Sunday, May 13, 2018
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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!
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| Turtle |
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| 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.
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| 1830 Somerset main house |
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| 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.
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| 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!
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| That gray slatted building is the dairy |
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| 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!
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| 1st floor interior - 1830 Somerset Place main house |
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| 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.
