Sunrise was as glorious as ever. This is the warmest day since we have arrived, and I was almost over-dressed as I moved slowly from position to position doing my Tai Chi, breathing deeply and being thankful for another day in this beautiful place.
The walkway and the seats built into it were sopping wet from the moisture that had drifted in from the ocean; the rails glistened in the morning light.
Last night's full moon was visible to the west, unblinking and wide awake in what I once referred to as glorious insomnia.
We drove west through Pine Knoll shores and on into Emerald Isle, surprised by how nice it was - many high-end clubs, and huge oceanfront mansions invisible down winding gated driveways. We stopped at the Crystal Coast Visitor Center, where a very friendly woman talked to us; her daughter was a student at WCU and she knew our part of the state well.
We arrived in Swansboro in time for a waterfront lunch at the Ice House, which visitor-center-woman and Tripadvisor both highly recommended.
Martha had a crabcake sandwich, her first since we have arrived here, and I had sashimi tuna sliders - delicious! - and we watched boats glide by on the White Oak River.
Swansboro is a historic place, lots of lovely shops and restaurants, and dozens of old homes; we had picked up a Walking Tour brochure at the Visitor Center and it served as the basis for a slow, meandering, sunlit stroll through quiet streets that reminded us of Manteo. Most of the homes were ca. 1900, and many had interesting architectural elements: fish scales, captain's wheels, starfish. I don't think a single home lacked a cool, wide porch with rocking chairs; this is a hot place in July.
I stopped on Water Street to photograph this interesting little house (every city around here seems to have a Front Street, a Water Street, a Main Street, and a Church Street, reflecting the historically essential parts of everyday life).
A woman who had been pruning her hedge by hand across the street, and who had stopped to rest, was sitting on her front steps. "Do you like that house?" she called out to me. "Yes, I do," I said.
"Well you would be surprised how many times they try to get him to tear it down," she said, referring very specifically to (I supposed) some wise, stubborn, unnamed landowner. "I think it should be preserved and placed on the National Register," I said., "You've done a good job preserving many of these old homes here." She seemed pleased by this, and I walked down Water Street while she returned to her hedge.
We love small cities like this one. Everywhere, the motto "Friendliest City by the Sea" is hanging on streetlight banners and incorporated into public places in some way, together with the ubiquitous swans. Even the Ward Cemetery up on Walnut Street is billed as friendly and has its own swan.
This little place was hidden in cool shade - it looked like a Hobbit House, with an inexplicable ladder propped on a tree out front.
And this is all that remained of a tree outside a house on Main Street, carved by some talented sculptor who did not want to miss an opportunity to create art. Because art can be created anywhere, after all.
And so we returned again to Atlantic Beach not having thought very much about the President-Elect and his disturbing cabinet choices and proclivities. We were in time to watch that magnificent daily event that seems so ordinary but draws dozens to the beach, or gathered on decks, couples hugging and walking hand-in-hand, gulls standing alone looking out to to the ocean with a baffled expression, sandpipers scurrying in the surf in the very last moments of the day, watching the sun disappear in its humble blaze of glory.
Another beautiful day, its hours like precious books held between the two bookends of sunrise and sunset.
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