(This was written on the evening of the 14th but we didn’t get to a place with reliable internet for a week)
I don’t really know what day it is. It didn’t take long to reach this point, and it should tell you that things are going well. Since I last posted, we’ve had some pretty cool experiences, not least of which was that we got to shower in a real shower. It was so nice that we each showered twice within about 9 hours. So let’s get caught up.
On...uh...Tuesday, I think? Yeah, Tuesday. We headed off from New River toward a place called Caldwell in hopes of riding the Greenbrier River Trail. Jenna loves few things more than bike trails that used to be railroads, and this one ran alongside a river for 75 miles. My skinny little bird legs and delicate undercarriage couldn’t handle that many miles, so we planned to just ride for an hour or so and then turn around. Little did we know that the town near Caldwell, called Lewisburg, would be a little slice of heaven.
When you pull into a town that boasts a sign “Voted coolest small town USA,” you’re either in for a treat or a colossal letdown. Lewisburg was a treat. (Although we should note 3 things: 1, it didn’t say who voted in this poll - it could’ve just been Lewisburgers for all we know. 2, we don’t know what year this poll took place. And 3, we saw another town claiming they’d been voted coolest small town in the USA a mere 1 day later, but at least they gave the year. It was 2014.)
First of all, Lewisburg had the biggest and nicest local visitor’s center I’ve ever seen. Huge. Tons of pamphlets, clean bathrooms, nice displays, and a woman named Dee who you just wanted to have follow you everywhere and tell you nice things. She was like an extra grandmother. I liked her.
Anyway, we got an incredible breakfast at a place called Corn and Flour Bakery and then hit the trail. It was beautiful and featured lots of creek-waterfalls that would flow under the path into the big Greenbrier River. The weather was outstanding, but it was slated to turn for the worse Tuesday night and all of Wednesday, so we joked about driving 6.5 hours to the beach.
We went back into town after our ride, walked around a little more, looked at some Civil War history markers, gawked at beautiful flowers, and then ate crazy-good tacos. It was the first time I ate in a restaurant in 15 months. I didn’t actually feel that weird! Being vaccinated is awesome.
So as we sat there eating tacos we talked about where we could go to find good weather, but it seemed like the entire eastern US was gonna be dreary and chilly Wednesday.
But Jenna’s Accuweather app apparently sucks, because when I looked at the area near Emerald Isle, North Carolina, it looked excellent.
We finished our tacos and made a beeline for Pegasus. At 3:20 p.m. we headed east. We made a plan to stop near Raleigh for the night since we hadn’t really driven Peg at night and we were sleepy (note: sleeping in Peg is TOUGH so far), and that would give us ~2 hours to go in the morning.
Turns out the western end of Virginia is absolutely breathtaking. Never would’ve guessed. You come down out of the mountains but still have these beautiful ridgelines all over the place, rivers winding through, and rolling hills between the ridges. Highly recommend driving through that area.
As luck would have it, we switched seats and Jenna started driving...right as the route mysteriously involved narrow 2-lane roads that meandered through rural areas in the middle of nowhere. It was really strange and went on for like 40 miles. We looked over and over to make sure we were really going to end up in the right place, and eventually we made our way to a real highway again. Of course, by that point she was an expert driver and the wide open space of an interstate felt like a cheat code.
By nightfall, we reached our destination: Cabela’s in Garner, North Carolina, just south of Raleigh. We went into the store, got grossed out by all the hunting gear, used the toilets, and pulled into the corner of the parking lot for the night. Our first parking lot sleep.
It was pretty OK! I mean, we didn’t sleep well, but it was not intimidating or scary or whatever.
So at 8 a.m. we went to the Starbucks nextdoor to use the bathrooms. It was closed for renovation. But gas stations exist and we got on our way to the coast!
By 11 a.m. we were at a campsite in a national forest, 1 mile from the intracoastal waterway and about 2.5 miles from the actual, honest-to-goodness beach. We called the camp-host and found that there were 2 open spots but they were double-spots and weirdly we were supposed to pay for both halves if no one showed up to take the other one. Strange policy, but whatever. We said we’d call back after we offered to pay for a shower, and the woman let us just go in and use the shower house.
My god. If I’d showered there after a month in my old house I would’ve said it was a 7/10 shower experience. After 5 days of body-wipes and a splash-shower though? 10/10. Heroic.
We got the camping spot, threw some stuff on the area to make it look occupied, and took off for the beach.
We parked about 100 feet from a sign that said no parking within 150 feet and quite literally ran down the boardwalk to the public access beach. The sun shined. The beach was a beach. The wind blew. The birds flew.
We made it.
Emerald Isle, North Carolina.
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