I have driven through North Carolina a number of times, but I have made three actual trips there. In the Fall of 2014 after visiting the ponies on Assateague while driving to our South Carolina winter refuge on Edisto Island, we spent a couple of days visiting the Outer Banks. We saw the ocean and we saw the Kill Devil Hills, scene of the Wright Brothers flight. Their flight was made in 1909. Sixty-six years later, 1966, humans flew a man to the moon. At the time we visited the Outer Banks I was newly retired and 66 years old. It is amazing that so much could happen in the span of such a short time.
I love this picture of the stark hill in the wintertime and I imagine Orville and Wilbur pushing their flying device (not quite an airplane by any means) off the hill top and jumping aboard to “fly” downhill toward the ocean. To my way of thinking the best thing about the Outer Banks is that vision, not the over development along the coast and the tacky road which runs up the center of the barrier island filled with fast food outlets and motels. There may indeed be beautiful homes and tasteful developments along the coast at the most northern and southern ends of the drive, but we did not make it to those places. What we saw of the coastal area reminded us of southern Maine from Kittery to Portland. It was overcrowded, overdeveloped, and contained enclaves for the wealthy, but really was not the sort of spot where I would want to vacation.
We decided to return to North Carolina in the Spring of 2015 on our annual return trip to Maine. In April we left Edisto and drove to Asheville where we spent two glorious early spring weeks in the Blue Ridge Mountains in a small home that we rented through Air BnB. I picked this particular home because it had a fenced yard for the dog, or so I thought. On my first trip around the yard I discovered a huge hole, dug by a big dog or other critter, and I determined that Wally would not be turned loose in the yard. It was probably just as well because across the street, down in the valley by the French Broad RIver, was a kennel filled with dogs barking in their run. Wally would have been across the street looking for a fight as soon as he figured out how to get out of the yard. Instead he spent a great deal of the holiday curled up in a chair in the living room – just as well because the chair was unusable for Harold and me. Neither of us could get out of it without a considerable struggle.
Wally lounging in his chair
The French Broad RIver in Springtime
Asheville is a fun place to visit. Of course we made the mandatory trip to the Biltmore Estate. https://www.biltmore.com/ The grounds and the house are fantastic. But the most amazing thing is how the Vanderbilt family managed to squander a huge fortune in one generation. Of course the Vanderbilt family in one manifestation still owns the company that runs the estate, but it is not the same kind of wealth. The “guests”, like Harold and me, pay a sizable entrance fee to visit and, if so inclined, to dine and/or remain overnight. You can even pay to drink wine produced on the estate. It is all very upscale and elegant. Another neat place to visit in Asheville is the Grove Park Inn, a lovely hotel in a beautiful setting with galleries and unique shops surrounding it. Even if you are not staying at the hotel, a walk on the grounds and through the hotel’s common areas is quite enjoyable. https://www.omnihotels.com/hotels/asheville-grove-park However Harold and I spent most of two April weeks in Asheville enjoying the beautiful spring blooms and visiting the trendy downtown pubs and BBQ joints. Our little house was in the River Arts district and in addition to many galleries there was also some fine BBQ nearby. Downtown we discovered brew pubs and interesting restaurants.
The Biltmore in SpringTime
I found the Asheville area intriguing enough that I returned there in June of 2021 on my first post-pandemic solo road trip from Charleston to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Dedicated readers of this blog (I would guess there really are none) will notice between 2015 and 2019 no new states were added to the list. Those years were limited by my hip replacement and then Harold’s November 2016 diagnosis of head and neck cancer. We spent a great deal of time in the Charleston area where he received excellent medical care. Our short summer vacations were spent on Campobello. After Harold’s death early in 2019 I traveled some with my daughter. But then the pandemic intervened and I really went nowhere until the solo roadtrip in June 2021. I am not counting it as a separate trip to North Carolina because I really was just passing through on my way to Michigan and Indiana, two states I had not visited. Additionally, it wasn’t really a solo road trip because even though Harold was gone, I still had Wally, the curmudgeonly Scottish terrier, for a companion. Wally and I headed to Black Mountain and Montreat, two small towns just outside of Asheville. I wanted to visit there because of a mural on display at Montreat College. The artist had painted a series of murals in the Blue Ridge Mountains and he had been written up in the New York Times. Montreat appeared to be almost right on my route so off I went. It was well worth the trip as the mural was stunning. You can read all about it at this link. https://www.blueridgeheritage.com/destinations/blue-ridge-frescoes/ After visiting Montreat College, Wally and I traveled into the town of Black Mountain. This town is very hip and trendy. If it was the 1960’s I would have pronounced the town full of hippies. What else do you expect from the bithplace of Roberta Flack, who is celebrated with yet another mural on the exterior wall of a building. It is not quite the fine art of Ben Long, but interesting nonetheless.
My third trip through North Carolina involved neither mountains nor oceans, but instead focused on rivers. More precisely the Neuse River in New Bern. My friend Sheri and I left Charleston in early May of 2022 driving north to Bangor. This trip would have been a true solo trip because I lost Wally in the Spring of 2022, he was thirteen and one half years old. Sheri and I stayed at the Benjamin Ellis House Bed & Breakfast, an older home within walking distance of the riverfront. They served a wonderful breakfast. For dinner the night before we dined on a deck over the Neuse RIver. New Bern is a delightful town full of pre-revolutionary American history. My husband Harold had seriously considered the town as a place where we could spend a lovely winter, but we never got around to it. Sheri and I loved the town and had a great dinner on a deck overlooking the river. My husband’s brother has decided to return to this general area next winter and I am hoping to do more exploring up that way. He hopes to settle for the winter of 2024 around Wilmington, North Carolina, a town Harold and I passed through on one of our trips and even stayed overnight, but other than eating dinner in a tavern we never got a chance to really explore its historical district. I am hoping to do so once his brother Steve takes up residence there.
In the heading of this post I used the term “tar heels.” I must be honest. I have never seen a tar heel, but I have long wondered what a tar heel was. Writing this blog caused me to “google” the term. I learned the term “tar heel” dates back to North Carolina’s early history. Workers in the naval industry distilled turpentine from the sticky sap of pine trees and burned pine boughs to produce tar apparently to use on ships. These workers often went barefoot during hot summer months and undoubtedly collected tar on their heels. To call someone a “rosin heel” or “tar heel” came to imply that they worked in a lowly trade or were from a lower class. During the Civil War, North Carolina soldiers called themselves “tar heels” as an expression of state pride. (I don’t know if the wealthy planters behind the War actually adopted the expression to apply to themselves. (I am sure Heather Cox Richardson could provide enlightenment as to the history.) Eventually North Carolina became widely known as the “Tar Heel State” and its university sports teams bear that name.
Memories - A Second Chance at Happiness 