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Kudos
On the road again:
Greetings from Gainesville, Georgia.
Cyndy and I have invested the last 20 days in North Carolina, mostly on the Outer Banks. This is longer than we have stayed in any one state so far.
The Outer Banks are an amazing land formation. Located between the mainland and the Atlantic Ocean, these barrier islands help make North Carolina the widest state east of the Mississippi River (503 miles).
We walked many miles in nature preserves, bird sanctuaries for migratory waterfowl, and along the shore, collecting shells and, unfortunately, several bags of trash.
A highlight was lively conversations with Patsy and Paul, the hosts of
The Landing RV Park in the community of Sea Level.
Postscript
I am blessed with a rich feeling of universal connectedness as we enter the holiday season.
Two of the people who responded to my previous blog were: Cyndy’s cousin Keely, who lives in northern California, on the opposite side of the North American continent; and a dear friend Amir from the Gold Coast of Australia, which is literally half way around the globe.
Keely, who is a cattle rancher and whom Cyndy and I visited last summer, confirmed the message in my previous blog about the power of weather. She wrote that paying attention to nature’s offerings is a requisite for the proper care of her cows, horses, and herd dogs.
Amir, a musician and wonderful spiritual being, sent a link to a video of him and his lovely wife, Nirupa, chanting on the shores of the South Pacific. The video shows beautiful beaches that I also walked when I visited them in Mullumbimby over the Christmas holidays in 2013.
Today's Story
A week ago, on a Sunday, Cyndy and I got up early and left our trailer at The Landing. Our intention was to catch the 10:00 o’clock ferry from Harkers Island to Point Lookout, an island on which stands one of the six lighthouses on the Outer Banks.
The ferry didn’t run because we were the only two passengers, and a minimum of four is
required. So we went for a long walk on the shoreline and inland nature paths, then took the noon ferry with four other passengers.
The following day, we had our hearts set on a horse-and-buggy sightseeing tour in Beaufort (pronounced
BOH-fort). Only after driving an hour did we realize that Google had “auto-corrected” our search and given us results for Beaufort (pronounced
BEW-fert),
South Carolina, 350 miles away.
So, instead, we found Rich, the operator of
Beaufort Cart Tours, who took us on a wonderful two-hour history tour on his bright red golf cart.
He was a wealth of knowledge about homes, cemeteries, settlers, and pirates of that area in the 1700 and 1800s.
In January, we will go to Beaufort, South Carolina.
In Oriental, “the sailing capital of North Carolina,” we connected with friends we met aboard the tall ship
Star Clipper last winter.
We considered sailing on the multi-faceted waterways that lead from Oriental to Pamlico Sound and out past the Outer Banks to the Atlantic. But chilled temps, high winds, and small craft warnings dictated that we practice flexibility and enjoy our conversation inside.
Here in Gainesville, we discovered another situation that called for us to really stretch our flexibility and skills.
Our destination and current location is the home of Jennifer, a dancing friend with whom we will travel to a six-day contra dance in West Virginia between Christmas and New Years.
Upon arrival at Jennifer’s driveway yesterday, we discovered that she lives at the end of a dead-end street and there is no way we would be able to turn our truck and travel trailer around in her driveway.
So, with me behind the wheel and Cyndy watching and offering guidance via our cell phones, we backed our rig up a hill and around a curve for one-tenth of a mile to the nearest intersection.
There, we turned around and backed down that hill, around that curve, and along the length of Jennifer’s narrow, arced driveway.
The aerial view on Google Maps indicates that our path is shaped like a fishhook.
Today, as our home on wheels resides between a stone wall and Jennifer’s garage in a secluded wooded neighborhood, the weather is cold and rainy.
So we are grateful for having a flexible schedule that enabled us to arrive and park yesterday when the weather was dry and mild.
A month from now in southern Florida, we will practice more flexibility. That is, we had hoped to take a ferry out of Ft. Myers to Key West for a few days. But we found the cost and the lack of lodging to be prohibitive.
So, instead, for less than the cost of the ferry ride, we booked a deep-sea fishing excursion. And, for far less than the cost of inconvenient accommodations, a kayak eco-tour through the Everglades.
These stories are but a few highlights. In truth, as is the case with anyone with a caring spirit, flexibility is a reminder to “not get bent out of shape.”
Thanks for reading my stories.
Click here to see some of the photos that Cyndy has taken on our journey.
God blesses everyone ... no exceptions.
Robert (Bob) Weir
