Time Waits for No One - A Short Trip to the Ocean

Oftentimes people ask me how come I travel so much ... But I don’t feel that I do ... Not in the large, very expensive sense. Sure, we do cross the continent or The Pond at least once a year, those are big trips, but most of the time, we just come up for a breath of (a different) air, and just get out of town for not more than 24 hours ... 

This was the case with a recent trip to Manteo and The Outer Banks, right here in North Carolina. 

We decided to go somewhere just for one night pretty much the Monday before Martin Luther King Jr’s Day weekend. We didn’t want to engage our cat sitter (we do if we spend 2 or more days away) in the whole affair; we just wanted to run out, get out of the routine and come back recharged, if possible. 

I was nervous to head that direction because I don’t know why, but North Carolina beaches really do close for the off season ... We have done this before, and we were nervous that we might find nothing to do, or nowhere to eat. 

Hotels are open on the NC beaches, and some have restaurants, but most stand-alone restaurants seem to be either altogether closed or open for limited days and hours. Not even a long weekend on the calendar changed that ... 

But we didn’t starve. Quite the opposite. 

What to do with 24 hours at the beach, especially since the second day has a forecast of non-stop freezing rain and even potentially flurries? 

Well, on the first day, we anchored ourselves to Roanoke Island - the island where the city of Manteo lives. I have loved this historic, intimate water town for as long as I have known it (about 26-27 years, I would guess). It reminds me of Savannah or Charleston, but without the crowds and without the noise. Without the Spanish moss, either. But with all the history, the delicious seafood, and the historic vibe. If you’re quiet enough and pay attention, there are pirates boots hitting the sidewalks and the tight alleys. 

The Our State magazine is of great help to us to pick our next roadtrip destination and this trip was more or less started by an article I saw there: they had a story about The Mother Vine, a 400+ year old scuppernong grape vine. It is famed to be the oldest known vine in America and it dates back to Sir Walter Raleigh’s expedition in 1584 (look it up!). It is currently on private property, but the owners are gracious and allow visitors to walk the grounds and take pictures of it. Of course, in January, there is not much to look at other than a mess of knotted dry wood, but even so ... for someone who loves wine and especially this North Carolina delicacy called “scuppernong” (the fruit and the wine), it was a must see. 

The Mother Vine - Manteo, NC

Afterwards, we walked in Manteo’s waterside shopping district, and wandered the many a boutiques nested in old homes, where floors creak and things smell like old tobacco or seaweed ... 

The Tranquil Inn in the waterside shopping district - Manteo, NC

We went to a wine tasting in the storefront of Vineyards on the Scuppernong, a winery that makes their wines in Columbia, NC, just a few miles inland. 

Vineyards on the Scuppernong's tasting room in Downtown Manteo, NC

We visited a couple of antique stores for window shopping and decoration ideas. 

We tasted oils and balsamic vinegars at The Gourmet Olive where we actually bought some nice garlic-infused olive oil. The store keeper was one of the friendliest people you’ll meet. Really, everyone is nice in this area, but this lady offered to ship us more oil when we’re done with this one, just call and tell her, she said. We thanked her for being open. She admitted she is not open but three days a week, but in the summer, she is so busy, she is known to make “close to a million dollars in a weekend” ... That is some sale of oils and vinegars I suspect ... 

Ghosts spook me and every old town has them. There is nothing more haunting-promising to me than these narrow alleyways between buildings. They fascinate me and the creative ways people connect the buildings also does.

We said goodbye to the shopping district by stopping in at Outer Banks Distilling - a local rum distillery. We had stopped in at the Laughing Lollipop, a candy and ice cream store on the waterside to get some rum balls, and another friendly store keeper there practically begged us to go visit the Distillery for their rum-infused pecans and their pecan-infused rum. 

The Outer Banks Distilling. The place of heavenly roasted pecans

My husband tasted the rum and both of us tasted the pecans. These people know what they’re doing! They soak pecans in the rum until the rum turns the color of the nuts. Then, they roast the nuts and candy them in sugar. They taste like Jamaica and The South all wrapped up in a bite. You eat till you’re stupid, I tell you what. Those pecans are so good that I can see myself driving to Manteo just for the day to buy some more and probably be drunk by the time I get home, just from the rum taste. Ridiculous! 

Their on-site bar area, The Wheel House Lounge, looked like a ton of fun, mixing up pecan rum cocktails and what not. The place was packed, however, not a place to sit, and we were slightly late for dinner if we would have stopped in. So, we moved along. 

Dinner was in an interesting place. The Salt & Cypress Kitchen & Cocktails  was located inside a condotel, one of those motel-looking condo buildings you see in any beach town. The building was on the Shallowbag Bay, right on the water, and a beautiful sunset was drowning us in tender light. 

The Salt & Cypress in Manteo, NC

Our cocktails and view at Salt & Cypress

From the outside, it looks like a tourist trap, a t-shirt store with a bar, but it is anything but ... The place was almost empty (not many crowds in the winter, I tell ya), so we had our pick for where we sat. We chose the second floor to be above the marina and have an unobstructed view of the bay. 

Outside our restaurant, on the Shallowbag Bay

The tuna special (crusted in sesame seeds) and the spicy shrimp pasta were to die for. And they made me a custom-ordered cocktail that was not on the menu - all I wanted was that local pecan-infused rum with some pineapple juice and that’s what they did. I didn’t think I was ever going to leave that place! It tasted like a day at the beach when everyone stayed home and you’re alone with the ocean, the sun, and your thoughts ... 

We headed to Kitty Hawk, on the Outer Banks for the night, where we could sleep right on the beach. Well, in the hotel. In a bed, but with the ocean and the Kitty Hawk Pier right in front of our window.

  

Kitty Hawk Pier, from our hotel balcony

After a nightcap at our hotel's bar, properly named, given our location, The Aviator, we collapsed in bed, with a smile on our faces, bellies and hearts full.

If our first day there was bright, sunny and crisp, the second day we woke up to a complete downpour ... Just gusty winds blowing the coldest rain around every which way. We wanted something more interesting for breakfast than a basic hotel buffet, so we drove around, up and down the Outer Banks and back to Manteo and back again to The Banks and every place the maps were steering us towards was “closed for the season”. It was maddening ... But then, just like that, driving around, my husband spotted this completely redone dinner, the Noosa Beach Grill, and we got there right at noon, so we could order breakfast (him) or lunch (me) with no trouble. Again, the people were welcoming and the service was very good. 

Noosa Beach Grill - quiet, cozy, and trust me - yummy, too

We headed back home, after a mandatory stop at a beach store, just to see if they had any cute summer dresses on sale - as they do, this time of the year ... 

I just wrote close to three pages about an adventure that lasted less than 24 hours ... 

Every time we go away like this I wonder: is it worth it? Is it worth the time? The money? The driving break-neck speed, to and fro?! And every time, I come up with the same answer: absolutely worth it! 

The world is a shaky place. Nothing is guaranteed - the money we have now, the health that we have now, the time that we have now, the (relative) peace we have now - none of them are guaranteed ... The  memories your brain remembers, the tastes, the flavors you discover, the conversations you have with kind strangers or each other, they are all now a page of your life’s album, just waiting patiently to catch patina and dust ... 

Get out there, if you can, and explore ... Even if it’s a place around the corner from your house that you have never visited before. Go find out what moves it. Time waits for no one ... 

Finding Home ...

There is a coming-home-kinda feeling about a lazy, early North Carolina summer. It’s like your heart is reset in its secret lodge in your chest and it’s back in rhythm. 

There is a strange saying around here that winter lasts for about 4 months, summer lasts for 6, and spring falls on a Tuesday. This feels, quite literally, like the truth! We have very little remembrance of true spring - the blooms are all we know about it. But the heat and most importantly, the humidity, this NC staple, is in a hurry to come back every year. We go from boots to thong flip-flops literally in one weekend.

The first sign of early summer is a blooming Southern magnolia

If you never spent any time in a subtropical climate, it is hard to describe the water in the air. The drips down your chin and under your arms just because you’re alive. You do nothing but sit there, looking at your hydrangeas and you feel a soft bead rolling down your temple. It’s only 10 AM and you can feel the hot air creeping in like a thief ... 

Kitties are lazier than usual, if such a thing is even possible, moving ever so slowly, for fear they’ll waste their energy in a hurry if they jerk around too much. Their eyes are blinking on a delay ... 

One of the must-haves in a Southern home is a screened-in porch, preferably in the back of the house, where no human traffic can bother you or disrupt your God-given peace. Lots of people dream of a house with a nice, deep front porch, but I like that just for the architecture. I would not think of ever using it to sit and take in the world. My world is that of the back yard, facing the woods, and allowing me no human pollution whatsoever - just birds, deer, bunnies, and squirrels. Maybe the occasional snake - because what is NC without its snakes?! 

On a day like today, I sit and melt away in the warm, wet air, and think about life, about what’s important, about where to next. If I learned anything in 50 years, it’s that humans will disappoint and fail, but through failure they will learn, rise again, and move on. I cannot measure my days in human victories or defeats. My beat nowadays is more that of nature, with its untainted beauty, permanence, resilience and steadiness ... Nature and that which is not human is what I seek for thy disappoint the least. 

If the most consequential trip of my life, my South African safari, taught me anything, it was that to find happiness is to be the most you you can ever muster. An impala never wants to be a lion, and a lion never wants to be a leopard. They are authentically who they are and they are the best at who they are because they wish nothing against their nature or against their natural grain. 

Human intelligence is our ticket to progress and to our demise ... Nowadays, I limit myself to what I know is true and permanent - gorgeous, massive hardwoods mixed in with Southern pines, whispering in the faint wind in my forest, finches, cardinals and sparrows having some sort of a quarrel over the shortage of bird seed, blue birds moving on after their first batch of babies have flown the coop, butterfly bushes in full-bloom waiting, patiently, for their residents to move in. 

About 4 years ago this landscape lady promised a scrawny butterfly bush she planted on a rocky hill behind my house will one day take over my yard. Every year since, I doubted her. I think it's finally time.

These are true, honest, solid things. There is no pretense, no lying, and no A.I. Just the pure, verifiable (but not needed to be) source of what is true ... I live for this. I cherish this. It's restoring ...  

Some days, it's hard to pick a favorite ...

I started this blog 20 years ago next month. I started it to document my travels, and I have been blessed with so many. I have lived a truly charmed life, with many opportunities to learn and open my eyes and my heart to a world I never knew would be possible for me ... 

But the one thing I have learned the most is that sometimes the most memorable journeys are not very far from just where you are. Not very far from your home or even from this chair, right here, where I type these words ... Not very far from the lazy kitten sprawled on the chair next to me ... It’s how you look at the world that makes the adventure and not always how many miles you travel ... 

For now, for today ... The world is warm, familiar, and soft, like an embrace of someone kind and trusting. The air is lingering, sticky and wet. The birds are getting lazier and lazier, judging by their fainting songs, as we approach mid-day. The sun is almost on top of me, I feel it and it makes my eyes squint a little, even under the roof of my screened-in porch. The fluorescent blue wasps are buzzing around and the branches are slowly nodding in the light wind. 

The skies are just waiting for some kind of signal to drop buckets on our heads yet again, despite the desperate attempts of the sun to peek through and shoo them away. 

It’s a quiet day in the country. The neighbor’s dog, suffering from some terrible separation anxiety, is the only chatterbox out there - disrupting the peace and the birds’ subdued symphony. He gets tired after a while and you hear him wail and yawn ... 

It’s another day in The South and, I am fairly sure that even if it’ll bring about change and even eternal pause to so many around the world, it will also bring a new day for those left behind. As life and physics will have it, the world still moves on. And I choose to move with it, when humanity allows, always waiting for the next chapter ... 

Blowing Rock, NC. Mountain Charm. Timeless Flair.

When I lived in North Carolina my first time around, before 2010, because I lived closer to it, Blowing Rock used to be my favorite day-trip destination. I would drive up there for the day from Greensboro, have lunch at The Speckled Trout, then walk about the town, up and down the main street, pop in and out of all the cute little stores, check out the newest local art, try to spot the newest China merchandise that traps any tourist in any American town that sees themselves as a destination, get an ice cream at Kilwins, then head on down the mountain come dinner time. 

A little spot for peace in downtown Blowing Rock: a children's prayer garden

Now, living about an hour  further away, we visit The Crown of the Blue Ridge, as it’s known, much less often. But it still beckons us back from time to time, like it did this weekend. 

These are some of the observations I have made of  an old friend, and of the world as we see it today as we’re travelers through it ... In no particular order ... 

This had to be the least busy holiday weekend I have ever experienced anywhere, but definitely in the North Carolina mountains. We could not figure it out, but all restaurants had open seats (we’re used to driving up there for the holiday weekend and ending up eating fast food or bar food at a bar that still wants people to drink but doesn’t have much to offer by way of food). We hardly needed a reservation anywhere. 

The scenic ride slope at Beech Mountain was almost empty. No lines at all. When we pulled into the parking lot, we counted no more than 20 cars, I’d say. They have three parking lots, but even the one closest to the slope seemed completely empty ... I was sure the resort would be  closed. 

Riding a scenic chairlift in the summer in the mountains is the one activity I look forward to every year. This year, we finally managed to get to it at the very end of summer. It was worth the wait ...

Beech Mountain was open, in fact, but the tavern at the bottom of the slope seemed totally empty, outside of the few occupied tables on their patio. The pub at the top of the mountain had most tables full but the fact that we found a table to sit at at all should tell you they were not very busy. Last time we went, on a non-holiday, summer weekend it was standing-room only both inside and out. There was no one inside this time around. No music playing either, which made it seem even more grim and lonely than the slim crowd. 

Back in the olden, olden days of my trips up the mountain, if I went for an overnight trip, I would equally patronize both Cheeseburgers in Paradise, a hole-in-the-wall burger joint that made a great chicken salad, and The Speckled Trout that made the best trout anywhere on the Parkway. Cheeseburgers in Paradise closed what seems to be a century ago, with the place sitting there, in the heart of downtown, in the busiest intersection of Blowing Rock, empty, falling in disrepair, hurting my soul with every visit, year after year after year. 

But on this trip, it was nice to see that the place took on a brand-new life, and someone loved and cared for the old spot, along other adjacent plots downtown as they now constructed the brand-new and very welcoming hotel Embers. It is where we hung our hats and it was a beautiful experience. The place is clean, welcoming, laid back and full of little gems in the shape of good food, delicious cocktails, and an extremely friendly staff. It was so nice to see history evolving and the town stepping into its next chapter with this new venture downtown. 

The Embers Hotel in downtown Blowing Rock

The Speckled Trout is still as happening as ever - probably the only place where you did still need reservations during this not-so-busy weekend. The wait is still North of an hour for a table and they can only seat you outside with no reservations, and people were taking the outside tables, even when it was pouring out. The trout itself is not what it used to be here - you don’t get a full trout anymore, like in the olden days, and the sides are not just simple baked potatoes, corn on the cob, or steamed veggies ... You have more ‘fancy’ offerings now, like vegan fennel and potato salad, smoked gouda grits, or summer succotash salad. I still visit the place with every visit, just for the good ol’ time’s sake and just because they still serve trout (you’d think they should forever. It’s in their name, after all.) and trout is hard to find, surprisingly, even in mountain towns. 

The cornmeal crusted trout dish at Speckled Trout

Outside The Speckled Trout, the busiest place in Blowing Rock is Camp Coffee Roasters - the line is flowing out into the street at any given time of the day, but those kids who work there know what they’re doing - I thought for sure it would take us an hour to get in and out. It took a bit less than 20 minutes. I guess they time it since you can only park in front of their store for 30 minutes at a time. 

The view from Camp Coffee Roasters towards The Speckled Trout and Embers hotel - across the street

Before we got up the mountain, we toured a couple of wineries in the Yadkin Valley, and then visited another one in the mountains on our second day. 

The gorgeous furnishings at Castello Barone Vineyards and Winery in Yadkin Valley

We love finding little places that do so much to (almost literally) squeeze the sweetness and the richness out of the North Carolina soil to make good products that illustrate the uniqueness or our landscape and climate ... We love talking to the winemakers who, so proudly, showcase their elixirs. It’s always an experience to be shared. Midnight Magdalena, Castello Barone in the Yadkin Valley and Eagles Nest Winery outside Beech Mountain were new findings for us. Featuring mostly dry wines (North Carolina is humid and wet which typically yields dryer varieties, we learned), they were oases of hospitality and good taste. Eagles Nest is hidden deep into the woods of The Smokies. There is no highway sign for it, and you have to kinda trust your maps to take you there. Once you get there, though, the log cabin feel and the gorgeous landscape will render you shocked, mouth-agape. It’s like coming home. You feel the mountains around you just casting a great, warm hug around you, and welcoming you in. 

The beautiful setting at the Eagles Nest Winery, outside Beech Mountain

The wines here, though, are hardly local, being all raised in California, and just mixed and bottled on site, so they’re  a little bit of a fraud, you can say, but they are good wines, and the place is still worth visiting for a moment of respite, a slice of fresh pizza and a cold glass of wine, even semi-imported/ local ... 

There were some low notes during our trip, too. 

The beauty of the setting at Timberlake Restaurant in the Chetola resort is in stark contrast to the poor service and the lesser quality of the food served there, I am sad to say. Kids working in hospitality nowadays need to learn how to use proper words anymore (doesn’t everyone in today’s age of AI when anything we read or write is filled-out for us?). When I tell a young waitress that my order got screwed up and I list at least three things wrong with it and the answer I get is a friendly, chipper, uplifting “Oh, perfect!” followed by a smile - it makes one wonder if anything is being processed on the other end ... 

The serene and peaceful setting of The Timberlake restaurant

We always notice people with kids, and as childless folks, we notice how from day to day, from year to year, kids are more and more close to monkeys and parents are further and further disconnected from any responsibility of raising them. I always say: stop having them or learn how to parent. Filling up the world with screaming, entitled brats is hardly optimistic for our future. Don’t know. Maybe it’s my aging, ornery self, who knows?! 

Although the whole experience was wonderful, as we partook in good foods, good drinks, and great conversations with strangers everywhere, I think the highlight for me was just being in the mountains. Driving on an empty Blue Ridge was my favorite pastime - just seeing no one coming around the curve, and not being rushed by anyone behind us, looking over the (still) bright, green mountains, half in a smoky mist and half clear, breathing in the strong mountain air from our room’s patio were what we drive three and a half hours for - just to take in the mountains and recharge the batteries for the next season. 

Some things will linger for a while: the new-place smell at The Embers, the sticky floors from busy wear and tear at The Speckled Trout, the inexperience of the staff at The Timberlake, the easy-go-lucky staff at Beech Mountain, the super friendly and jack-of-all-trades bartender, Everett, at The Embers bar, the timelessness of the stores that line the Blowing Rock sidewalks year after year, the smell of pines after the rain, the warm cups of coffee at Camp Coffee Roasters, the friendliest hotel receptionist, Stacy, at The Embers ... and all the screaming kids of the world, too ...

Some things are new, some thing are timeless. The world is a mixed bag of nuts; you take the salt with the sugar and you make a nice snack; but whatever you do, don’t stop getting out there and getting your life going, seeing and learning new things. 

The view from the top of Beech Mountain, after the chairlift ride

Wrightsville Beach, NC

My mind is very fragmented lately. I have struggled to write complete sentences and the truth comes to me in snippets, much like a bulleted list. Without numbers. Without a specific order of events. 

These are my random thoughts on our recent trip to Wrightsville Beach, NC. 

• Hotel beds are the worst. Why do they make them so back-breaking soft? 

• Off-season beach season should be the most popular. Who needs the heat, the noise, the sand when you can have the beach to yourself to roam and any restaurant open with no waiting time? But I guess if this would be the peak season, this all would change?! Hmmm ... 

• Falling asleep to the sound of the waves. Who needs a noise machine? 

• I still love the cheap t-shirt beach stores where everything is always on sale. You can never have too many cheesy painted t-shirts (for the days when you decide you’re bored enough you want to start painting your cabinets) and too many $1 thong flip-flops. Summer is long in North Carolina. 

• Overheard in a coffee shop (paraphrase): “All I have left is to prepare for class this semester. Which is basically a lot of reading. But it’s kinda odd because all I have to read are heavy books. Like, you never thought you’d ever say ‘boy, I am really pumped about reading this book on ... suffering!’, ya know?!” Laughter follows. (Drift restaurant in Wrightsville Beach)

• The best seafood gumbo vegan outside of the fish is at The Oceanic at the Crystal Pier. Best view in town too, right on the ocean.

• It’s a mystery to me where birds go when we go to the beach. You see all these gorgeous waterfowl photography everywhere from the fancy hotels to your dentist’s office and you’re thinking: “sure, I can do that! Just get out there on the marsh, point and shoot.” Only you can’t. Nope. Not birds at any rate. I watched the sunrise from my 7th story hotel room and there were hundreds of water birds on the beach. I get dressed and get out there to “shoot them up close” ... not a one! Ridiculous! And that curse followed us everywhere else all weekend. Almost. A small pond in the middle of the Airlie Gardens saved the weekend. 

  Finally birds! At Airlie Gardens.

• I have never found so many absolutely perfectly whole sea-shells in a 20 minute walk on the beach. And I didn’t even pick up all the ones we spotted.

• When coming out of The Oceanic, a random gentleman with a zoomy-zoom camera propped up on the railing told us he is waiting to see the launch of a SpaceX rocket somewhere South from where we were standing. Now, we were about 600 miles (more than 8 hours) away from where the rocket was launching, so this sounded highly dubitable, but we decided to wait for the rocket. 

And oh, wow!, were we in for an experience! The rocket, like a crisp white beam of light, came out from low on the Southern horizon and ascended so incredibly fast, leaving behind a thick and luminous train, so long that given the distance we were aware it was from us, might have been hundreds of miles long in the sky.
At one point, we could see it drop its boosters that had propelled it into space, and then the two boosters, like mini-rockets themselves, made their own train of light from the dropping point all the way back towards Florida where they eventually landed.
At some point, it looked like the rocket stopped “writing” on the sky with its white, luminous train, and it kept only a short “tail”, almost like a comet flying high above the water. Although we could not hear the launch nor feel the earth shake, it was still breathtaking. Definitely the highlight of this weekend, regardless of however many successful pictures of birds we might have gotten. 

Sometimes what you get out is not what you go there for. 

When we left our house, we were not too eager to be on this trip, for various reasons. But once seeing this miracle of human engineering, just a token of what is possible once you venture out beyond your front door, you realize that no matter how sad or poorly you feel, as long as your body is still able, you should get out and take in the amazement that the world still has in store for you. 

The synchronicity was moving:

We saw the SpaceX Falcon Heavy on January 15 - a Sunday - outside The Oceanic Restaurant in Wrightsville Beach, NC. The rocket launch had been scheduled for January 14th (the day before) and it had gotten delayed till the following day, for “reasons not immediately disclosed” (if you follow the SpaceX launches, they have a good record of punctuality). We knew absolutely nothing of this, as we don’t follow rocket launches. 

We had come to The Oceanic the day before, but we could not get in because they were too busy, so we decided to come the following day a bit earlier to have a chance at eating dinner there. And a place we picked totally randomly, and a day and time we picked totally by accident paid off in a big, big way. We took the experience as a reminder to stop making plans (or hiding from them) and get out there and embrace life and wonder just as they are: always there, always waiting, always in need of nothing but eyeballs to enjoy it.

The rocket and the two boosters putting on a spectacle as seen from Wrightsville Beach, NC on January 15, 2023. Who needs New Year's fireworks when you can have this?!