Maryland, Virginia and North Carolina

I’m so behind on my travelogue!

I spent a week or so gathering all my pictures and thoughts, then trying valiantly to blog my little heart out, only to have all my pictures disappear from my posts!

The joys of spotty internet connections…

Hopefully this episode will fare better. I’m not sure what I did wrong last time (kind of the story of my online existence), hopefully I figure it out this round.

Gettysburg: The best thing I can say is GO! Sell a car, cash out some stocks, save some coffee money or even sell a child, but GO. The town itself has B&B’s, great food and shops to content the choosiest of us. And the battlefield is, well, there are no words…

I’m sure some of you out there are thinking to yourselves that “I should read a book or watch a movie first” and yes, all those things are helpful. Jeff Shara wrote a definitive series on the war and particularly Gettysburg. There is a 4 hr movie that is incredibly well done, rent it if you must. But should you find yourself putting all those things off for ‘someday’, GO anyway. Spend the day, buy the big ticket with the cyclorama, movie and bus tour and go.

You won’t be sorry

Chincoteague Island: So fun! We stayed on the Pocomoke side of the island so Chincoteague was 30 min away from us. If I did it again I’d stay in the town of Chincoteague. It’s one of those salty, bleached, wind blown, battered, beach towns that make costal trips so much fun. We saw the wild ponies of Assateague, in their national wildlife preserve. Something about the off season sends all the restaurant owners underground. Sundays everything is closed and a shout for joy arrives when things open up on Wednesday. It’s not for everyone, but we love beachy towns and I wanted to see the ponies.

North Carolina: Next leg of this journey took us to my nephew’s home in Aulander NC. It is literally in the middle of nuthin’. We drove by fields of cotton, peanuts, corn (corn is everywhere), soybeans and tobacco. Miles and miles of abandoned dwellings and farmland. They are within an hour of The Great Dismal Swamp. It’s another wildlife preserve, considered the country’s most significant estuary.

The name says it all…We skipped it

My nephew and his wife live in a 100+ yr old farmhouse with charm for days. She is an artist (who uses power tools) and he is an amateur chef. It was lovely to catch up with them, reconnect, and love on and be loved on by them.

We ate well!

Lanie and I took a side trip to Edenton NC. It’s an historic town, noted for some Civil War and feminist history. A freed female slave, Josephine Napolean Williams Leary, became a significant property owner in the area, unheard of at that time. A tribute to her is noted, (my pic is not very good). And low and behold, some more feminist history, a ladies ‘tea party’ in 1774. Down with British goods!

We also took an overnight side trip to Richmond VA to catch up with friends of 25+ yrs. We hadn’t been together in at least that long, but seeing each other was like no time had passed. It was a sweet and refreshing time of connection. Distance and time can’t sever Kingdom family relationships.

Our current stop is Hatteras Island, on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. I have read so many books that took place here and it’s long been a spot I wanted to explore. We crossed over major bridges and highways to find this strip of land that has the Atlantic Ocean on one side and the Pamlico Sound on the other.

It’s a sportsman’s paradise, if you like wind/para surfing and fishing!

The other attraction here is Kittyhawk. The spot where The Wright brothers made their historic plane launch.

It was impressive how their determination drove their mission. And it wasn’t their father who was the mechanical mind, it was their mother! She was their consultant in their early days, though she didn’t live to see their launch.

Cape Hatteras is stunning. I could stay here a month. If only I’d known! A week won’t be long enough so we’ll have to come back. The weather has been spectacular, one day of rain. Sunny and 70 all week long. Sunsets over the sound and sunrise on the beach. The food is Carolina cooking, almost low country, but not quite. Fried fish of every kind. Hush puppies (nope) and even a few places with grits. And the prices are definitely tourist!

It’s probably better that we’re only here a week

On Monday we head further south by way of Ocracoke Island and 2 ferry rides. They can handle our RV! Bruce is excited about this one. He’s driven mountains, tunnels, bridges and now a ferry ride. I’ve been choosing our destinations with minor consideration as to how we get there. Our RV apps provide places to camp so my thought is,

If you can camp there you should be able to get there-right?!

Bruce is game…he loves driving, even with an RV. And he loves exploring. Every so often I run a destination by him to be sure he’s on board. But for the most part I simply pick a place to stay and he figures out how to get there. Teamwork rocks!

Myrtle Beach here we come…