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| Prologue (Aug. 4) | August 5 | August 6 | August 7 | August 8 | August 9 | Epilogue (Aug. 10) |
Apparently, we are doing our best to fly into a disaster area.
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Hurricane Alex, a category-2 storm*, skirted Cape Hatteras yesterday and is, at the present, heading somewhere out into the Atlantic. For those of us for whom the novelty of hurricanes has worn off, this is not the biggest deal. I have, however, gotten a kick out of the Weather Channel's use of terms like "battered," "hammered," and "thundered" in their descriptions of the effects on the Outer Banks. Usually, if the storm doesn't actually make landfall, it's nothing to write home about. However, Alex did cause some flooding on Ocracoke and Hatteras, which isn't the best sign. According to the Raleigh News and Observer, there are no injuries or deaths attributed to the storm, and damage was apparently minimal through most of the islands. Both Dare and Hyde counties declared states of emergencies, and apparently Ocracoke village was waist-deep in water yesterday afternoon with the storm surge. As I write, most of the flooding has receded, power is being restored, and N.C. 12 is being reopened.
* Category 2 Storm: maximum sustained winds between 97-111 mph with a storm surge of 6-8 feet; level is considered a moderate hurricane. Considerable damage to shrubbery and tree foliage; some trees blown down. Major damage to exposed mobile homes. Extensive damage to poorly constructed signs. Some damage to roofing materials of buildings; some window and door damage. No major damage to buildings. Coast roads and low-lying escape routes inland cut by rising water two to four hours before arrival of hurricane center. Considerable damage to piers. Marinas flooded. Small craft in unprotected anchorages torn from moorings. Evacuation of some shoreline residences and low-lying areas required.
It's another omen in a travel plan that has been interesting since inception. For openers, I was going to try to use my frequent flier miles with US Airways to defray some of the cost (why turn down a free ticket, right?), but US Airways wouldn't let me book the return date we wanted. Not even close, actually; we needed to return on August 9, and the first available return using this route was August 13. Seeing that, I decided that we would be better served by booking through one of the travel portals and using the flier miles at a later date. After comparing both Expedia and Travelocity, I booked our flights (with United, as it turns out), and all was good.
If I may digress for just a moment, I'd like to point out something about travel sites that's been bugging me for over a year. Actually, just one travel site in particular—Expedia. When I originally booked this trip, it was a toss-up whether to use Expedia or Travelocity. I went to Expedia first. Sure enough, I was able to book the tickets for the dates I wanted. However, Expedia—after I had clicked and selected both departure and arrival flights—jacked the price per ticket from roughly $220 to $450 in the process of clicking the "Continue" button. I immediately defected to the Travelocity website, where I booked the same flights for the originally quoted price. This is the second time in the span of a year that Expedia has tried to pull a fast one in the middle of a transaction like that. Not only will I never use Expedia again, I'd like to take a moment to encourage other people to avoid this scam as well. Beware of Expedia's price bait-and-switch. There, I've done my service.
Anyway, now I'm waiting on a parental update this evening to make sure we're still driving into the Outer Banks tomorrow evening after flying into Greenville. I think of the storms that have left their mark on the North Carolina coastline—Hazel, Hugo, Fran, Bonnie, Floyd—and hope that Alex has left without any lasting effects. Besides, the Banks will have had more than 48 hours to recover; I'm just unsure of whether or not we'll be able to visit Ocracoke.
Addendum: I've talked with Mom, and apparently there may be some problems with the Oregon Inlet bridge, which would cause some problems getting to either the Hatteras light or Ocracoke. Fortunately, we have some time to play with, so we may yet be able to get to the lighthouse at least. Everything north of Hatteras is wet but undamaged. We might be starting with Kill Devil Hill. What the hell. We're both packed, and we're set to leave tomorrow afternoon.
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Dan
Davitz drove us to O'Hare; we left the house about 11:00. We got there
in plenty of time and went looking for a lunch place. According to Dan, the road (NC Highway 12) is either flooded or gone.
He says he saw it on television. Whatever. We'll have my parents on site by the time we touch down in Greenville later this
evening.
We're now in the air on descent into Charlotte. It's been a moderately turbulent flight from time to time, which has Helene's stomach somewhat in knots. Charlotte is 90 degrees as we touch down, and the local humidity has things so hazy as to appear almost tropical. The seat pocket in front of my wife is beginning to resemble a recycling bin. She's managed to dispose of a People magazine, the United Airlines in-flight magazine, and the entire Thursday edition of the Chicago Tribune. I am somewhat surprised when she is able to return the tray to its upright position. At any rate, we've just pulled into the gate, and I need to put the journal away for the moment.
We've arrived at Charlotte Douglas a little early—by about 25 minutes or thereabouts. I was going to call the folks, but my cell phone has dropped signal three times in less than a minute since I turned it on. So, apparently I'm going to wait until we hit the E Concourse to give it a try. Helene is wandering around the food court, and I'm writing in the journal again. There is still smoking in certain places here, which is an improvement over O'Hare, and the only major change to the airport since our last trip through is that the Cheers bar near the C Concourse has evidently folded. The space is under construction for an establishment to be named The Tequileria. I assume it's what passes for a clever play on tequila.
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It also looks like we've got more of a haul than I originally thought once we've arrived in Greenville. According to the map sites, it's approximately 148 miles from Greenville to Rodanthe via Route 64. We may not get there until 11:00 tonight. Here's hoping for light traffic....
It's 6:29 p.m. EDT, and we didn't even start boarding our flight until ten minutes ago. We were supposed to be leaving at 6:20. We're still at the gate. We had a light dinner—light, that is, except for the impact to my wallet—at a place called Phillip's Seafood, where I had a dinner salad and Helene had some grilled shrimp with cole slaw that wound up costing $33 with tip. Our flight attendant, Leslie, has evidently had a long day already, as she is getting a little giddy during the safety instructions. We're finally taxiing to the runway, so I'm going to put the writing away for the time being.
It's now 11:35 p.m., and we have finally arrived at the Sea and Sound Hotel in Rodanthe. We are in Room 101. After enduring one of the most turbulent Charlotte to Greenville commuter hops that I've ever encountered, we left the Pitt-Greenville Airport parking lot at about 8:15. It took us three hours; traffic was very light on 64, and the roads are fine (with the exception of sand and about five inches of standing water on Highway 12 just north of Rodanthe). The Oregon Inlet bridge suffered no damage, and Rodanthe, aside from being wetter than usual in spots, is intact. We gave a call to my folks to let them know we'd arrived, and then got the bags in.
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Unfortunately,
Room 101 smells suspiciously musty, as if the room had suffered some water
damage during Alex. We're probably due for a talk with the manager tomorrow morning after breakfast to ask A) if there has
been a localized flood in our room, and B) if there might be another room available.
Apparently Ocracoke will be a wash (no pun intended). The only people getting into Ocracoke at the moment are owners and work crews. It's too bad, because I would have liked to seen Ocracoke Village for the first time in years, and I think Helene would have enjoyed the visit. The Hatteras lighthouse may be out of the picture as well, but there's at least a chance of getting to it as the light is north of Ocracoke and the major damage. Everything else should be okay as far as our plans are concerned.
Anyway, I am now tired enough that I'm going to quit writing for the evening and turn out the lights. We'll pick things up in the morning.
Water, water, everywhere.
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It
evidently stormed again last night—although nothing compared to what the islands saw Tuesday—and the ensuing rain
has left more standing water than when we came in. We woke up this morning, got showers, and drove over to the Hatteras Campground
about a mile down the road, where the parents are parking their Winnebago.
Mom is fixing some breakfast, and it has started sprinkling again. An inauspicious start to our foray. But here we are, at
last visiting the Outer Banks of North Carolina. I'm eager to see if the Outer Banks of my childhood still remains.
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The
Outer Banks consist of over 130 miles of barrier islands that form a
salient off the coast of the state. At Cape Hatteras, the widest point in the barrier islands, the Outer Banks is three miles
of sand between the Atlantic Ocean and Pamlico Sound; the islands narrow to as little as 600 feet, and the average hovers
around a half mile. The Outer Banks are also home to the largest estuary system in the world. There are approximately 40,000
permanent residents on the islands—a population that swells immensely during the prime season between Memorial Day and
Labor Day. And the waters have been feared since the first ships arrived here.
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Earning the name "Graveyard of the Atlantic," the waters off North Carolina harbor dangerous shoals that have claimed approximately 1,000 ships since the 1500s. These are the waters that claimed the Monitor, the Carroll A. Deering, the Home, the Patriot, the Huron, and no less than four German U-boats. You can't think of the Outer Banks without thinking of lost ships, and the area, until the advent of tourism, could not have existed as it did without the tragic influx of shipwrecks upon this coastline. The Outer Banks is a living ghost story in many respects.
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After
breakfast, the rain stopped long enough for us to pay our first visit to the beach.
The water was still turbulent, with above average breakers pounding on the shore; not many people were out, and nobody was
in the water. We headed back to the RV, rounded up my folks, and we headed south toward Cape Hatteras as the sun finally began
to show itself. We arrived at the lighthouse site around 12:15 (after missing the turnoff and going past Frisco before realizing
that we needed to turn around).
Cape Hatteras lighthouse is arguably the most famous lighthouse in America. There has been a light at Cape Hatteras since 1803; the first lighthouse (a 90-foot tower) was demolished in 1871 after its more famous successor was operational. The current lighthouse entered service in 1870, providing a warning beacon for the treacherous Diamond Shoals. At 208 feet, it is the tallest lighthouse in the nation, and its light (twin 800,000 candlepower lamps) is visible up to 20 miles at sea.
The lighthouse underwent a much publicized move in 1999, moving 2,900 feet from its original site to a more stable site 1,600 feet from shore. The erosion of the cape had left the lighthouse only 100 feet from the water's edge by the 1930s; it had originally been approximately 1,500 feet from shore. As nature steadily forced the cape westward, the lighthouse was in a danger that all the jetties and groins in the world were not going to solve. So, the National Park Service decided to move it. Although the move sparked some controversy (I still know artists that brag about only painting the lighthouse as seen from its 1870 site), I tend to believe that saving the lighthouse in this manner was the best form of preservation for one of the symbols of North Carolina.
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We got a number of good snapshots of the lighthouse, its original site, the keeper buildings, and the cape beach. My only regret is that the lighthouse only admits 30 people every ten minutes to climb the 257 steps to the top. By the time we arrived at the ticket office, around 12:45, the next available time slot was 2:10. Unfortunately, we just did not have the time to wait; as it was, it took us nearly an hour and a half to get from Hatteras to Manteo on Roanoke Island to the north, and the additional wait time would have all but killed the day.
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A
sign in the Hatteras gift shop said that Ocracoke would re-open to the public beginning tomorrow (Saturday), but I'm sure
it's probably not a good idea to try to pay a visit. The last thing the village needs after a hurricane is tourists. Oh, well.
We left Hatteras (after I'd purchased a cool poster entitled "Ghost Fleet of the Outer Banks," which shows the major
shipwrecks of the coast) for Manteo. On the way, we did pass a very cute Comfort
Inn in Buxton, which may be a viable hotel choice for a return visit someday.
We stopped in Manteo around 2:30 (boy, the traffic today is at a crawl!) at the Central Island Grill for lunch. The grill is actually a screened-in porch with a number of funny signs plastered around. My favorite was the whiteboard with the following message on it: "Rowdy children will be given sugar water and a free puppy!" I'm writing as we wait on our food to arrive. We're in Manteo to get information on The Lost Colony outdoor drama and purchase tickets for either tonight or tomorrow evening while we're here. I'm kind of leaning toward Saturday night myself. We may venture to Kill Devil Hills next, or we may explore Fort Raleigh and the Elizabethan Gardens.
By 3:40, we found ourselves at the Fort Raleigh historic site on Roanoke Island. The first English settlement in the New World was established by Sir Walter Raleigh in July of 1587 at the northern tip of Roanoke, right where I'm standing. Within three years, 117 settlers had vanished into the wilderness with only the cryptic carving "Croatan" on a palisade to leave a clue as to their fate. Included in the group was Virginia Dare, granddaughter of Governor John White and the first English child to be born on American soil. No definitive trace of the famed "Lost Colony" has ever been found.
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We purchased tickets for The Lost Colony for Saturday night (we could get better seats then). We then perused the visitor's center, where we took a few shots of the interior, and moved to the earthworks of the fort before ending up at the Waterside Theater, where the play is performed. I got a particularly good snapshot of the set. Since the day was getting long, and both my parents and wife were wearing down a little, we scaled back on plans to visit the nearby aquarium; while my parents headed for the car, Helene and I paid a brief visit to the Elizabethan Gardens (actually, to just the courtyard), and then we all headed back for Rodanthe.
We dropped the parents off at their RV, and hit the Sea and Sound Hotel to have a chat with the manager about our room. The manager was extremely apologetic; it seems that the rains earlier this week had blown so hard that some water had seeped under the doors of most of the rooms. Unfortunately, every room is booked (and very likely in similar straits). However, the manager said she would work with a carpet shampooer while we're at dinner. To pass the time until we're supposed to pick up my folks, Helene and I decided to brave the beach.
The beach was a mistake (although mostly harmless). The stiff wind whipped sand everywhere. Determined to plunge into the Atlantic, I went into the water while Helene struggled uselessly to find a sheltered spot from the wind and sand on the beach. Although the water was temperate, the strong cross-currents and tumbling breakers made body-surfing and experience less than satisfying; in the span of one wave, I would find myself drifting nearly ten yards downshore from where I started. And, of course, the wind hitting me every time I stood out of the water made it a relatively disappointing experience that lasted less than half an hour. We returned to the room, showered and changed, and went to pick up the parents for dinner.
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We
were going to eat at the Dolphin's Den in nearby Avon, but it was a solid hour and a half wait for a table. The highlight
of our brief visit to the restaurant was when Helene asked the hostess if she could recommend another good restaurant, to
which the dutiful hostess smiled, shook her head, and said, "No." So, we headed down the road to a place called
Dirty Dick's Crab House, where the wait was only half an hour. The Outer
Banks has its share of the risque; the restaurant gift shop sells T-shirts with the slogan, "I got these crabs from Dirty
Dick's." The food was excellent—I got a combo fried platter of flounder and oysters—and we spent the evening
discussing education, politics, and adult attention deficit disorder. Helene and I dropped off Mom and Dad at the RV, shared
some ice cream with them, and then returned to the Sea and Sound.
The manager did shampoo the carpet while we were out, and it seems to have ameliorated the mildew scent somewhat (now it smells like clean mildew in the room). Helene has gone to bed, and I'm finishing the day's recap. Today has been a day of wrong turns; we missed the Hatteras turnoff, turned wrong trying to leave Hatteras, even missed the turn for the campground tonight on the way home from dinner. You know, for an island chain with only one highway and the Atlantic Ocean on one side for a navigational aid, it has been remarkably simple to lose our bearings.
Tomorrow, we visit the northern Banks, including Nags Head and Kill Devil Hills. I'm hopeful that we may revisit Manteo to check out the waterfront, which we missed today. We might also check out the Bodie Island lighthouse, as it lies en route between Rodanthe and Manteo. We will also be seeing the play tomorrow night; I think we have a full day ahead of us.
By the way, what the hell is with this constant wind?
We woke up at around 7:00 this morning. The day looks to be positively gorgeous—sunny, but not too hot or humid. Feels like it's about 80 degrees. We showered and met the folks back at the RV for breakfast. Then we piled in the Volvo and headed north from Rodanthe.
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At 10:00, we hit Jockey's Ridge State Park, just outside of Nags Head. This ever changing hill of sand is the largest dune on the east coast, and the surrounding terrain often more resembles a desert than an estuary. The seasonal winds of this area make for a landmark in constant flux; Jockey's Ridge has been as high as 140 feet—it currently stands at approximately 110 feet—and has seen a 1.500-foot southwesterly shift in its steepest face over the years. Jockey's Ridge, according to the most accepted legend, owes its name to locals who used to race the area's wild ponies near the dunes (the spectators would use the dunes as natural grandstands.
The ridge was declared a National Natural Landmark in 1974, largely due to the efforts of locals determined to preserve the dunes from local developers. Jockey's Ridge State Park encompasses 420 acres of land and houses a natural history museum within the visitor center.
Jockey's Ridge is mostly known, however, as one of the best places in the nation to learn hang gliding. The combination of good winds and soft landings afforded by the sand is ideal. The park operates a school for would-be glider pilots here; my father, upon having eavesdropped on one of the instructional sessions, is saying that he's ready to go up. I suggested that he up his insurance. Helene and I ventured to the base of the ridge, but the thought of slogging up 100-plus feet of vertical sand put us out of an adventuring mood. We took our snapshots and made for the vehicle. We're off to the Wright Brothers Memorial at Kill Devil Hill.
Incidentally, the name Kill Devil is the focus of much lore. The most likely explanations concern rum, as William Byrd of Virginia wrote in 1728:
Most of the Rum they get in this Country comes from New England, and it is so bad and unwholesome, that it is not improperly called "Kill-Devil."
As legend would have it, a ship carrying a cargo of said rum came to its ruin on the shores nearby (one imagines that much was done to salvage the cargo), and so gave the area its name. The town of Kill Devil Hills boasts a year-round population of nearly 6,000 people.
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We
traveled north and made the Wright Brothers Memorial and Museum at around 10:35. The work done for the centennial last year
has greatly expanded the attraction, and it is far more extensive than I had remembered it. On the morning of December
17,1903, Orville and Wilbur Wright conducted the first powered flight of a heavier-than-air machine at Kill Devil Hill
(not to be confused with the township of Kill Devil Hills).The historic flight was 100 feet in twelve seconds at a maximum
height of ten feet. The brothers made three more flights that day of 175, 200, and 852 feet, respectively. A 60-foot monument
atop the hill commemorates the Wright Brothers, and stone markers on the plain below delineate the path that the 1903 Flyer
took that day before being damaged by a wind gust.
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We first visited the Centennial Pavilion, a series of two structures that house a museum of aviation in addition to a replica of the 1903 Flyer. In going through the various exhibits, I found it amazing how different the lives of the brothers would be after their historic flights that day. Wilbur would die of tuberculosis at the age of 45 in 1912; he wouldn't even see the changes brought about by his invention in World War I. Orville, on the other hand, lived to the ripe old age of 76 and passed away in 1948, having seen his invention evolve from a 12 hp powered kite to the jet airplane in two generations. Hard to fathom what Orville must have thought.
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Helene and I visited the grounds where they have reconstructed the brothers' living quarters and hangar, the markers of their flight, and the monument atop Kill Devil Hill. With all the grass and development of the region, it is hard to imagine the area as remote as it was when the brothers first traveled here. Most of the area was a barren hill and plain of sand back then, of which the brothers remarked, "We came here for the wind and sand, and found both." After walking back to the visitor center, we met back up with my parents and headed back for Rodanthe.
We got back to the RV around 1:00 that afternoon and had some sandwiches for lunch. My mother has packed enough food to feed a dozen of us for the entire trip. We're going to split for the beach this afternoon before meeting the folks for dinner and heading into Manteo to see The Lost Colony at 8:30 p.m.
I am convinced now that I am traveling with three people who are "along for the ride." We've not really planned heavily on this trip, which means that it's been a series of more or less off-the-cuff decisions on which attractions to see and when. While it's been relaxing in many ways, I'm thinking that the next trip needs to be A) a sightseeing trip with a more fixed itinerary, or B) a beach trip in which the only point is to hit the beach, eat, and sleep (in that order). Speaking of which, we're off to the beach. More later.
At 3:30 p.m., Helene and I have returned to our hotel room (which now smells like clean mildew and Lysol). The water was fine, but the surf and current came pretty close to kicking my ass. The strand of beach that we chose is very much a shell beach—instead of fine-grained sand, the consistency of the beach at the waterline is coarse pebbles and sea shells of all sizes. Although the body surfing was good, I came out after an hour bleeding from both elbows and various spots on my chest and abdomen from where I scraped bottom a few times. Oh, and one wave caught me in the lower back and felt like a kidney punch. It's easy to forget how a wooden sailing ship could get pounded to pieces in the surf of this coast until you feel a wave break like that on you.
We showered and left at 4:00 to retrieve my parents at the RV. We are to head into Nags Head for dinner, then get into Manteo a little early so Helene can browse shops and I can check out the reconstructed Elizabeth II, a wooden sailing ship reconstruction for the Roanoke Festival Park. After visiting the waterfront, we will head to the Waterside Theater for the play tonight.
I'm also curious to see if Maddux has won his 300th by the time we get home. The Cubbies finished a sweep of the Rockies on Thursday, then lost the first game in San Francisco last night 6-2. Best we can hope for now is a season split with the Giants, and that's if we take the next two from them. Sigh. Heard the Cards picked up Larry Walker last night (as if they needed more hitting).
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We had a nice dinner at Miller's Waterfront Restaurant. Our waiter, Joseph, was very patient with Dad. Needless to say, we tipped well. Then we hit Manteo. They've done a lovely job with the waterfront area of town, mixing together many quaint shops in an early colonial motif. Helene and I toured the district to pass the time (meeting a roaring drunk boat owner at the marina that I referred to as "Captain Ron"); unfortunately, the Roanoke Festival Park closes at 6:00, and it was already 6:40 when we arrived there. I settled for pictures of the Elizabeth II, and the visitor center. After Helene and I perused the shops, we met the parents back at the Volvo, drove by the aquarium—it was on the way, and I wanted to see what it was I was going to miss—and headed to the Fort Raleigh site for the play.
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We're
now in our seats at the Waterside Theater, where we are preparing to watch The
Lost Colony. The play, by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Paul Green, debuted in 1937 as the first outdoor drama in
the United States, and it remains the longest running production of its type to this day. This will be about the fourth time
I've seen it. I first saw this play in 1974 on August 8, which puts us back here almost thirty years to the day. I know it
was August 8, 1974, because I distinctly remember all the television sets placed strategically around the theater. As you
may (or may not) remember, Richard Nixon was giving a speech that night to let America know that he would be resigning as
president the next day. Of course, being six years old at the time, I wasn't exactly aware of the import of the old guy speaking
on television, but I remember exactly where I was when I was hearing it.
Incidentally, The Lost Colony is one of the indirect reasons I wound up leaving North Carolina for Chicago. At the time, I was faced with graduating East Carolina with a B.S. degree in Theater Education and doing seasonal productions like The Lost Colony every summer if I stayed. On the other hand, I could go to Chicago, where at the time there were approximately 200 operating production companies of every size and ilk, and I could get acclimated to the city life while still in college. I picked the Chicago route. Now I'm out of theater and working as a corporate Methodist. Just goes to show how life is what happens while you're making plans....
Oops, the lights are going down. The play is beginning. I'm putting away the journal until later.
At 12:00 a.m., we're back at our hotel room after the production. The room smells like we're getting used it, although this is our last night here. The Lost Colony retains all of the pageantry I remember and quite a bit of musical production that I don't. I'd also forgotten the prominent role played by Tom, the drunkard (although I remembered the bit with pouring the sand from his shoe in Act II when I saw it). All in all, it's still a good production playing to a packed house even in its 67th season.
Anyway, we left Manteo and dropped the parents off at their RV. We will check out tomorrow morning and spend the night in Chocowinity before flying out of Greenville on Monday. As a postscript, we saw on Headline News that the Cubs beat the Giants 8-4 today in San Francisco, and Maddux became the 22nd pitcher to win 300 games. Wish I could have seen it.
We woke up at 7:00 this morning. It's Sunday on the Outer Banks, and the islands are sleepy. We showered, packed, and checked out of the Sea and Sound (which consisted of leaving the key in a wooden drop box outside the office, which doesn't open until 11:00 on Sundays). I will miss the sights of this region, but not the smells. We traveled into Salvo to get Helene some coffee while we were waiting for the parents to get ready and drove by the Chicamacomico Lifesaving Station to kill a little more time. Helene thought I was going to take her by a fire station when I mentioned it.
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Chicamacomico Lifesaving Station dates back to 1874, and was one of seven
stations in the area operated by the U.S. Lifesaving Service, the forerunner of the Coast Guard. These were the guys going
into the surf to rescue the shipwreck victims. The complex is the only complete lifesaving station of its era left in the
nation, and houses a museum that was closed because it was 8:30 in the morning on a Sunday. Again, I knew we wouldn't get
in, but I can at least say we caught a glimpse of it.
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Returning
to Hatteras Campground, we shared breakfast with my parents in the RV and checked out of the campground. After helping Dad
get all the RV hoses disconnected and stowed, we left the grounds before 10:00 and hit the road for Chocowinity. It's a fitting
end to the trip; I've been driving for three days now, and probably put more miles in behind the wheel during that time than
I usually do in six months. The drive from the Banks to Chocowinity was approximately 136 miles, but the time went fairly
quickly, and we made it to the house at Cypress Landing before 1:00. The
only event worth reporting as we trailed the RV down Route 64 was a stop at the Trade Mart in Tyrell County. While the parents
gassed up the Winnebago, I found cartons of Marlboros selling for $21.00. I bought two on principle.
Anyway, we made it back to Cypress Landing just fine. Helene and I helped the folks get the RV stowed away before having a little lunch. After lunch, we discovered that my mother had left a surprise for us on our bed. This will require a bit of backstory, so bear with me.
My parents are preparing for an eventual move to a place called Galway Ridge, which is a multi-stage retirement community near Chapel Hill. When they move, it will be to a condominium-style residence, which will necessitate a drastic reduction in, well, stuff. Among the included "stuff" is furniture, pictures, books, childhood belongings, and occasionally—according to my father—my mother. Since I have a great deal of accumulated belongings that seem to have migrated with my parents over the past 36 years, I have been tasked with going through things and selecting which items to preserve and which items to ditch.
The surprise was the large hunk of of my childhood heaped upon the bed in our room.
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Helene
and I went through all the things and cleared the bed, eventually arriving at a single
box of items to keep; the rest will either be given to my youngest cousins or tossed. We still need to go through the
things in the attic. It's hard to explain how I feel about all this. As I pick through things like an old clock, a graduation
card, or a toy soldier, I feel an overwhelming morbid mood descending upon me. As I pore through the endless pile of knickknacks,
I feel a dual pang of lament for the years left behind and the years to come. In doing this, I sense mortality a little too
palpably—both my own and my parents'.
Of course, then we turned to my Mom going through baby clothes, elementary school projects, newspaper clippings, report cards, and other assorted trinkets she's been saving for the National Enquirer for the past three decades. All this allowed me to forego morbidity by concentrating on my newfound chagrin.
At any rate, I'm now tending the gas grill so we'll have some dinner tonight. More later.
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We
ate a nice dinner, and then I started scouting the attic storage area. However, the Cubs-Giants game was on ESPN, so I not
only had the pleasure of watching the Cubs lose 6-3, but look like Little Leaguers in the process. By the seventh inning,
I was disgusted enough to start making trips upstairs to sort things out in
the attic. In doing so, I ran across a box of old letters, which I'm keeping. As I told Helene, I'm trying to revisit
my past in order to understand those various times in my life where I went wrong and how exactly I did so. Still no luck,
but I'm hopeful.
So, the day ended with a Cubs loss, a load of laundry, and yet another chunk of my past. We'll need to get packed tomorrow morning and hit Greenville for a return trip home. I also need to figure out how to pack all the extra crap that we have to lug back without incurring the need for a second suitcase.
Well, here we are, preparing to depart North Carolina again. We woke up at 8:00 this morning, showered, and packed. I helped Mom run a couple of quick errands and managed to score a couple of Hardee's steak biscuits (in what has become an annual pilgrimage) for breakfast while we were out and about. I helped Helene with the last bit of packing.
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I've
nearly finished going through the attic conglomeration of books, toys, and sundry items that I've not seen for years. There's
a couple of boxes here and there, but I've reduced the "keep" pile to the contents of a lone
footlocker. It was amazing how much junk I've accumulated at a place where I've never actually lived. The eventual move
of furniture will prove much more of a logistical issue, but we'll get there when we get there. I'm convinced at this point
that my wife is conspiring with my parents to overload our home with furniture so that we'll need to get a new house. We'll
be toodling off to Greenville in a few minutes to grab a light lunch and check in at the airport.
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We made it to the airport in plenty of time. At 1:05 p.m., we are checked in and waiting around for our boarding call (probably in about 20 minutes). We had a nice lunch—although I didn't eat anything since I had breakfast just two hours ago—at the Daily Grind, a little cafe restaurant in Greenville. I'm hoping for an easy travel day; so far, that seems possible. We are somehow managing to depart with the same amount of baggage with which we arrived. We should get into Charlotte at around 3:15, leave at 5:05, and arrive back at O'Hare at 6:15 CDT. We may be getting a ride home with Helene's dad; we'll give him a call when we're into Chicago.
At 5:36 p.m., we are on final descent into Chicago. The flight from Greenville to Charlotte was kind of bumpy going up and coming down, but we made it into Charlotte 15 minutes ahead of schedule. Once in Charlotte, however, we couldn't find our flight listed on the Departures screen. After getting a bite to eat, we wandered into the A Concourse to see if our flight actually existed. Wouldn't you know it, the first United gate at which we stopped (A2) was the gate for our plane. We boarded on time, and I have spent the majority of the flight reading (a book about World War I; I'm anxious to get to the end and find out who won). In the last 20 minutes, though, I've been serving as entertainment for the toddler girl in the seat in front of me, who keeps turning around and trying to climb over the seat. I've taught her to work the tray latch mechanism thus far; I doubt I'll have time to demonstrate the proper technique for pressing the attendant button before we're at the gate....
It is 6:35, and we are home. Our plane wasn't even supposed to arrive at Chicago until 6:20; I don't know what kind of tailwind we must have had, but I'm appreciative. We caught a cab since Danny and June had dinner plans, and we were home before we knew it. The house is still here, and we've got some telephone calls to make. It's good to be home, but I am not looking forward to having to wake up early tomorrow morning and go to work. Usually I build in a rest day as a buffer, but I didn't really have the luxury this time due to the scheduling.
Here I am again, mulling over another trip. It has been far too long since I last visited the Outer Banks; I remember taking a trip with my friend Jim when I was still at East Carolina, which would put it at 1988 or so at the latest. The islands are not a timeless place—nothing is—but change is an interesting paradox of the Outer Banks. The Banks are under constant assault from wind and sea, and every inlet, every cape, every dune is in a constant state of flux from the forces of nature. All one has to do is look at the old site of Cape Hatteras lighthouse to see how quickly a half-mile strand of beach can disappear on this coast. But although the sands have shifted, the pirates are gone, and the shipwrecks are a thing of the past, the character of the Outer Banks remains little changed during my lifetime. And there's some comfort in that.
I have a few observations on this trip in closing: