Arrival in Atlantic Beach

During the night, the rain which we had driven out of on our way to Raleigh caught up to us.  We were on the road quickly, and I was glad when after an hour or so we left the multi-lane beltways of the city behind us - the tractor trailers throwing up a curtain of muddy water as they hurtled past at 80 miles per hour, the hapless vehicles like ours trying to remain within some proximity to the speed limit.  We were in Kinston for lunch, home of Vivian Howard's Chef and the Farmer restaurant, a hit PBS TV show.  We took Lizette here two years ago for an early birthday dinner and to show our appreciation for her generosity, and I confess we were a little starstruck at the time when we recognized some of the restaurant staff from the show.

Chef and the Farmer is not open for lunch but we realized that Vivian's other Kinston restaurant was open - The Boiler Room, just around the corner and down a brick-paved alley.

This place was famous as an oyster bar and was a good deal less formal.  Most of the folks looked to be locals, and two very well-fed older gentlemen sat near us at the bar (the only available seats), which featured a long stainless-steel trough behind it for discarding oyster shells.  Shucking oysters is a skill which I have not yet mastered, mostly because it involves using a short sharp oyster knife confidently and a thick towel in the other hand to avoid being cut.

So Martha ordered the shrimp burger and I tried the veggie burger, which was made out of butter beans, which I understand to be very similar to, if not exactly the same as, a lima bean.  (I remember that Vivian devoted an episode of her TV show to butter beans a couple of seasons ago and will have to see if I can watch it again.)   One website I consulted said, "The butter bean is a cruel, though theoretically more acceptable, attempt to lure you into eating lima beans, which are an abomination."  I personally like lima beans, and I ate every bite of the generous butter-bean burger, most of which spilled out of the bun.

We continued on our journey, making a brief stop in New Bern, a city which had been particularly hard hit by Hurricane Florence last September.  The beautiful Civic Center, we saw, was cordoned off with a chain-link fence, and some other buildings appeared to have suffered some damage.  I still remember some of the photos we saw of this flooded city back then, which now seems to have made a remarkable recovery for the most part.

New Bern is also remarkable  for inspiring the book written by the staff of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, based on actual comments made by our incompetent President.

The road from New Bern to Morehead City is one of the more depressing ones in the area and typical of a military-base area:  pawnshops, tattoo parlors, vape shops, bail bond shops.  We were relieved to finally pass  through familiar places on Arendell (accent on the second syllable) Street in Morehead City and cross the causeway to Atlantic Beach - that high bridge across which we both ran last year in 40-mph winds for the Crystal Coast Half Marathon (Martha) and 10-K (Richard).

And finally we arrived at this beautiful place!  There was a lot to be done, unpacking and getting organized, but we took a break as the sun was almost ready to set, strolling out the walkway to the dune-top deck, breathing deep the sweet salt air from the ocean.