Carolina Improv

By Jim.

One question we get asked is how we plan our trip.  My answer is that it’s like jazz – there’s a basic structure (long-term planning of a general route and for holidays and special occasions), but we can improvise details (add a stop or visit particular sights) on short notice.

Case in point – the past two weeks.

When we left Washington DC, we were headed to the Smoky Mountains in Tennessee for some hiking and to find out if Gatlinburg is as kitschy as it’s reputed to be.  My Crimson Tide gear was washed and ready to wear, which is always an enjoyable fashion statement among forlorn Vols.

I also had some earplugs handy in case somebody forgot the scores of the last 12 Alabama-Tennessee games and played Rocky Top Tennessee.  Fun fact:  In 1972, the authors of Rocky Top, Boudleaux and Felice Bryant, granted the school a blanket license to perform the song as often as it wants to.  The first time the UT marching band played its now-continuously-looped version of the damn song was at the 1972 Alabama-Tennessee game.  So inspired were the Vols that day that they lost, 17-10, and have only beaten Alabama 14 times in the ensuing 47 years.  I still wish they’d shut it up.

On our Sunday drive down Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley, we took a mid-afternoon break by stopping at the Natural Bridge.  It’s a 215-foot high arch made of limestone and with a pastoral creek and trail leading to a little waterfall.

Also along the trail is a recreated settlement of the Monacan Native American tribe, which considered the land to be sacred ground.

The arch and adjoining 157 acres of land were once owned by Thomas Jefferson, who purchased them for 20 shillings from King George III in 1774.  During his presidency, Jefferson built a cabin on the property and used it as a retreat.  It’s now a Virginia state park.

We then continued through southern Virginia and stopped for the night just south of Bristol, which straddles the Virginia-Tennessee border.  As we ate our first dinner of Southern barbecue on the trip, we checked the upcoming weather forecast for Gatlinburg and the Smokies.  It called for high winds and possible tornadoes.  Goodbye, Gatlinburg; see you again in January, Tennessee.

We made a new plan.  After a quick drive into West Virginia just to say we’d been there,

we headed east to Asheville, NC.  We arrived at our hastily-booked campground just in time to hunker down and watch the midterm election returns.  When we awoke Wednesday morning (feeling better about the future than we have in a while), a strong odor was permeating the air.  I hoped it wasn’t what I was afraid it was, but I knew better, because that smell is unforgettable – we were near a paper mill.  A quick Google search confirmed it.

That turned into our second itinerary change in as many days.  We’d already planned to visit Lake Norman, NC, near Charlotte, after our time in the Smokies, so we moved that leg of the trip up in our queue and got ourselves into a great little RV park on a finger of the lake.

As we drove to Lake Norman, we heard the news that Trump had fired Sessions and appointed Matthew Whitaker as acting Attorney General.  That motivated us to drive to Charlotte that afternoon and participate in a rally protesting Whitaker’s appointment and the resulting risk to the Mueller investigation.  

Friday night, Aunt Ginny and I visited her niece Audrey, her husband Kyle Collins and their adorable eight-week-old son, Nicholas, who live in the Charlotte suburb of Huntersville.    

The visit conjured up the same feelings we had when visiting the young O’Haras last month – enjoying the excitement of a young family building their lives together, with a bright future to look forward to.

Saturday was a special day.  Ginny toured me around the area where she grew up before moving to Westport.  She showed me Shelby, NC, where she was born, lived and went to grade school, plus the Lake Norman Yacht Club, where she spent happy summers sailing and being a kid.  I know those are good memories, because she glowed as she told stories and rediscovered places from her past.   

When Ginny learned that an old friend of her dad’s, Tom Guy, still lives next door to the Yacht Club, we walked over to his house.  Tom welcomed us in for a visit.  In addition to being a former Commodore of the Yacht Club (as was Ginny’s dad, Roger Dysart), Tom was a hot World War II fighter pilot – he told us his story of nearly getting shot down by Japanese fighters and surviving a crash-landing back onto his aircraft carrier. 

We then drove from Lake Norman to Durham.

My cousin, Libba Adams, lives in Pittsboro, a few miles outside the Durham/Chapel Hill area. Libba and I reminisced about playing on the beach in Panama City, attending a long-ago family reunion in Georgia and – most of all – we swapped stories about the splendid Sallie Horton Lay, who was her aunt and my grandmother, and who was one of the most compelling influences in our lives.  

The next day brought another special family re-connection.  My uncle (my dad’s only brother), Lee Noel, is a Duke lifer.  He went to college there, had a second career as a key administrator at the Fuqua School of Business and now lives in Durham in his golden years.  At age 88, Lee still has a presence about him that I call benevolent forcefulness.  He exudes warmth, intelligence and dignity.  We had a happy and nostalgic lunch, then he gave us a driving tour of Durham and the Duke campus, capped off by visiting my Aunt Sue at the facility where she and Lee live.  The visit made me one happy nephew.  And Lee met Ginny for the first time and said she’s a “peach” (he’s always been an excellent judge of character)!

After months of good luck with weather, we’ve been slogging through a lot of rain lately.  We’d planned to leave Durham Tuesday morning, but stayed put an extra day to avoid sharing the road with Noah’s Ark.

Tuesday night, we had dinner with my old NFL friend, Jim Steeg, and his wife Jill Lieber.  You think I’m a sports fan – Jim and Jill got married at Fenway Park!

Wednesday, we set off for Kitty Hawk, on the Outer Banks of the North Carolina coast.  About a half-hour out of Durham, our phones starting clanging with weather alerts for where we were heading – heavy rains, gale-force winds and flood warnings (this year, the coastline has had nearly 300% of its average annual rainfall, leaving the ground ripe for bad things to happen).  We stopped, ate lunch, did some research, consulted our weather crystal ball and decided it wasn’t worth the risk to keep going.  Instead of swimming up to Kitty Hawk, we drove down to Myrtle Beach, SC.  We’ll be here until Sunday, when we head to Charleston to visit Coley for Thanksgiving.  We hope it warms up enough by Saturday for us to play golf.

And if it doesn’t, we’ll figure out another improv!

By the way, there’s important update to make to the report on our Washington, DC trip.

One of Gwen’s best friends from Weston is a budding rock-star journalist, and we got to share her company one night in DC.  Jess Bidgood has spent the past few years as a reporter for the New York Times.  She recently moved to Washington to become the national political reporter for the Boston Globe.  When we had dinner with her and her boyfriend Kyle, I didn’t know whether to hug her or ask her for an autograph.

Sorry for the delay in posting this, Jess & Kyle!