Old Albemarle Boat Tour, the end

Sunday, May 13, 2018

So, the boat tour is over. It cost us $2000 for the 2 of us from Thursday afternoon at 3pm check in to now. That is $1000 pp for 3 nights/3 days. I thought it was a bit pricey for northeast NC and what we got. Clay argued it was $250 per diem and reasonable. You can decide for yourself. I'm glad we did it! Even though we had been almost everywhere but Elizabeth City before, it was different seeing it from the water and we wouldn't have done that without this trip. If NCDCR does another trip some time and we get another timely invite, I am sure we'd go again.

Bob with Clay's beer

Clay's fried oysters

Let me move on to dinner. We had not registered that it was Mother's Day. There were few restaurants open in Elizabeth City on Sunday night anyway. Clay had a few in his sights as serving seafood and only one open on Sunday night. It did not occur to us that with the holiday, we would need a reservation. So, we wound up being about the last people seated and placing our orders before the kitchen closed early due to running low on food. We ate at Grouper's Waterfront. It wound up being good food and not terribly expensive, but it was hard to find and hard to find a place to park and after the stress of nearly being turned away and sitting by the door in the bar watching others turned away, we probably wouldn't recommend it or ever return ourselves.

My steak and potatoes

Bob with our blizzards

We ate over an hour after ordering. We finished and went to the bar to get our check and pay. We left skipping dessert for obvious reasons. I knew there was a Dairy Queen out near our hotel and insisted we go. We waited to make a left turn into the parking lot behind at least a half dozen other cars turning right. It appeared that church had just let out on Mother's Day! I insisted that we wait it out. Worth the wait, cold and delicious blizzards. They have been heavily advertised on TV lately and looked so good. Check that off the list.

I realize that I have not included Clay's photos of the hotel rooms. I am not sure why. To remedy that, here they are. All of the hotels were about the same quality and none were located right in towns, but closer to highways. They were all clean and quiet and even though we only had 2 breakfasts out of the 4 hotel stays, I assume they were all similar. They all had 1 sink and a shower over tub. We had a single king size bed in all the tour hotels because we volunteered to share a bed when the tour organizers couldn't come up with a single hotel each night that had 2 double beds per paired travelers. It was an anomaly of their booking method, I think. Each of us had to make a booking individually and pay for ourself and then request to share a room with each other. I guess it was easier to handle single travelers that way, but made things more complicated in the end, I think.

Here we go, I'll start with tonight's Comfort Inn Elizabeth City, which was not included in the tour.

Below is the first hotel of the Old Albemarle Boat Tour, the Fairfield Inn Elizabeth City.

Second hotel of the tour was the Hampton Inn Edenton. Photos below.

Third night of the tour was at the Holiday Inn Express Plymouth. Photos follow.

So, after our last night in Elizabeth City at the Comfort Inn we got up late and had breakfast in the lobby. We headed back home and after about an hour of driving, around 10am, we were hit by a woman who ran a red light outside Williamston. It was the last traffic light before future I-87 would have taken us straight to Raleigh! We got a rental pickup truck as the last and only vehicle for hire at Enterprise in Williamston and drove home. Tuesday we placed a deposit to buy a Kia Niro PHEV hybrid and they loaned us a sedan until it arrived from Georgia. We learned later it was the 1st Plug-in Kia sold in NC. I'm not sure that is a good thing, but Clay's in love with that compact SUV and the fact that he can get to and from work in all electric mode for about 66 cents a day in energy costs. Wednesday, we drove back to Williamston to return the truck and retrieve our license plate from the Elantra. On the way back by Tarboro, we stopped at Abrams for a snack. Clay had a BBQ sandwich and I had an original cheese biscuit. I don't know how Clay's sandwich rated, but my cheese biscuit was perfection!

My biscuit

My cheese!

Clay's BBQ sandwich

Friday afternoon we picked up our new car and returned the loaner sedan. We are still waiting for the check for our totaled Elantra to arrive. Tomorrow will be one week from when we were told we'd receive it. Still waiting. State Farm was doing an excellent job handling our claim until it was time to pay. Stay tuned.

Old Albemarle Boat Tour Day 4

Sunday, May 13, 2018

Sunrise over the Roanoke River

We had a 4am wake up this morning. The earliest of the trip. We had to be packed up and checked out and our luggage to the bus for a 5:45am departure today. We boarded the Belle of Washington and had turned around and started sailing back towards the Albemarle Sound when the sun rose.

Mayfly

We went up to our usual top deck spot and found a lot of these bugs! We learned from one of our speakers later that they were mayflies. The live only 1 day. They have no mouth parts because they don't live long enough to eat. They would have hatched and laid eggs earlier and now they were getting their day in the sun before they died. Weird.

Everyone was very pleased and surprised to find Bojangles' biscuits being served this morning. We were a little less surprised and very pleased ourselves. Our tour organizer announced that everyone should thank our neighbor for the hot breakfast today. Good for her for taking our suggestion and running with it.

Bald eagle

We had a good sail this morning with lots of birds and turtles seen. There was a lot less traffic on the river today plus it was early so both may be factors in the amount of wildlife seen. Clay did not bring a camera other than his phone/camera and today he especially rued that as the camera is not good for zooming in on wildlife. But given all the luggage moving already and keeping what you might need on you all day, we were happy not to have a computer or camera equipment to lug. The speakers spoke and again we missed most of it as we were not near the speakers upstairs and outside. It was still more pleasant to us.

County seal

This morning's itinerary had an activity on it. At 8am was listed Morning mimosas and Art lesson with Pocosin Arts. I had seen them setting up in the lounge area downstairs and they were going to have us paint wildlife drawn on ceramic tumblers. I decided to go down and give it a try. I'd like a souvenir of a bird. They were prepared to take half of us at a time, allowing 1 hour per group. I was in the first group. I did a heron. I didn't do too badly. Whoever was driving was running a zigzag pattern and that messed up everyone's painting. As we neared the end of our hour, the woman from Pocosin Arts who was running things came around to get our contact information so she could ship our glazed and fired tumblers to us. Then she announced that each box would also contain a donation slip requesting $35 to cover the activity and shipping. I firmly believe that information should have appeared on the itinerary. I never would have agreed to participate for $35. I was enjoying the ride upstairs and could have continued and waited for our end of tour gift bags as my souvenir. I'll tell you now that it included an embroidered patch! That's what I would have picked anyway. It has the Sheriff's Department and the county seal pictured here. It also included a stemless wine tasting glass that is working great for me as a juice glass. Anyway, I wasn't informed in advance so wasn't given a choice in the matter and they've been paid and I have my tumbler.

Bob at helm of Belle of Washington

We were also invited to visit the bridge this morning so Clay and I took Bob for his chance to drive and have his photo taken doing it. It was about 9:10am when the Captain told us we were early. Um... Our itinerary had us arriving at 9am and we hadn't entered Bull Bay yet. We also had to sail up the Scuppernong River yet. It would be another 2 hours before we arrived at 11am or so. We felt bad for the people in Columbia who we were told had rescheduled their church services and opened their businesses today for our arrival. Our departure was moved back by 30 minutes so we could do a few things here but we did not have the almost 3 hours originally planned here.

Arriving at Columbia

After limited remarks from the local dignitaries who had waited to welcome us, we got maps and handouts of available activities for us today in Columbia. There were 20 marks on the map but some of the times had already passed on the schedule. Number one on my list was number 16 on the map, Red Wolf Coalition. It turns out that we had previously visited Columbia and this had been closed when we tried to visit before. The schedule said that vans will leave periodically to take you to visit the endangered red wolf. So, with high hopes we walked across the bridge over the Scuppernong River and waved farewell to the Belle of Washington. On the way we dropped our Pocosin Arts raffle ticket off. We weren't drawn.

Saying goodbye to Belle of Washington

We went inside the storefront HQ of the Red Wolf Coalition and she said she thought visits were off since we were so late arriving. We told her we had until 12:15pm so she agreed to take us. We tried to scare up some more passengers off the street while she locked up her storefront, but no takers. Clay & I got a private visit! She took us about 5 minutes out of town and unlocked the gate to enter a triple fenced enclosure for a pair of red wolves. On the way to enter the 2nd fence, we saw a turtle. Bonus!

Turtle

Two red wolves

We didn't linger and were soon back in Columbia after giving our chauffeur and guide a donation for the Red Wolf Coalition. She told us that we'd be getting a packet from her in our gift bag with information, donation information and greeting cards. Since no one else from the boat went out to see the wolves, it is likely ours is the only donation she got for her efforts towards our visit. We next visited map number 15, Maggie Duke Antiques. Finally we walked back along the river and under the bridge to get to map numbers 8/14 the Scuppernong Interpretive Boardwalk and the Walter B. Jones Sr. Center for the Sounds. This was cluster along the river and across the bridge where we would also rejoin the bus. We stopped in the Visitor Center to use the restrooms and realized we had been here before and the boardwalk was closed then. We stopped in the Center and no longer had time for the Boardwalk without rushing through only part of it. We learned as we waited on the bus from others who walked it that the deer flies were thick and with the unseasonable heat of the past 3 days had hatched on Friday. Since deer flies do have mouths and are biters and my DEET was in my suitcase, this worked out just fine for us to have missed the walk a 2nd time.

1830 Somerset main house

Big pot of black eyed peas

About 12:30pm the bus departed for Somerset Place. It turns out we had been there too, but had left without touring it. It was NC's 2nd or 3rd largest plantation. It is most well-known because of the well-documented lives of the slaves and the focus of the tour is from their perspective. This is also where we were having lunch about a half-hour behind schedule.

Clay's lunch

The NC Historic Site's employees/volunteers prepared our lunch over fire. Today it was a brutal job in the blazing sunshine. Ordinarily Somerset Place is closed on Sunday. They may have underestimated their food needs. They intended to serve hoppin' john, rice, sweet potatoes and gingerbread. I think they only had enough black eyed peas to serve everyone. It was good. They had ice water or iced tea to drink. They had tables set up in the formal garden under a canopy and on both house porches. There weren't enough seats either, we gave ours up as people were looking for spots and we'd finished our plates. We got drink refills and sat on a bench by the dairy in the shade and waited for our tour of the place. This was our 2nd antebellum dairy in 2 days! We had seen one and had it explained at Beverly Hall. It is a small outbuilding with thick woodclad masonry walls fitted with a lot of close wooden slats, so it is cool and ventilated inside. They stored dairy products there and made cheese and butter there. I couldn't Google any hits to explain it better!

That gray slatted building is the dairy

Formal garden

At 1pm, we were gathered to divide in 3 groups to tour Somerset Place. We all toured the slave quarters area, the owner's section outbuildings and the main 1830 house. If it hadn't been so hot, it would have been a very nice tour. Weather!

1st floor interior - 1830 Somerset Place main house

1st floor interior - 1830 Somerset Place main house

At 4pm, we boarded the bus and departed for Elizabeth City and our parked cars. We got there about 5pm and an hour later than scheduled. We were glad that we had decided to book a hotel room at the Comfort Inn in Elizabeth City tonight rather than planning to drive 2.5 hours home. They had us all pose for a group photo before handing out gift bags. Our car was on the row blocked by the bus so we were among the last to leave. Originally, the were giving married couples one gift bag to share as they thought they'd be short. They had leftovers and they gave us another after the bus left and we were loading the trunk. Bonus! The gift bags were a nice touch.

I will break here since this is long and pick up the remainder of the trip with supper tonight, a summary of the hotels and the trip home.

Old Albemarle Boat Tour Day 3

Saturday, May 12, 2018

Beverly Hall

Today was the only day of this tour with a reasonable start time! We had the Hampton Inn's lobby buffet breakfast at our leisure. A few days before the trip departed we were emailed with a list of options for our free morning in Edenton this morning. We chose a 9:30am private home tour of Beverly Hall with Sambo Dixon. That meant we had to be on the 9am bus to shuttle to downton Edenton, checked out of the hotel and with our luggage loaded. It also meant we couldn't do anything else in Edenton. We were happy with our choice. All the other choices were things anyone visiting Edenton could do at any time. Not like visiting a private home with the owner guiding, that was special.

Clay's lunch

Debbie's lunch

Lunch was a box lunch catered to the Edenton Lighthouse. It began at 11am. We finished our tour and walked down there in good time so we visited the Penelope Barker House to kill time. By the time we got back to the lighthouse, lunch tables were set up and lunches were out for pickup. You could pick a box by the type of sandwich inside, a bag of chips of some kind and a cold beverage from a cooler. You could take your lunch wherever you liked. We noticed as we walked over that a large number of passengers had taken theirs aboard the Belle of Washington already. All aboard is 1:15pm for 1:30pm departure. We sat at one of the tables set on the shady side of the lighthouse porch. After lunch, we entered the lighthouse for a guided tour that was included in our boat tour.

Clay atop the lighthouse w/Belle of Washington at dock in Edenton

Belle of Washington docked in Edenton, NC

When we left the lighthouse, we gave up in the heat of the mid-day sun and boarded the Belle of Washington to claim our seats from near where we sat yesterday. When the final passenger returned we departed about 15-20 minutes early.

1886 Roanoke River Lighthouse at Edenton, NC

Sailing the Roanoke River

CSS Albemarle replica

Today we are sailing to Plymouth.  If you look at the map, that meant a sail into the Roanoke River. The speakers were speaking, but we couldn't hear them upstairs without standing directly under a speaker. As we neared Plymouth we were charged, chased and fired upon by the CSS Albemarle. Of course, the actual ship is long gone, this one is a 3/8 scale replica. It was a bit of excitement that enlivened our quiet cruise. Clay shot a lot of cellphone video but never captured a shot being fired to his vexation.

Smoke from a cannon shot by CSS Albemarle

Open bar

The Belle of Washington operators announced that they had planned to offer a cash bar this afternoon, but decided to put on a free spread as a courtesy to make up for some problems like lateness and toilets not working for a while. It was welcomed, more so than the cash bar would have been. They had snacks, sodas and wine as well.

Plymouth, NC awaits

Clay's bear meat skewer and punch

The town of Plymouth also fired a shore side cannon at us as we arrived. We were a bit late again and the welcome was re-organized. Blackbeard was there. They had cold punch and a tray of snacks made of small skewers of bear meat, blackberry and mozzarella.

They let us self-divide into groups for a tour of Port o' Plymouth Museum, NC Black Bear HQ, and everyone ended at the Maritime Museum where the locals put on a BBQ dinner buffet for us. We had actually visited Plymouth twice before! I skipped the Port o' Plymouth Museum tour for time searching the fossil pit out front which was not here when we visited before. The sign advertised shark teeth but no luck for me! We decided we'd like to return sometime to try to see bears or take a bear tour or two. Our last trip was for the birds. We learned that Plymouth now has a bear festival. Dinner was good and Bland Simpson performed a few songs for us. Before the end of the trip, Bland will give each tour participant a CD of the Red Clay Ramblers' Old North State. A nice touch.

Debbie in disguise

After dinner and entertainment, the bus picked us up and took us to the Holiday Inn Express for the night. This is the same place we stayed before when we came for the bird migration. They didn't have 8 Tesla charging stations then, but the Bojangles out front was the same.  Tomorrow we have a very early start to our final day.