Exploring North Carolina

We had an appointment with the RV dealer in Wilmington for Tuesday at 7:30 am, so we stopped by to introduce ourselves and “build rapport”. Our first impression was one of extremely friendly and helpful people. It continued over our stay in Wilmington. Everywhere we went, we found people willing to go out of their way to help – and we found people who actually knew something about the area.

On Tuesday, we arrived at the dealership at 7:30 and they actually had us in on time and had the problem diagnosed within an hour. It meant ordering a part for the hydraulic line and rescheduling the work. The service we got was phenomenal. Becky, the parts guru, called Winnebago. When they couldn’t get the part immediately, she called the manufacturer who could ship it but would charge overnight shipping. So, she called Winnebago and got them to pick up the shipping. We scheduled the service for Thursday .

We spent the afternoon driving around downtown Wilmington. Even in the pouring rain, we could tell that it was our kind of housing and neighborhood. The historic district is the largest in NC and one of the largest in the country. The houses were typical Southern style- front porches on the sidewalks with brick. The streets were alternately paved with brick. Evidently there is an ongoing battle with the city who keeps trying to repave the streets with concrete – and the people in the neighborhood come out at night and clear off the concrete from their brick streets.

The next day, we took a look at properties on the Intracoastal Waterway. On the waterfront, the homes were beautiful- graceful split staircase entries going up one floor (to allow for hurricane flow-through on the ground level) and multilevels with decks overlooking the waterway. We called for a price check with a realtor- lots for $700-900, homes from $1.4M.

The Minnie Winnie was ready that afternoon. While we waited for them to finish up, we took a tour of the Class A and Diesel Pushers on the lot. What a selection- everything from $100-$450K. The high end coaches were gorgeous- 3 TV’s (plasma and flat screens), side by side refrig/freezer, convection microwave, granite countertops, marble baths, washer/dryer. You could easily imagine living full-time in one of these. The sales guy told us that you can count on about 20% discount off list - and then about 10% depreciation the first year.

They fixed the slider and the shower in about an hour and we were off. I finished shopping while John continued the march on “Humpty Dumpty”. We stopped for dinner at the local fish restaurant (owned by a guy from Boston) – fried catfish, hush puppies, baked potato, and cole slaw (and unlimited glasses of coke and iced tea).

We decided to spend one more day in Wilmingon. It was beginning to feel like home. We drove out to Wrightsville Beach. It was very tasteful (for beach property) – not at all honky-tonk. The houses along the Intracoastal were lovely and they had a number of good restaurants right on the water. We stopped for a quick lunch and a waterview before taking the trolley tour of historic Wilmington. After the tour, we drove around picking up realtor sheets. The price range looked good- historic homes still available under $300K. We stopped at one, built in 1930. They were asking $299 and it was small but lovely. It had a beautiful backyard with a 2 car garage and potting shed, original hardwood flooring, 10’ ceilings. It would need some work in the kitchen, but otherwise was in move-in condition. Two guys were looking at the property and probably made an offer on it. We had a nice talk with them and the realtor –getting the local input on the town, real estate, etc. We made one last stop at the Chamber of Commerce and got a relocation package. Then, we headed home through Wilmington traffic – it was pretty bad.
Note: Come back here in the summer – humidity can be dramatic.

The next day, it was time to leave Wilmington. We had a sunny day for our drive to New Bern. It was only 85 miles from Wilmington and we arrived at the Neuse River Campground to find another “Mount Doo-doo”. Most of the campsites were filled wth full time trailer folk. We parked on Squirrel Alley, right next to Bee Hive Trail and I took Mija for a walk to the river (trying to avoid the muck and standing water left over from the rain).

We took a drive to downtown New Bern to grab some lunch and check out the town. Trying to find anything open on a Monday afternoon was tough. The downtown area was deserted. We stopped at a restaurant claiming to be the home of Pepsi Cola.

The historic district of New Bern was absolutely charming- a mix of colonial and Victorian architecture. It had an Annapolis feel. Once again, there was a beautiful waterfront with virtually no restaurants or bars taking advantage of the views.

November 19th --We got up at 5:30 am to see the Leonid meteor shower. The next viewing won’t be until 2098.
That day we drove north of New Bern to a small town, Washington. It was a cute town with very inexpensive real estate. It reminded us of Havre de Grace – using their waterfront for a parking lot. The downtown was filled with empty storefronts. You definitely got a feeling of a depressed economy.
From Washington, we drove to the coast to the town of Oriental. It had gotten tremendous press in the guidebooks for it’s historic sailing charm. We completely missed any charm. We found the one restaurant in town that was open- Mis Sal’s Kitchen. It was like eating in an old age home- complete with a room full of senior citizens eating from a huge buffet (featuring ham, yams, cole slaw..)

From there, we took the ferry from Minnesott Beach to Cherry Branch and drove down to the Beaufort (BOU-fort, not BU-fort). Beaufort was a cute little resort town- only a few streets of restaurants and shops and a few streets of historic houses. Evidently the summer is packed with tourists. In November, there was no one on the streets.

We drove back through Morehead City and Havelock (a military town). The countryside is ticky-tacky –dotted with mobile home parks and gated golf communities. We had seen a young girl living in a trailer with her very large mother at Neuse River Campground. As we watched her going to and from school, we commented on how difficult it must be to live like that and deal with peer pressure at school. Driving around NC, we realized that living in a trailer park doesn’t have a stigma- it’s a way of life.

A few comments about North Carolina:
Coastal NC (except Wilmington) – you have to drive forever to get anywhere.
There are churches everywhere – Baptist, Pentecostal, and a host of denominations that we’d never heard of before.
Black and whites do not mix – not in the restaurants, stores, or bars. The blacks do not make eye contact with whites.
Life is country, cars, Christ, fuhball, fishin and firearms.
Bookstores (except Bible book stores) and computer stores are virtually non-existent. Auto parts stores and car dealerships are everywhere.
The Coastal plain is either swamp or scrub pine.
NYC has Ralph Kramden, Mpls has Mary Tyler Moore, NC has Andy Griffith. (They’re even building a statue to him in Raleigh)

We drove back to Morehead City for lunch at the “Sanitary” Restaurant. It was, again, senior citizens on parade. We’re not sure how much more fried food we can stand- lunch was fried fish, french fries, fried onion rings, fried hush puppies and unlimited ice tea or coke.
The Atlantic beachfront was nothing short of the best of honky-tonk Florida. The only quasi-quality place was Emerald Isle.