New Bern

Every year when we are staying in Atlantic Beach, we like to take a day and drive to New Bern, and that is what we did yesterday.  It was a chilly day, bright sun shining, and we got an early start.  It is a beautiful, historic city, settled in 1710 by immigrants from Bern, Switzerland (thus its name), the second-oldest European settled colonial town in the State.  It was also the site of the State capital until it was relocated to Raleigh in 1792; the Governor's Palace, now known as Tryon Palace, was destroyed by fire but has been lovingly restored on the original foundations.  We toured it four years ago - that's when I took this picture -  on our first trip here.  There are also acres and acres of beautiful gardens which are, alas, not as bountifully in bloom in January as in April.

New Bern was badly flooded in September of 2018 by Hurricane Florence, but none of the damage is visible anymore, although we have always thought that it looks like it is vulnerable to flooding, flat and without any hills at all, and surrounded by water.  There are some fine old homes in the historic district, and in addition to Tryon Palace there is the especially beautiful Craven County Couthouse with a Swiss-style clock tower, a nondescript brick building on Middle Street which was the birthplace of Pepsi Cola, and the lovely Episcopal Christ Church, which I toured a year or two ago.

The shopping district also includes two famous buildings which we never miss visiting, Morgan's Tavern and Mitchell Hardware, nearly side by side on Craven Street.

I especially love wandering up and down the wood-floored, dark corridors of Mitchell, a real hardware store with everything you could possibly want:  obscure sizes of nuts and bolts, hinges, plumbing supplies, tools, garden equipment,  and pots and pans.  I ended up buying a taco stand ($6.99) that is much too large; I just couldn't leave without buying something.

We usually enjoy the fish tacos at Morgan's Tavern just down the street, an appealing old converted stable, but in September we had discovered a new restaurant right on the Neuse River called Persimmon.  We were the only diners at 11:30 a.m., but others soon began drifting in.

After lunch, we spent most of the afternoon at the North Carolina History Center, adjoining Tryon Palace.  We have stopped here many times in the past, especially since it is where an event called Winterfeast, featuring fresh oysters and other downeast delicacies, is held each year; we have attended this for four years but decided to forego it this year.

In all the times we have visited here, though, this is the first time we spent any time in the History Center itself, a very fine museum which was partially damaged by Florence but now is fully operational.  I suppose we never thought we had enough time to visit it in the past, but as I said we got an early start today.   Its exhibits are interesting even if you may not love history as much as we do, filled with historical artifacts and displays and made even more interesting by many sound and video recordings available throughout at the touch of a button.

The History Center did not shy away from the deplorable treatment of Native Americans and the tragedy of slavery.  Slaves were used for most of the agriculture and industry in the area, beginning with the harvesting of pine trees and the lumber, tar, and turpentine which it produced, which were essential to the early shipping industry.  It is hard to believe that slaves were treated as commodities rather than people, and some of the photographs and descriptions are just heartbreaking.  I was struck by these actual advertisements for runaway slaves.

 

I hope that Bob and Ulysses managed to elude capture and make their way to freedom.  So many others did not.

A new exhibit in the History Center had just opened three days before called Stories in Fabric, featuring quilts from the Twin Rivers Quilters Guild.  These were some of the finest quilts I have seen, historically originating in the need to use everything in those hard times, including every scrap of fabric, and today transformed into works of real art and imagination.

Martha was reminded of a story she had read about a famous quilter who was honored by her family at her funeral by draping her quilts on all of the church pews.  A search on Google confirmed that more than one famous quilter was honored in this way, a beautiful way to be remembered.

It had been a long day, and we returned just in time to watch the sunset out on the dune-top deck before a light supper.  Another woman came out of the condos for the same event, tearing herself away, she said, from a movie she had been watching on TV.  I hope she felt it was worth it, watching this daily phenomenon which calls so many out on their decks, down to the beach in pickup trucks, watching the bright orb slowly fall, floating on the surface of the ocean for what seems like only a minute or two, sinking into the water, and then suddenly disappearing completely, as if a light-switch has been abruptly turned off.

Another Walk on the Beach

It has only been two days since our race on Saturday, so the plan this morning was to complete an easy, attentive recovery run, "listening to your body" as the runner's adage goes.  We have another race next Saturday, only five days from now, so this is a time for caution.  But everything felt fine, for both of us - three miles for me, five for Martha.  We will probably only run one more time this week.

This afternoon, we tuned in to the impeachment trial in the Senate for a while, but I just could not watch Kenneth Starr for very long, lamenting the "age of impeachment" of all things.  We turned if off and, it being low tide, decided to walk on the beach again.  One's call to civic duty only goes so far, after all.

We did not find any shells, but we did see some interesting jellyfish, more this year than any other time we have been here, I think.  This looked completely different from the moon  jelly we spotted last Friday, but our Living Beaches book told us it is a male moon jelly.

I almost overlooked this one that Martha spotted.  We puzzled over it a little before deciding that it had to be an ovate comb jelly, with iridescent combs visible inside its opaque exterior.

It was not very windy or cold, but we found that we had the beach to ourselves for the most part.  Toward the east, a pickup truck was parked and we could see fishing poles stuck in their rod holders.  And this fishing boat was out on the choppy waters, bobbing up and down, pursuing the same quarry in a different way.  

The seagulls and the sanderlings and the sandpipers were all attentively watching the surf.  The gulls were mostly standing silently, waiting for small fish to appear, I think, and reluctantly moving away as we approached.  This one looked like he was trying to stay ahead of his shadow.

Sandpipers always seem busy gobbling up something in the foaming surf; I discovered last year that they are eating insects and other small organisms such as worms, spiders, gnats, and snails, as well as what is called biofilm, a thin layer of nutritious slime on the sand.  

Now I have a raging appetite!  Dinner will be shrimp tacos, prepared here in the condo.  And then, after checking in briefly with Mr. Starr and his cronies, back to our books.

The Good Shepherd

As I have said before in this blog, we very much enjoy attending the First United Methodist Church in Morehead City.  This morning, Pastor Powell Osteen continued his series on the "I Am" statements of Jesus, preaching on "I am the Good Shepherd" from the 10th chapter of John. Associate Pastor Sarah Williams read the Old Testament scripture, the 34th chapter of Ezekiel.  Of course, both scriptures - and all of the hymns as well - were on the same theme.  But these words from Ezekiel seemed especially appropriate as I have been thinking lately - perhaps too much - about the influence of money in politics, and how most Congressmen seem to be more interested in lining their own pockets than in serving their constituents:

Woe to you shepherds of Israel who only take care of yourselves! Should not shepherds take care of the flock?  You eat the curds, clothe yourselves with the wool and slaughter the choice animals, but you do not take care of the flock.  You have not strengthened the weak or healed the sick or bound up the injured. You have not brought back the strays or searched for the lost.

We love the preaching here and we love the warm, caring concerns for its members.  Each Sunday Powell will ask for prayers for literally dozens of people undergoing surgery or facing sickness or grief.  The music is superb, too.  The organist, Rachel Mundine, who is in her 80s, is one of the finest church organists I have ever heard - and I deliver that praise as the son of a church organist, my father, who grew up listening to the King of Instruments.  The choir performs an original and complicated piece of music every week, and this week we had the additional pleasure of hearing an offertory by the Bells of Praise, accompanied by a young woman playing the flute - absolutely beautiful!

Martha and I had made some observations during the service, separately, and we shared them over brunch at Circa 81 in Morehead City.  I had noticed that the Bible in our pew had a red ribbon marking Ezekiel 34, and it looked like those in the pew in front of us did, as well.  I wondered what saint in this church took it upon himself or herself to go to the trouble of marking the scripture in every single pew, even though most worshipers simply listened to it being read.  Martha, who had a better view of the man sitting directly in front of me - an older man (i.e., about my age) with bushy eyebrows - said he had a pen in his hand and was checking off every item in the bulletin as it occurred, each prayer and hymn, the doxology, everything.  When Powell began the sermon, he wrote down the time, and when he finished it, he also wrote down the time - 11:55.  What an unusually meticulous thing for a worshiper to do!  I hope he was simply ensuring that all aspects of his worship experience had been adequately covered rather than marking the time until he could escape.

The service ended with one of my favorite hymns, too - Savior Like a Shepherd Lead Us. 

Savior, like a shepherd lead us,
Much we need Thy tender care.
In Thy pleasant pastures feed us,
For our use Thy folds prepare.

Havelock 5-K

It was raining when we awoke this morning, and a south wind was blowing it into the windows beginning just after midnight with a kind of sizzling sound.  The forecast predicted sunshine by 8:00 a.m., but it did not look promising.  We normally do not sleep well before a race of any length and this morning was no exception.  But the starting time was a leisurely 10:00 a.m. and Havelock is only 30 minutes away, so we had plenty of time to prepare.

The race is a small one (a hundred runners) benefiting a Catholic School, and it is not very well-advertised; but we knew it would be a good tune-up for some more ambitious races on the horizon, in particular the Crystal Coast Half Marathon and 10-K.  By the time we left the condo, the rain had stopped exactly as predicted, and the sun was almost shining by the time we arrived, streaks of blue sky off to the west; by starting time, the sun was out, and conditions were near-perfect for a race, temperatures in the 50s and a light breeze.  Martha had competed against another woman in her age group last year, Cathy, and she was there again.  It is always a good thing to have someone just a little bit faster to push the pace a little!  And Cathy is a friendly, gracious runner, as most are.  I ran against a man the same age as me who was a lot faster, a Boston Marathon veteran many times over who showed no signs of slowing.  As expected, we both ended up taking second place to these worthy competitors.

These small races are a lot of fun.  Although there was chip timing from a company the organizers had hired, there was a paucity of finish line food or other extras.  The shirts were technical ones, though, and the medals were also nice.  For an extra charge, finishers could stay for a pancake breakfast, but to both of us pancakes and syrup are not appetizing after a race.  I wandered around the gym in which registration and awards were held, watching the other participants; there were many children, including toddlers whose parents were preparing to push them in strollers.  There were ten-year age groups, except for the 10-12, 13-15, and 16-19 age groups, recognizing the many children running.  I spent some time taking photos of the motivational signs posted on the walls in the gym.

What great rules to live by!  And not just for young athletes but for all of us.  Imagine what a better nation we would be if Senate Democrats and Republicans could Listen to Each Other and Brainstorm a Solution Together!

We both ran well on this flat, fast course, although the distance was longer than five kilometers, as it had been last year.  I calculated what the real 5-K time would have been, and Martha finished under 30 minutes in 29:28, while I finished in 34:22.  For me, this shows encouraging, though glacially slow, progress since surgery last year; in November I finished a 5-K in 34:27, and in December 34:25.  It is astonishing how satisfying a mere three seconds can feel for an aging runner!

 

I was remembering that sign on the wall of the gym, not far from where we were standing for this photo.  Did I do my best work?  Yes.  We both crossed the finish line having done the very best we could have done.

Ships on the Ocean, Moon on the Beach

One of the many things that we enjoy about Atlantic Beach is all of the shipping activity we are able to view right out the window.  Morehead City is one of only two North Carolina State Ports - the other is Wilmington - and so we often see big freighters coming and going.  There is both a Marine Corps and a Navy Port Authority there, and there is also a Coast Guard Station adjacent to Fort Macon.  When we run by there in the mornings, we can sometimes smell breakfast cooking - donuts, bacon.  Last week a huge Coast Guard cutter came out the channel, but before I could take a picture it turned its stern toward us and started heading very quickly out to sea, disappearing over the horizon in no time.

This morning I spotted this freighter coming in while I was out on the dune-top deck, silhouetted by a hesitant sunrise peeking through the clouds.  It had probably sailed right past the sunken wreckage of Blackbeard's Queen Anne's Revenge.  Sometimes we can see the lights of these merchant ships out on the horizon where they anchor at night.

Beaufort and Morehead City are both popular with fishermen, too; deep sea fishing charters are lined up along the waterfront in both cities.  So we see a lot of fishing boats, sometimes tall charter boats and sometimes commercial shrimpers dragging their trawl nets behind them.  These folks had an early start this morning; I was out on the deck a little after 7:30 a.m. and they were already working the waters in front of the condo.

It has turned warmer again, up in the sixties although still a little breezy, so those fisherman would have been enjoying themselves more today than earlier in the week, when we saw some folks out fighting the choppy waters.

The Senate Impeachment Trial has been continuing all week, and we have felt compelled to watch much of it, although I have not stayed up until 2:00 a.m. as some of our Senators and attorneys and news teams have been required to do.  I had enough late-night Board meetings during my career with the Town of Highlands, although even they usually adjourned long before midnight.  I can't help but think that they don't want us to stay up and watch it.  We turn on the TV and watch for awhile, hearing the same arguments on both sides, and while it is often repetitive and even dull from time to time, we feel that it is our civic duty to watch as much as we can.  I am old enough to remember Watergate and had the same feeling then, that grave history is  being made and that the nation's very survival as a Republic may be at stake.

After lunch, we decided to walk down to the Oceana Pier and  back, about a mile and a half or so, to escape the hearing.  I told Martha I wanted to hear "oral arguments" from the ocean for awhile.  It was an unimpeachably beautiful day!  There were a few others out walking, bundled up against the breeze despite the mild temperatures.  It was low tide and Martha found some good shells, although all the sand dollars were broken.  Perhaps we can eventually find all the pieces of one, assemble them, and bond them together with some Gorilla Glue.

We also found this, which at first looked like a bubble out in the surf, about three or four inches across, floating in on the waves.  I thought it might be a sea urchin, a living sand dollar, but it seemed too transparent for that - some kind of jellyfish, was Martha's guess, and she proved correct.  When we returned we looked in our Living Beaches book that we bought at Fort Macon last year and discovered it was a moon jellyfish.

Down at the pier, a man and a woman were trying to take a selfie with their cell phone, a popular place for pictures.  I offered to take their picture, and then they took ours.  We discovered that we were both from the mountains; they were from Harrisonburg, VA, not far from the Blue Ridge Parkway, and they were planning to buy a house here.

Now we have returned to the condo, the sun is shining brighter than it has all day, and Martha is reading yet another book in a chair on the deck.  I am tempted to join her.  But my civic duty calls me to at least check in briefly to the Senate Chamber and watch history unfold before our eyes.

Golden Pirates of the Silver Screen

Today we attended a free program at the N. C. Maritime Museum in Beaufort.  We are members of the Museum and we have attended several of these interesting lectures over the past few years called "Brown Bag Gams."  Those attending pack a "brown bag" lunch (tuna sandwiches in our case) and listen to a "gam" or informal talk.

Program Coordinator Christine Brin presented a program called “Golden Pirates of the Silver Screen.”  She described how pirates, who were actually blood-thirsty murderers and thieves, had changed into romantic figures over the last hundred years, first in literature (Treasure Island), then on stage (The Pirates of Penzance), and more recently in movies such as Captain Blood, Peter Pan, and Pirates of the Caribbean.  It proved to be an interesting talk, and afterward we walked around the lecture room and looked at the displays, several of which featured costumes from the aforesaid movies.

Christine told us that when she first began working at the museum as a young woman, she had thought, as many others did, that Blackbeard was just a story, or a myth, rather than an actual person (Edward Teach, 1680-1718).  Part of the reason for this is that he spent a lot of time promoting his own image as a pirate with smoking beard and terrifying face.  The museum has a very good Blackbeard display, including artifacts from his ship The Queen Anne's Revenge, which was discovered relatively recently (1996) in Beaufort inlet.  There is a sign, in fact, on the road to Fort Macon on which we run describing its location about a mile offshore.

This afternoon, the wind seems to be relenting just a little, and we hope to be able to complete a short run tomorrow, our last before Saturday's race.  Still, as I sit here working on this blog, I can hear the wind roaring through the hallways and railings of the condo.  It seems to be making an eery "Arrrrrrrr!" sound reminiscent of a pirate's cry.  Which, by the way, Christine told us is also a myth.

The Sun and the Tides and the Weather

Have I mentioned before that it sometimes gets a little windy out here on the edge of the Atlantic Ocean?  When the south wind blows, it is coming straight in across the ocean; parting the sliding glass door only an inch or two will allow it to push its foot inside, rush in, and ransack the place, papers and magazines on the table fluttering to the floor.  When the north wind blows, the building itself blocks it, so we can stand on the balcony in warm sunshine and gaze out at the wildly shaking palm trees around the pool.  But then the mad dash to the car parked under the building exposes us to its power, as we slip inside and struggle to close the doors.

It has been that way for two days now, with unrelenting winds of 20 to 25 miles per hour, gusts sometimes higher.  Both nights, the railings have shaken and rattled and vibrated all night.  It has reminded us both of that morning two years ago when we ran the Crystal Coast Half Marathon and 10-K and faced that same northerly wind crossing the big bridge across the sound, which felt like strong hands pushing against us.

The elemental facts of sun and ocean and wind and weather mean more to us than to some because we try to keep on our running schedule, and for the most part that has been easy to do with the unusually warm January we have had until now.  First thing in the morning I check three apps on my iPhone:  the sunrise, the tides, and the weather.

Monday, it was 32 degrees when we awoke, with a wind chill of 22; but in Highlands it was only 14 degrees.  We are so much better off struggling against this wind here than stuck indoors back in Highlands restricted to treadmill running.  It had warmed up a little by afternoon, where I spent the afternoon out at Parker Honda having some maintenance done on our car.  I left Martha at the condo, reading a book.  But when I returned around 5:00 p.m., I discovered that she had run – well, walked and run – four miles of a planned five-mile run.  The wind had been so strong, she said, that she had turned back before reaching Fort Macon and made her way home.

This afternoon, I kept watching the wind speed and the wild palm trees, and I could not sit still any longer.  I bundled up as much as I could and went out over Martha's objections for a two-mile run.  I pointed out to her that she had done the same yesterday.  “Also, I’m not right in the head!” I reminded her.  The wind was a force to be reckoned with, especially starting off due north out the driveway from the condo.  Some city workers were gathered around a backhoe installing a storm drain a few streets west of here and looked as uncomfortable as I was.  One of them shook his head as I passed him.  I was glad to return!

Now that Delbert McClinton song keeps going through my head:

If there's anything at all that's wrong with her,

It's something I just can't see.

Ain't no doubt about it,

She's the same kind of crazy as me.

This afternoon, we tuned in to the Senate trial on the TV that we never turn on.  As much as we try to escape from politics and stress, to spend more time reading and writing, walking on the beach, striving to become, if I may say, healthier both physically and spiritually, this high drama continues to play out in our nation's capital.  We don't want to watch, and yet we can't take our eyes off of it. 

Out and About on Sunday

It was sprinkling rain this Sunday morning as we headed across the bridge to church.  We do love this Methodist church in Morehead City.  Pastor Powell Osteen is so sincere, and there is a warm, close feeling in the congregation.  During the period in the service when he asks for prayers and concerns, it is apparent that he knows everybody in the congregation by name.  So it was appropriate that the sermon, on a series based on the "I Am" statements of Jesus, was "I am the Gate,"  and the scripture from John's gospel:

^"The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep.  The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.  When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice."

After church, we enjoyed Sunday brunch at a relatively new restaurant in Beaufort called 34 North.  It is right on Taylor's Creek, not in the downtown area with the other restaurants but next to a marina.  

After lunch we drove three minutes to the small warehouse building where we had seen Peanut Butter Falcon last week, shown by the Beaufort Picture Show (see post of January 11).  Today's presentation was a National Theater Live production called Fleabag, a one-woman show written and performed by British actress Phoebe Waller-Bridge.  We have seen other National Theater Live shows before in Highlands - Benedict Cumberbatch's Hamlet was one of the best versions of that play I have ever seen.  These are plays from the West End in London broadcast live across the UK and in other countries.  It really does seem as if you are sitting watching live theater, complete with applause and coughing and laughter from a London audience.

The play would not have been to everyone's taste, with some profanity and off-color topics, but I always admire an actress who can pull off a one-woman show, just sitting in a chair on an empty stage, and in a few minutes holding the entire audience in the palm of her hand.  A London audience, right here in Beaufort!

Long Run

Powered by all that clam chowder and cornbread, we were ready for our long run of the week this Saturday morning.  Conditions were perfect for running - overcast, temperatures in the 40s - and we both enjoyed the usual route out to Fort Macon and back (plus some extra loops around the parking lot).  There were plenty of athletic-looking people out at the Fort; it is a popular place on Saturday mornings for runners, hikers, and cyclists.  There were also many children, belonging to some youth group we think; I could hear them squealing with delight as they ran around the Fort.

I was glad to be able to complete eight miles; Martha completed six miles  I'm a little ahead of her on mileage but she is ahead of me on speed, and I don't think I will ever be able to catch her again.  This is a fact of life for this aging runner and I have adjusted to slower times and shorter distances.  The days of running nine-minute miles for 26 miles, which I was able to do a decade again, have been replaced by 11-minute miles and distances no farther than 13 miles.  But I am grateful for what I am still capable of doing, as Ulysses was in Tennyson's poem of that name:

Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'

We are not now that strength which in old days

Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are

We have signed up for a race next Saturday, a 5-K in Havelock which we ran last year, and then one week later there is the Cocoa 5-K here in Morehead City.  So this long run was just right for both of us.  Next week, we will ease off on the mileage and skip the intervals.  A taper in mileage before a race seems to benefit me more and more each year.

Today there seemed to be more shrimpers than usual, going back and forth in front of the condo, east to west and back again; perhaps that is what brought to mind Ulysses, that great sailor.  The temperature has warmed a little, but still it must be cold on one of those boats!  And there were kite-flyers, too, enjoying the brisk breeze this afternoon.

Clam Chowder

A cold front moved in overnight as the weather forecast had predicted.  The wind speed picked up to over 25 mph, but we had the foresight to bring in the deck furniture before dark.  All night we could hear it roaring.  When the wind speed is that high it makes a peculiar vibrating, roaring sound, which I have concluded must be the result of it blowing through the metal railings on the deck; since this is an end unit, the empty space next door is surrounded by railings as well, so it is even louder.  I remember that a year or two ago, some new arrivals announced after a similar night that they would be checking out.

We spent the morning making some more improvements in the condo.  The bathroom exhaust fans have never been replaced, I think, and had stopped working.  Old and new - quite a change!

This afternoon, we drove to Beaufort to an event that I think we have attended for three years now, the Ninth Annual Clam Chowder Cook-off.  The wind had died down just a little and the sunset across Taylor Creek was gorgeous.

The Cook-off is held in an interesting building directly across from the N. C. Maritime Museam called the Harvey W. Smith Watercraft Center, which is an actual working boathouse.

The adjoining room is filled with power equipment, clamps, glue, and everything else needed for the esoteric craft of boat building.  My friend Skip, who makes and restores fine furniture, would have found it interesting.

The main room is large enough for a very big boat, but this evening the paint-splattered floor had been cleared and replaced with tables, and was soon milling with people eager to sample clam chowder and corn bread, ourselves among them.

The woman in charge of organizing the event, Gina, knows us by now, and remembered that we had driven 500 miles for clam chowder.  Our ticket numbers were No. 1 and No. 2.  We do enjoy this event!  And it is a fund-raiser for the Maritime  Museum.  Participants sample four different kinds of chowder and corn bread and then vote for the best, although this year one of the chefs had made crab cakes instead of chowder, an error we quickly forgave.  (Note that the crab cakes are not shown below because they were immediately consumed.)

Martha and I are compatible in many ways, including taste in food, and when we compared our choices on the ballot we were not surprised to find that we agreed:  the best chowder was the down-east style, we thought (the one with the spoon), prepared by Dawn Freeman and Michelle Stout (the blue cup), who had won last year, and the best cornbread was Deborah Van Dyken and Bill Blair's in the orange paper, on the right.

It was a hard choice, though, and I had to go back for a second sample of each!  Just to be sure.

Wonder and Joy

Martha had been sending me pictures of whelks and dolphins yesterday afternoon from the beach, and I realized that I should be out on there, too.  So I wrapped up my post about honeybells and Democrats and dolphins and did just that.

There were indeed dolphins, leaping out of the water, tails glistening high in the air as they dived down into what must have been a tasty little school of fish.  But alas, none of the dozens of photos I took captured them, although I could see them plainly with the naked eye.

I did find a Portuguese Man of War myself (well, Martha, who had already surveyed the beach pretty thoroughly between the condo and Oceanana Pier, actually pointed it out to me).

More amazing than anything else she found, though, was this tiny slip of paper, which had miraculously survived wind and wave, lying undisturbed on the beach.

It was the size and shape of a message found inside a Chinese fortune cookie, and perhaps that is where it came from - had someone been cracking open fortune cookies out here on the beach sometime since the last tide?  What a coincidence this was!  We had planned to see the Chinese Lantern Festival after Christmas, on our way to Raleigh and Atlantic Beach, but because we had left a day earlier than planned our plans did not work out.  The Festival, now in its fifth year, is held in Cary at the Koka Booth Amphitheater from late November through mid-January, and the lanterns on display are created from hundreds of parts and thousands of LED lights.  We have always wanted to see this festival.

This year, an attendance record was set as over 120,000 visitors passed through the gates of the amphitheater and viewed the huge dragons and pandas and swans.

How this "fortune " arrived on the beach directly outside the condo is a mystery we will never be able to solve.  But life is full of coincidences, is it not?  The psychologist Carl Jung wrote about what he called Synchronicity; he thought that events are "meaningful coincidences" if they occur with no causal relationship yet seem to be meaningfully related.  He would have enjoyed discovering this message on the beach, not even tucked inside a bottle, but clearly meant for us to find.

Wonder and joy can indeed be found at the Lantern Festival, but it can also be found here, right under our feet.

Honeybells and Democrats and Dolphins

When we returned from Swansboro yesterday, we stopped at the Post Office and discovered that a package had arrived from Martha's aunt Anne.  It was a Christmas gift that she had told us would be delivered in mid-January, and here it was, right on time - a box of honeybells.

Honeybells, the little card told us, are "a cross between the richly-flavored Dancy Tangerine and honey-sweet Duncan Grapefruit."  They are harvested by hand and are only available during this brief season.  Thank you Anne!

While I was posting an entry on my blog about our day in Swansboro, Martha decided to walk on the beach.  It was low tide, and when she returned she said she had a great walk - I was a little envious.  One of the things she had come upon was this Portuguese Man of War that had just washed in.

After a light supper, we got out our books and read for the first part of the evening.  When it was 9:00 a.m., I tuned in to the Democratic Debate, the final one before the Iowa Caucuses in three weeks.  It has not been easy to avoid all of the disturbing news from Washington on this Sabbatical, more so than usual, in fact.  Since we have been here, our Commander-in-Chief, Potus Trumpus, decided to assassinate Qasem Soleimani, and it seemed as if we came perilously close to war with Iran.  Last week, while we were hiking at Fort Macon, I started to tell Martha about the latest outrageous piece of Trump news, but then said, "No, on second thought, I'll tell you later.  We're not bringing Trump on this hike!"  

But unfortunately he is a part of our Sabbatical though not our hikes (not much of a hiker, I think) and we cannot avoid impeachment, the Democratic campaign, and the latest Evangelical Christian declaring his allegiance.  And I can almost hear the BOOM of that big howitzer on the horizon, reminding us how close we are to war.  So I watched with great interest once again as the contenders for the nomination "debated" one another, six of them now (and I have to say that CNN did a very poor job of asking questions).  Can one of these people lead the battle against Trumpism?

I slept poorly, as I always do after these debates, and I am also not accustomed to staying up to 11:00 p.m. through what they call "Prime Time," nor to suffer through television itself.  (We cancelled our Directv years ago and now we watch only what we like on our computers, mostly cable news shows and Netflix.)  So I have to admit that I was not in the right frame of mind this morning as we left for the Fort Macon Picnic Area and another session of intervals.   

But sometimes that's especially the time to push hard, to go the extra mile, both of which I accomplished this morning in overcast, mild conditions.  I completed six intervals this week, all of them faster than last week, and added an extra mile of overall distance for good measure.  Martha, too, had a good workout, six intervals also, and I pointed out to her while she was running that her form was perfect.

Martha went down to the beach this afternoon and set herself up in a chair to read, until the sun drifted behind the clouds and the breeze sprang up.  I stayed indoors, changing light bulbs and doing odd jobs.  Meanwhile, Martha texted me to come see some dolphins in the surf.  I hurried out with binoculars and phone, but they had already gone.  Martha had found this knobbed whelk, too.  It was such a perfect specimen that I thought perhaps she was playing a trick on me!  I had told her that I had seen a beautiful whelk in a thrift store the other day and considered buying it ($5.99) just to throw out in the surf and let her discover.  But this was no store-bought whelk, it was a found whelk.

She also took these photos of the dolphins she had seen before I had frightened them away!  Such beautiful creatures, glistening and leaping in the waves, as if they are filled with joy at the rolling surf and the bright sunshine into which they fly.