’t have to dust the fruit bowl (and fruit) here.
• Our son will go to any lengths to retrieve the 1978 Swan kite (including calling 911 to borrow a ladder).
• Nicholas Sparks (“Time in a Bottle” and “The Notebook”) lives in New Bern, which is also the birthplace of Pepsi.

We are now settled and working at Skidaway Island State Park outside Savannah, Georgia. The storm was still rattling around in the south, and we got some more high winds, but no tornadoes. Our radio alarm works very well. As we have mentioned before, these southern states do not have the public land we enjoy in the west, so when a family wants to go camping, they go to a state park. Skidaway Island is a very popular park, and very busy. We’re able to make a nice map for them, and enjoy a good relationship with the park management.

Dave is feeling fine and swears he wakes up a little smarter and quicker every day, taking his brain stimulant pills. I’m getting back in our travel/work groove, although I sure miss having a kid pop in and tell me about their day. All three granddaughters are doing so well, loving school and their new friends; it was fun to be part of their lives for a couple of months. Even Xander liked to come to Gramma’s house. Xander pronounces his Cs as Ts, and it really amused this old hippie Gramma when he would say, “When I get up from my nap I’ll come out to the bus and have a toke, okay, Gramma?” He likes those little bottles of coke because he can screw the top back on; we had a lot of fun, watching Scooby Doo and having a “toke.”

We know we’re back in the South because we’re seeing lots of little stands along the road selling hot boiled peanuts. (They taste just exactly like what you would expect, soggy shell, slightly mushy peanut.) We are eating fresh strawberries from Florida, and gizzards are on the menu at KFC. We watch the weather channel and commiserate with you all, dealing with a tough winter. Davey spent Sunday in his shorts and sandals, had a nice bike ride around the island; it got down to 60 degrees in the night. We enjoy seeing folks use this park. It reminds us a lot of all the years we went camping; great times, great friends. Maybe one of these days we’ll put a fire in the fire ring and make s’mores.

Love to all,