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I haven't posted in here in a long while. Trust me we've been working on traveling, if not actually doing it! Starting next month, you can start checking on us
HERE.
This past weekend was the
Shad Festival in Grifton, NC. Clay wanted to go if the weather was nice. He emailed his older brother, Warner, to see if he and his wife would like to drive down with us. Vivian replied that they already had plans for a full weekend down east which included Saturday at the Grifton Shad Festival. She invited us instead to meet them at her family's beach house in
Gloucester, NC on Friday night. We happily accepted!
It was not great weather, we had rain off and on the whole time, but never enough to ruin our time. The temperatures were very nice.
We left home about 10:30am on Friday. We stopped in
Goldsboro, NC around noon. We had a BBQ lunch at
Wilber's. Clay had a small BBQ tray and I had a BBQ sandwich without slaw. They brought hushpuppies with our water. They were good. Everything was! Warner later advised that the next time we have this opportunity, to go on down and across Hwy 70 to
McCall's because the have the best ever Brunswick stew. We'll have to see. They have a location down in Clayton too and that is close enough to run down and try some day.
We got down to Gloucester in the middle of the afternoon. We unpacked the car and used the bathroom and then took a tour inside and out. Vivian told us that the body of water was
The Straits and we could see Harkers Island across it. She also told us that their house and the small white house right next to it had been relocated from Havelock after WWII and floated down The Straits on a barge to be delivered here. Amazing!
Vivian and I walked down to the shore and looked around at what the very low tide had uncovered. It was smelly! We walked out on the neighbor's concrete pier/dock and spotted half of some kind of an animal skull partially out of the water. Clay and Warner sat on the back porch with beers and visited. Then, we went over and met the neighbors and they had some oysters to steam for us. Vivian and I didn't have any, but Warner and Clay did. Clay was thrilled! An afternoon of steamed oysters and beer was beyond all of his expectations. He was in heaven. I watched, and watched out for lizards!
Between 5 and 6pm, we headed over to
Harkers Island for dinner. When Vivian looked it up, the
Core Sound Waterfowl Museum & Heritage Center had closed at 5pm. She was disappointed at first, but I assured her that
we had seen it and enjoyed it before. That resolved, we headed over the bridge to
The Fish Hook Grill on Harkers Island. (I can remember when it required a ferry trip to visit!) They had
soft shell crabs today! I couldn't believe Clay didn't order them. Warner did. Vivian ordered the other daily special of fried shrimp in lobster sauce. Clay went with fried oysters (he said the steamed oysters had only whetted his appetite for oysters). I had a grilled chicken sandwich. I think everyone liked what they ordered. We all cleaned our plates and had no room for dessert.
Then we drove down to the end of the island road, past the Core Sound Museum and looked at the
Cape Lookout Lighthouse and watched the birds and water of
Core Sound for a bit. Soon, we headed off in hopes of parking at the fishing pier in the middle of the bridge to get sunset photos. We were too early and it was too cloudy.
We headed on back to the house and got some photos from their neighbor's concrete dock. The bugs ran us off before the sun actually set! I have 3 bites on my forearms and that was almost the only skin I had exposed!
We went in and visited some more and all went to bed around 9pm.
We wanted to get up early and set off to be in Grifton before the start of the 10:30am parade. Clay had called Sue, his older sister, to find out where to meet her and the other family members who would be there. We slept comfortably. Clay got up first as usual. As he prepared to creep out, I asked him what time it was. It was about 6:10am, so time for me to get up. A shower/bath schedule had been worked up before bedtime last night and I was having a morning shower. I wanted to be in and out before anyone needed the toilet. I would have been if the water hadn't been so soft that I couldn't rinse away the soap and shampoo. As it was, I delayed Vivian for a couple of panicked minutes.
Vivian had made biscuits and coffee. She and Warner had bought some spicy breakfast sausage at
Billy's on Harkers Island. They fried that up in patties to make breakfast sandwiches. Yum! We also had some of Clay's
speculoos macarons with our coffee and that was very good also.
We all worked to strip the linens from bed and bath and do some quick cleaning and closing up to leave the house vacant for a while. Then we were on the road in good time for the drive to Grifton. Clay had to stop for gas and Warner suggested Vanceboro, so both cars filled up there. Warner and Vivian had planned to stop at
Yoder's outside Grifton. Vivian had advised me to plan on using the bathrooms there and Warner planned to get a cinnamon roll. We did pull off with them, but the parking lot was overflowing and we had to stop across the street and still no where to park. Warner had dropped Vivian and then picked her up, but we didn't know the lay of the land here. Since we were only about 5 minutes from parade start and still not to Grifton, we went ahead and drove on.
We wound up parked together and very conveniently located and in plenty of time to find Sue's spot and see the parade with Dew, Clay's younger brother. According to Sue, there were 60 entries in the parade and that sounds about right. Her husband, Mike, drove the teacher of the year in their SmartCar. Most exciting for me was
Smokey the Bear in the bed of a Forest Service truck! Who knew Smokey was so big down east?! We must have seen at least a half dozen Smokey billboards on our drive. I guess we did drive through the Croatan National Forest... This Smokey the Bear had visible teeth (very rare in my experience) and he blew kisses! I fell in love all over again and yelled and waved like a teen-aged fangirl!
After the parade, we found some more members of Clay's Grifton-based family and visited briefly. Then we got Clay a bowl of spicy fish stew, which he liked very much. Then we checked out the rest of the Shad Festival from end to end. Finally, we drove down to see the
Grifton Museum that Vivian had told us about. It was quite interesting. Clay met a big group of people he had gone to school with while we were out and about here and at the parade. After the museum, we headed for home. We skipped going out to see the spot where there was a helicopter giving rides. I wasn't going to do it! Clay decided he didn't want to spend the time or money to do it either. It was a no wind day, so it probably was a good day for it in any event.
Clay had thought to stop at
Ken's Grill in LaGrange for lunch. But, when he asked Dew about it, Dew said he'd never eaten there and would eat at
Pete Jones' Skylight Inn if he was going for a BBQ lunch in the area. The other choice was McCall's in Goldsboro, but I had already nixed that since we can go to one in Clayton. We had not been to Skylight in years and so we went again. It has been enlarged and become sophisticated since we last visited. The Q is the same though! Wood fired, whole hog and good. But, now they have soda fountain drinks and chicken and dessert. We each had a small BBQ tray and water and it was plenty. We enjoyed it.
We got home in the mid-afternoon. It was a very nice quick weekend getaway with great food and lots of family! Thanks Warner & Vivian for the invite and for putting us up this weekend!
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