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 ... 

January 19, 2025

My favorite grandma, my second mom, my ‘maia’ loved the beach. It was her happy place and she didn’t stop going to it every year till she got really, really sick, right before she died. Romania doesn’t have palm trees though, but she lived for almost 75 years dreaming about seeing one, one day. I remember her buying fabric with palm tree patterns for summer dresses. 

When I landed in America, 27 years ago today, life or fate, or some happenstance brought me to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. This is not where you dream of migrating when you dream about moving to America. You usually are told America is New York and Miami and Los Angeles, and anyone you know who moves here shoots for one of these places. Well, my story brought me to Myrtle Beach. My first home was on the beach - I thought I literally won the lottery. 

Every day, I would look at nothing but palm trees and think of ‘maia’. It kept me going, knowing she would never say ‘no’ to living on this new planet where it was so easy to take every tree for granted. 

Then (1998) and today (2025). A lifetime and the same shore at the same time. 

I had nothing but a head full of dreams and absolutely no idea how I would make them come true. Those who know my story know by now that dad had one dream for us: to make America our home. I went out into the world on his specific promise that America is the only place where our character, our education, our upbringing, our talents will not go to waste. This was our pie-in-the-sky. The possibility of failure was never factored in. That was not a chance in the world that would happen.  

Over the years, I have looked back, and realized every time that I did make those dreams come true. I was lucky enough to learn how, and I was even luckier to know people who helped me out to facilitate them. Those who did all that know who they are and they also know (I hope) that I will forever be grateful to them. 

This immigrant girl didn’t know how to put gas in a car, or how to write a check, much less how to get and pay for a mortgage or a car loan. I didn’t know how to pay taxes or how to navigate the complex and disorderly, a-logical dark alleys of health insurance companies. I learned everything from scratch, at the age of 23: how to get and keep a job with no credentials or history in one of the most competitive places on the planet, how to survive an abusive marriage, how to keep a household, how to make friends who had no cultural common ground with me, and so much more ... 

When I look back and think of the past 27 years, I literally shiver. It’s more than half my life! Where has it all gone and who am I today?! 

People have asked me over the years if I ever regretted coming here - if I ever got scared when I landed here, amongst strangers, in a foreign land, and wanted to run back. Are you freakin’ kidding me? Look where I landed! Palm trees, pools, and the roaring Atlantic Ocean in my backyard. I was 23! Do you think any 23 year old would say no to that? I knew I had to work hard to make all that my own (and I learned over the years that the beach is really not my jam), but I wanted nothing but to make this land my true home. 

America held such promise in 1998! Back then, I never even thought about the politics in America because its reputation preceded it. I knew politics-wise, America’s got it figured out. They would always offer the best place to live anywhere in the world, I was sure of it. From my small Romanian town, it was heaven on earth and things just “worked” here because everyone is responsible and everyone pulls together. Someone reaching out a hand to give you help to move here, in this blessed land was the type of fortune that movies are made of. That’s how you know what a dreamer I was ... 

I was a literature and music buff and America offered a never-ending playground for both. 

I came to walk in Jim Morrison’s steps on Venice Beach, California, and breathe in the chilly, piney breezes of David Lynch’s Twin Peaks magnificent Douglas firs in the Pacific Northwest. For me, New York and Los Angeles presented no pull. But I wanted more than anything to live in the desert of Arizona or the mountains of Montana. I wanted to live in and to understand the complicated South which I grew to love after reading Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Gone With the Wind, among other things.

I came here to drive on Route 66 and chase Elvis’s Tennessee-born music; I came here to be “on the road again” like Willie Nelson promised and take the vastness of this land in, to learn it like the back of my hand; I came here to see if the stories told by Mark Twain and the criticism of Henry James towards Americans bear any truth. I came here to see Hemingway’s hangouts, homes and learn where his kitties spent their days. I came here to hear the blues in Chicago and the zydeco in New Orleans. I came to make the land of original blue jeans and bandanas (some of my favorite pieces of clothing growing up) my own. 

More than anything in the world, I came here for freedom. True, unbridled freedom, the kind of which no nation under the sun promised to know how to make. As I found out later through knowing the work and activism of Martin Luther King, Jr. "the goal of America is freedom." I thought that and to some extent still do, to my core. I figured then as I figure it now, 27 years later, America't got what I am after, and I have what she needs to give her, too. How could it go wrong?!

In the past 27 years, I did all these and so much more. In the process of slowly making America my home, I have learned that there are few things in the world as decadently delicious as hushpuppies, or fresh backyard bar-b-que. I also learned that the worst thing you can ever put in your mouth is without a doubt a peanut butter sandwich. Now, this one is one of the things that America got wrong. 

It was not until recently that I doubted the freedom part, but that is now the saddest realization yet. As Bill Clinton was saying in an interview "no victory is ever eternal" (or something similar).

Happiness is a basket full of crispy fresh hushpuppies at Sea Captain's House

I lived in Myrtle Beach only for about 10 months after I came over. Life and my new family moved me around to North Carolina, to Utah and back to North Carolina. While I was living close still, I used to go to Myrtle Beach every year after 1998 on my “off the boat” anniversary, which is today - January 19. After moving away for some time and during the pandemic the tradition went stale, but I felt the strong pull to start it again today. 

We went to some new places that I had never visited before (who would have known that after visiting my first American home for almost 12 years after I came here, every year, there would be any “new” places to see?), and I recreated the journey from my first home to my old beach and further to my office back when I made it here, and to one of my favorite places for food - a little old place called Sea Captain’s House that is still there and still offers delicious food and quirky Southern hospitality. Walking around my old neighborhood felt so familiar and welcoming. Like time never washed over anything ... Just like the waves washing on the same shore - the wave, always different, the shore permanent and steadfast ... 

In front of my former home. Look at all the those palm trees.

We booked an ocean-front room when we got here. I woke up this morning yearning for a gorgeous sunrise. But it was so overcast I did not even see one ray of sunshine. It was so windy that all the birds were flying backwards. I thought to myself: what an interesting coincidence that the weather, and the general mood of the beach matches the world of today, January 19, 2025: not a ray of hope is left for so many of us today, on this day; and just like the birds going backwards, some of us want to go back for better times, some of us are taking all of us back from ignorance. But we’re all looking back, for one reason or another.

When they pushed me out of my home country and into America, they told me that this is the land of opportunity; that there is nothing you cannot achieve here if you set your mind to it and work hard. The one thing they didn’t mention is that the land of all opportunity also includes the opportunity to fail. The opportunity to lose sense of who you are and what right and wrong is and how to tell the difference. 

I didn’t fail, or at least I didn’t fail me, but at times this country that held so much promise and that I cherished, has failed me. 

But if I were given the opportunity to come here again, knowing what I know now, I would do it again in a heart-beat! Even if one day, I can say that I came to witness the fall of the greatest empire of my generation, that, too, is a (strange) privilege and a chance of a lifetime. So, I would do it again. 

I used to sit like the picture shows on my patio and look at the ocean in front of our condo, thinking that at the other end of all that water are the people I love but that I am here, in this safe boat and if I steer it right, I could make my own and their lives better, fuller, more meaningful.

Nowadays, I don’t feel like I’m on that safe boat anymore. I feel like not just me, the whole country is on The Titanic. The people who see the iceberg have no power, nor authority to steer the boat away and avoid hitting it. The people who have the authority and the power cannot see the iceberg and are heading straight for it, and they are so ignorant or controlling they are not listening to the people on the same boat to go around it. 

In the end, I feel like we’re all headed for peril. But only one half will know why and that it could have been avoided. The other half will blame the iceberg. 

As we were walking out of Barefoot Landing in North Myrtle Beach, the speakers were shouting as a sad reminder: "Bye, bye, Miss American pie ...".

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