A Pleasant Weekend

Friday, October 23

This weekend, we're going to try something a little different.  We're going to be tourist in Eastern North Carolina - or more specifically, Northeastern NC.

Clara has often mentioned that she has a cousin who lives on the Pungo River near Belhaven.  A few weeks back she made an interesting connection to Sally.

Sheila and some of her friends often travel the 2+ hours to a friends house on the Pungo River.  In a remarkable conincidence, her friend, Valarie Forbes home is next door to Sally's home.  They called Clara while there and Clara and Sally talked about getting together. They haven't seen each other in 40+ years.

This weekend is the perfect weekend to do that.

We loaded up the motor home Friday morning and drove to Riverview Campground just outside Belhaven, set up camp and drove to Sally's home.

As soon as they saw each other, they started talking and reliving the past - and 4 hours later, after a delicious dinner at Fish Hooks restaurant in Belhaven, they were still talking.

Sally has a beatiful home right on the Pungo River and the Intracoastal Waterway.

Saturday, October 24

After a slow, lazy start to the morning, we decided to drive the hours drive to a State Park we had never heard of - Pettigrew State Park

It's on the banks of Lake Phelps, the second largest natural lake in North Carolina.  The lakes' only source of water is rainfall.  It averages 4.5 feeet and the maximum depth is 9 feet.  No one knows how the lake was formed.  Some of the ideas are underground springs, wind and wave action, meteor, peat burn and glacial activity.

A part of the Park is occupied by an old plantation home known as Somerset Place Historic Site. The house was built around 1787.  The original owner/developer, Josiah Collins, developed the 100,000 acres and it become the home of over 800 slaves.  It was one of North Carolina's most prosperous rice, corn and wheat plantations.  After the Civil War, the home and properties fell into disrepair and was finally acquired by the U. S. Department of Agriculture and became North Carolina's 6th State Park in 1939.

Somerset Place

On the banks of Lake Phelps - 5 miles wide and 7 miles long

Tonight we went to the Spoon River Restaurant with Sally, Dew and Valarie Forbes (who live down the street from us in Beaufort and have the home next to Sally's).  We had been to this restaurant before when we sailed to Belhaven last year.  It seems out of place in this small town, but they are obviously doing well.  Belhaven is blessed with a number of great restaurants.  Unfortunately, the restaurants are about all there is in downtown.

Sunday, Oct 25

We had a pleasant drive back to Beaufort, crossing the Pamlico and Neuse Rivers on ferries.

We took up quite a bit of space on the ferry.