Weekend Beach Trip - Emerald Isle

Three guybrarians and their spouses convened at Emerald Isle, on North Carolina's Atlantic coast, to celebrate their impending graduation from UNC library school.

We watched the Kentucky Derby, played board games, went to the beach (where we played paddle ball and got sunburned). "Periwinkle Cottage," where we stayed for the weekend, was about a half a mile from the beach (but we had a golf cart).

The drive out there was really nice. Biff especially loves driving on old country roads in the South. It was about a 3 1/2 hour drive from our house in Durham. The trip gave us some nice backcountry Eastern North Carolina memories, including:

we stopped at a McDonald's in a gas station off I-40 where a toothless, wizened lady tried to "maysh" all the buttons on the "caysh" register, but just couldn't make it work without a manager's override;

then we went to buy some boiled peanuts and little tomatoes from a man at a produce stand at the other gas station across the street;

and we also drove through Jacksonville, N.C. (Ryan Adams's hometown and home to Camp Lejuene) - we'd never seen so many hot doggin' Marines on crotch rockets in our lives (or tattoo parlors for that matter).

We did not pass through South of the Border on this trip.

After a great time in Emerald Isle we drove back on a different set of backcountry roads so that we could see historic Beaufort (not S.C.'s Byoofurt) and New Bern (birthplace of Pepsi Cola). The return trip gave us these:

we got to see Seymour Johnson Air Force Base, near Goldsboro - yes that's really the name

we drove around New Bern, saw the outside of Tryon Palace - Biff liked New Bern, Kate did not so much

in Beaufort Kate tried to buy fudge from a mean ol' lady on Front Street. When asked if they took debit cards, the lady responded with more attitude that any fudge peddler I've ever seen. So, Kate offered to pay by check. After inspecting Kate's signature on this check and snarking, "What does this say anyhow?" and doing a watermark and address inspection, the lady (still begrudgingly) handed over the $4 slab of fudge.

Oh wait! The most important detail of the entire weekend was that Kate felt the baby kicking for the first time!!!