It was Martin Luther King Jr. Day, which our President celebrated, I understand from the Fake News, by playing golf for the 94th time this year at one of his country clubs. But the N.C. Aquarium at Pine Knoll Shores observed the holiday as it always does, with Free Admission Day for all, regardless of race, color, or creed. So we spent the morning wandering around one of the nicest aquariums we have ever seen, packed with families, children laughing and gazing in wonder at fish, amphibians, serpents, and otters, all in tanks that I realized, as I crouched to take photos, were constructed at a child's-eye height.
This large depiction of Hokusai's famous The Great Wave off Kanagawa, which is in fact the mouse-pad I use every day, greeted us as we entered.
The tanks in ghostly lighting contained vast amounts of fish, fish of every species, swimming around and around, much to the delight of children standing on tip-toe and peering in to see fish from their perspective, on their level, so close they reached out and tried to touch them.
The sting ray tanks, where adults and children both can touch these creatures as they slowly float around the tank, flapping their extended wings like underwater birds, was especially packed with throngs of children. How often do you get to touch a sting ray? We could not get close.
As for myself, I was most amazed at the sheer variety of fish, of every conceivable shape and color, as if an artist with an inexhaustible palate had decided to create an underwater world, and never reached an end to his infinite imagination.
This underwater scuba-diving creature was especially entertaining. Down at the bottom of a huge tank containing many species, including sharks, he would place the palms of his hands on the glass so that we in the other world outside could press our hands to his. A little boy was inexplicably frightened by this. The diver gestured to him to "come here," but he backed away in alarm. Creatures in tanks at the aquarium are not supposed to do that!
How inexhaustible is the mind of a Creator who could have imagined fish like this, be-decked in feathery fins, a fan dancer of a fish.
At last we found our way back to the entrance and left the crowds of children behind. We realized that we had not had real seafood yet, out here by the Atlantic Ocean, so we decided to have lunch at a new place for us that we had learned about at the Blue Ocean on Friday night when we had stopped to buy scallops, the "Shuckin Shack" in Morehead City. They may be forgiven the dropped "g" because everything was absolutely delicious: charbroiled oysters, shrimp sliders, blackened mahi sandwiches, and hush puppies and cole slaw.
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While we were eating lunch at a table by the windows, we heard the loud whistle of a train, and a single locomotive engine came rumbling down those railroad tracks right in the middle of Arendel Street; we had never seen this before, although we have heard train whistles at night from our condo.
After lunch we stopped at Parson's General Store, which has been in operation in Morehead City for 33 years.
Words of wisdom are all around us, and between the jars of preserves and the quilts and the beach souvenirs I came upon corny little signs, pithy sayings that seemed to strike a chord:
Yes, we can weather anything! So powered by oysters and hush puppies we decided, in the afternoon, to go out for a run down the road to Fort Macon in a combined stiff breeze and sunshine, so that in the shade it was a little chilly but in the stretches of sunshine it was warm and lovely.
We settled in after our run, showering and getting "cozy" and preparing to enjoy a dinner salad prepared by Martha. I realized it was nearly time for sunset, so I hurried down to the dune-top deck that this very morning had been covered in ice but now was ablaze with the setting sun.
This beauty lingered for a long time afterward, reflected in the western clouds, like the memory of something wonderful and unique that warms the heart a long time afterward.
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