Harker's Island

After lunch yesterday, we took a drive to one of our favorite places, Harker's Island.  It is a half-hour drive through interesting countryside.  This falling-down building along the way, for example, seems to get closer and closer to the ground every year.  I could go back and look at the same picture over the past three or four years and see how much its ruin has progressed.

We always enjoy this drive.  One year, we ate lunch out here at the Fish Hook Grill, where we discovered that downeast specialty, clear Hatteras clam chowder - delicious! - also served at the Ruddy Duck restaurant in Morehead City and in frozen quarts at Blue Ocean seafood market.

At Brooks Creek, there is a sheltered little harbor where these picturesque shrimpers are always docked, their big nets drying in the stiff breeze.

One of the reasons for our drive, aside from the scenery, was a visit to the Core Sound Waterfowl Museum and Heritage Center, which had been badly damaged by Hurricane Florence two years ago.  We had attended a wonderful event last year, a fund-raiser for the Museum called the Taste of Core Sound, but because of the damage to the museum it had been held in Morehead City at Southern Salt Restaurant, which was much more convenient for us.

We had read that the event would be held back out on Harker's Island this year,  but alas, the building was deserted, a construction trailer out in the parking lot, and no indication of when it would be open.

We drove back to Morehead City and stopped at the Museum's temporary headquarters on Arendell Street, which we had visited last year.  It is a fine old house with high ceilings and a beautiful staircase and fireplaces, and it always reminds us of Martha's "Mamah's" house in Raleigh.

There were three women standing in the lobby, and Martha surprised them by asking when we entered, "Is one of you Deb Thornbush?"  She was close - it was Deb Brushwood, and she remembered who Martha was.  She had been corresponding with her for some time trying to get my name changed on their mailings to us; instead of Richard and Martha Betz, they were addressed to Clarkson and Martha Betz.  I introduced myself as Clarkson, and we all agreed that it was a much more distinguished-sounding name than Richard.  Nobody could explain how Richard had become Clarkson, but Deb promised to take care of it.

We also discovered that the Museum would not be ready in time for the Taste of Core Sound this year on February 28, but would be held at Southern Salt again.  Tickets had just become available, and Martha snagged the very first two tickets.

In the meantime, what has happen to the two young chain-smoking men who were working on the elevators on Thursday and Friday, but seem to have disappeared for a week?  We don't mind climbing the stairs - we usually do, anyway - but some of those folks staying on the Fifth Floor might find it a bit more of an inconvenience.  "Resolute Elevators" needs to be a little more resolute.  Clarkson wants to know what is going on!

A Wee Bit Draughty

I said in my previous post that the oeanside section of the Eliot Coues Nature Center reminded us of the Scottish Moors.  "The wind was picking up - a fine day, though a wee bit draughty!"  I suppose I was thinking of this spectacular day in Scotland on our trip this summer, where the coach stopped somewhere in the midst of those moors, the wind whipping wildly.  That was a day to remember!

I was also thinking of an exchange Pastor from Scotland who traded places with ours at the Presbyterian Church in Highlands many years ago.  One day we were at an outdoor event and he was wearing a kilt, his bare legs exposed to a bitter cold mountain wind.  "Aren't you cold?" I asked him.  "Well, it is a wee bit draughty!" he replied.  

It was a wee bit draughty today, and on an open beach at low tide there is not much shelter from a 15 mile-an-hour wind.  With a race coming up in less than three weeks, we decided it would be a good idea to do some speed-work.  I suggested to Martha that we run some intervals at the Picnic Area.  Interval training usually consists of running at race pace or slightly faster over a set distance several times, with rests between the intervals; in Highlands, we usually run "400s" on Leonard Road - 400 meters, that is, or a quarter-mile.  I had found in the past that you can do the same thing at the Picnic Area, running from the "Yield" sign at one end of the parking lot to a fixed point at the other end (a trash can).  The distance is unknown, probably about an eighth of a mile, but the effect is the same.

I started out earlier, than Martha, a strong west wind at my back, and proceeded to run four intervals, all just over a minute.  Then I circled the parking lot, waiting for Martha if she was not far behind me, but decided to just go back on the beach as we had planned.  It was almost low tide, but the wind was very strong, an unrelenting force straight in my face the entire way.  Loose sand stung my legs until I got out to the flat, packed surface near the ocean.  What a run! A little way down the beach, I came upon a small electric car, a toy in which two very young boys were riding (wind at their  back), their father following in a pickup truck.  They were on top of the world, driving their own car on the beach, and they laughed and waved as I ran by and gave their smiling father a thumbs-up.  There was also a woman with three or four children, looking for shells, bundled up tightly and dancing in the edge of the frigid surf.

I finished up, four miles in all, and decided to drive to the Picnic Area to see if Martha might want a ride back; her asthma makes running in wind like this very difficult.  I circled the parking lot and did not see her, but on the way back, there she was, returning along Fort Macon Road.  She willingly accepted a ride, and told me that she had started to run back on the beach but the wind and sand drove her to return to the road.  She had found herself stumbling through a construction area before finally making it back to the road.

We were glad to have completed this hard workout in such conditions!  I thought of the last part of what Martha had posted on the wall yesterday:

Do things that challenge you.   

Be brave.

Yes, it was a wee bit draughty out on the beach today!  But as  Moliere said, "The greater the obstacle, the more glory in overcoming it." 

Fort Macon

I have been ambitiously filling the pages of my running log since arriving here.  Yesterday, I ran four miles, down to the picnic area and then out onto the beach.  It was low tide and the beach was flat, wide, and a perfect surface for running.  Of all the beaches I have visited, this is the only one that is perfect for running when the tide is low.  It is simply wonderful to run with the ocean right there at your elbow, sanderlings skittering away, sea gulls reluctantly lifting into the air to get out of the way.

I spent a good deal of time yesterday afternoon doing maintenance here - changing the HVAC filter and cleaning the windows, which take a real beating.  Now it is nice to look outside the crystal clear sliding-glass doors and see the cloudless sky.  In the evening, we read books.  I have nearly finished a Peter Robinson mystery, and Martha is at the same point in a P. D. James called Death at Pemberly, based on the characters in the Jane Austen novel Pride and Prejudice.  It has been so warm that we can have the doors open just a crack and hear the ocean roaring outside while we read.

This morning, I awoke well before sunrise and went down to the beach to watch it rise.  Emily Dickinson might have been referring to sunrise when she said, "It's all a common glory."  First, long horizontal lines in all the purplish shades of the spectrum.

And then the main event!   We never see sunrises from our home in Clear Creek valley, so it is especially appreciated here.  And this time of year we can see both sunrise and sunset on this south-facing wintertime beach.

After lunch, we decided to drive to Fort Macon, our usual stopover when we run, to do some hiking.  On the way, I noticed these two rusty bicycles under the condo.  Have they been here all winter?  Or perhaps just for a week.  The weather is rough on windows and bicycles alike.

It is always a welcome site to see the long, curved fence at Fort Macon.  For the runner, it offers restrooms, drinking fountains, and shelter from wind and storm.

We started out in the parking lot at the Yarrow Loop trail, where there was a huge pile of Christmas trees, which are collected after the holidays and used to stabilize the beach.  You can smell the fragrance of  balsam from a long way off!  I sometimes think these trees may have been cut near Highlands.

In the Beaufort Inlet, we noticed some shipping activity.  First, a tugboat was maneuvering in the channel, and then a huge freighter appeared, which the tug got behind to nudge into port.  And in the opposite direction was coming another ship with a large net stretched over it - Martha thought it might be to prevent birds from landing on deck.

We started around the loop but did not see any birds until Martha spotted this immature ibis high in a tree, not the brilliant white of the mature ibis.  Bird-watching guru Ranger Randy would be proud of her!

From the loop, we entered the Eliot Coues Nature Trail that goes along the sound to the Picnic Area a mile-and-a-half away, crosses the highway, and comes back along high dunes looking down on the ocean and the beach.  I am sure I have posted photos identical to these in this blog in past years, but it is such a beautiful place - the twisted live oaks, and the sound stretching out to the north.

The high dunes on the ocean side, most of them made from Christmas trees placed below, always remind us of the moors of Scotland.  The wind was picking up - a fine day, though a wee bit draughty!

What a great day for a hike this was!  And now we have worked up appetites.  Dinner will be shrimp tacos, made from Carolina shrimp we picked up earlier.  And then we will settle down to finish what will be the first of many books to be read, with the door ajar, and the sound of the ocean outside.

We like to post quotes on the little blackboard in our kitchen back home, and we do the same here.  Martha posted this one a little while ago while I was writing, and it is wonderfully appropriate for the start of a New Year.

If you want this to be your year:  

Don't sit on the couch and wait for it.   

Go out.  Make a change.  Smile more.  Be excited.  

Do new things.  Throw away clutter.
Unfollow negative people on social media.   

Go to bed early.  Wake up early.
Don't gossip.  Show more gratitude.   

Do things that challenge you.   

Be brave.

Sunday Morning

Sunday morning dawned crisp and clear, the temperature in the mid-40s and a brisk wind blowing.  The sky had been swept clean of any trace of clouds.  We discovered last night that it was snowing in Highlands and the temperature was 26 degrees.  The view from the Main Street webcam looking east revealed a picturesque, but very cold, little Town on Saturday night!

Due to slick sidewalks and roads, early church services were cancelled this morning.  We are grateful for temperatures at least twenty degrees warmer here in Atlantic Beach!

Snow accumulation was not a problem at the First United Methodist Church in Morehead City, which we regularly attend while we are here.  Senior Pastor Powell Osteen has been here since we have been coming, and he was preaching this morning.  He is a truly gifted preacher, by turns humorous and yet deeply philosophical; this morning he was beginning a series on the seven "I Am" statements of Jesus, beginning with "I am the bread of life" on, appropriately enough, Communion Sunday. 

The United Methodist Church has a penchant for moving preachers about from place to place, so we are glad that he is still here, and likely will be until he decides to retire.

This is the church that Martha's Aunt Lizette recommended to us, and on our first Sunday attending here four or five years ago we were the recipients of a welcome bag containing a fresh loaf of bread, given to all first-time visitors.  So many of the members here know us now that we can, alas, no longer claim that status. 

Rainy Day at the Beach

After a beautiful, balmy first day at Atlantic Beach yesterday, clouds began to roll in from the ocean just after dusk and the wind picked up.  The lights along the walkway from the beach became ghostly and dim in the gathering fog and the palm trees around the pool rattled.

During the night, we could hear the wind pick up even more, and then rain splattering against the windows.  The wind increased to a low growl, and from time to time it howled like a wild animal.

We do not mind rainy days and nights out here, though.  We are well-provisioned with books and magazines that we brought with us, and there is always something to do on the computer, like work on this blog.  For several months, I have been setting aside reading matter, including stories and longer articles in the New Yorker which I never seem to be able to read cover to cover since it arrives every week.  I began with a personal history piece by Haruki Murakami, one of my favorite authors, from October.  Then I finished this week's issue.  Later in the evening I dived into one of two books of poetry by Mary Oliver that Martha gave me for Christmas.

This morning I awoke to rain and fog out on the walkway.  I went downstairs and did my morning Tai Chi under the cover of the building.

A rainy day can be as pleasant as rain during the night.  This morning, Martha decided to attend a Yoga class that she had discovered last year and that we had both attended - the teacher remembered her, and the class was full - while I went to the hardware store and the post office, attending to a few more details, things we need to improve the condo that Lizette is nice enough to let us inhabit.  It was a good class, with all genders and types of bodies welcome, and I hope to join them myself in coming weeks (tall, clumsy old guys being welcome as well).

Now it is mid-afternoon, and Martha has gone to run a few errands herself, while I get caught up with my blog.  The rain - that kind of light, windblown rain that could be partly salt-water from the ocean - has nearly let up.  I am reminded of a poem I wrote a few years ago that appeared in the North Carolina Literary Review on a similar rainy day in Duck, where we were staying at the time.  Il dolce far niente is an Italian expression, and it means "the sweetness of doing nothing," or of just "puttering" as we might say in this country.

The Sweetness of Doing Nothing

Rainy day at the beach and nothing to do,
Il dolce far niente.  Rain streaks the porch screen,
Leaving little strands of dangling pearls.

The deck boards are wet and glistening dark,
And they make an indecent sound as I walk,
Slap-slap, step-step.  My bare feet.

Nothing to do.  But watch and listen;
So I go outside and stand in the rain,
Squinting up at the blinding gray dazzle

Where suddenly a long strand of pelicans flying
Appears overhead, as if released from stone,
Fragments falling away in shards of blindness,

Falling from south to deliberate north,
Huge and silent in the high tilting air:
Nine, twelve, gazing down at the water,

Following a meandering, narrow periphery
Between Pamlico Sound and wide open water,
Reading the eddies and the shadows below.

Their eyes are as big as the ocean,
As big as the horizon, sliding down crookedly
In the rapture of the sweet morning rain.

We have not seen any pelicans at Atlantic Beach yet but we expect there will be plenty.  Perhaps even another bird watching expedition, led by the sharp-eyed Ranger Randy, just down the road at Fort Macon.

The rain has stopped now, and light is starting to appear on the horizon, below the dark clouds to the west.  I decide to go for a walk, down to the pier, and I find that I have the beach entirely to myself.

The tide was high an hour ago, but the waves are more turbulent than usual and they surge onto the sand.  At one point I lost the game of tag and was glad I had decided to wear my Gore-tex hiking boots.

I did not find any shells to note, but what surprised me was that there were so many feathers on the beach.  They were everywhere, small and large, and in more than one place the big feathers were sticking in the sand, as if someone had picked them up and left a trail.  But there was nobody here but me. 

There is always something to see on the beach, and usually something to puzzle over, like this arrangement of seaweed and feathers in the shape, I thought, of a bird.

The sun will set in an hour, and already that narrow band of light on the horizon is wider and perhaps just a little purplish in color, anticipating another gorgeous sunset.

Tonight might be a good time to begin that British mystery I picked up yesterday at the Carteret Library in Beaufort.  And to listen to the sound of the ocean.

First Day of our Sabbatical

On Thursday morning, we left the Brookstown and drove to Raleigh - traffic still light, rain still held in abeyance - and had a nice visit with Martha's aunt Lizette.  Lizette will be 91 years old in March and does not look it or act it.  It was so good to see her again!  We let her know every year how much we appreciate her generous gift to us of allowing us to stay in her beach condo during the harsh winter months; this is, I think, our fourth year.  We arrived before dark, discovering upon arrival that the elevators (conveniently located directly outside the condo unit) were being replaced and were thus not operational.  But we adjusted the sail, as it were, and it was lovely to smell and hear the ocean as we unpacked and cleaned and prepared for our stay.

This morning I awoke well before dawn, as is usually the case here, where the oceanfront sky becomes brighter and brighter well before sunrise (7:14 a.m. this morning).  I was downstairs in time to watch this brilliant daily miracle, alone on the beach with only one other observer (a man in a pickup truck parked down the beach) watching the sky open up and a shy sun peak out from behind obscuring clouds.

It was a balmy morning, temperatures already in the 60s, with a brisk wind.  I practiced my morning Tai Chi, as I always do, alone on the little platform at the end of the walkway to the beach, a kind of stage on which I had been told in previous years that I had been observed every morning but this morning (I like to think) was not observed at all by the few late-rising residents staying here in January.  And then we both went for a run, separately.

I got started a little earlier, running due east to Fort Macon along the familiar road we have often traveled.  It was warm, and although in shorts and a light shirt, I wondered whether or not I was overdressed.  It is a great place to run here, flat, little traffic, and at sea-level, two and a half miles to Fort Macon and back.  When I reached the Fort, I decided to run out to the beach - the low tide had been at 6:30 this morning - and took the Eliot Coues Nature Trail and the Fisherman's Path to the beach, which we knew well from previous runs and hikes and birding expeditions.

What a joy it is to run along the ocean, dodging the waves that are crashing on the beach, crunching through shoals of shells.  This time of year, a peculiar phenomenon occurs where there is a kind of bench in the sand, a lower flat beach and a higher one two or three feet higher.  I stayed on the lower part, and passed only one or two beach-goers.  One smiling young man was sitting on the sand-bench, legs dangling, watching the tide come in.  It reminded me of that great Otis Redding song:

Sittin' in the mornin' sun
I'll be sittin' when the evenin' comes
Watchin' the ships roll in
Then I watch 'em roll away again

"You've got the best seat in the house!" I told him as I ran by.  ""Yes I do!" he replied.

It was a great first day of our Sabbatical here - a gorgeous sunrise, a six-mile run - and it felt as if we were starting off a New Year in the right way.  It always takes a day or two to completely settle into this place out here.  There is cleaning and vacuuming to be done, and more shopping.  We eat here at the condo most of the time, but today we made an exception and had lunch at one of our favorite restaurants, The Shucking Shack across the bridge in Morehead City.  Then we stopped at Blue Ocean seafood market to provision ourselves, another favorite place that provides fresh locally-sourced seafood to most of the restaurants out here.

We had to wait a few minutes for our own modest order - wahoo salad and kale salad, both delicious - because apparently a truckload of fresh seafood had just arrived and the owner and his staff were busy, back behind the big windows in the fish-cleaning area, where skilled butchers can fillet a fish in a matter of seconds.

"I think that one is still wriggling his tail!" I told the owner, who came through with a bucket of fresh fish to dump out on ice.  "It may have been," he answered.

We returned to the condo in time to witness a gorgeous sunset.  These sunrises and sunsets out here perfectly enclose our days, and in this unique location we are able to witness both from the south-facing condo balcony.  Our long, long days are rounded every day with this beautiful display of glory.

New Year's Day

Martha told her mother yesterday that we had made plans for New Year's Eve:  reservations at a good place to eat, with an early seating right in front of a roaring fire in the fireplace, good service, and the kind of music we like.  The place?  Our own home.  Martha had prepared "small bites" - deviled eggs, smoked salmon croquettes, stuffed mushrooms, and Port Salut cheese (my own contribution) - and it was the best possible New Year's Eve celebration..

We take turns writing on the little blackboard in the kitchen during the year, and at the end of the year we enjoy reading them all, remembering what we have said and thought and felt.  The last entry was mine, chalked on the board this very evening:  "I can see a New Year coming – I’ve got 2020 vision!"  After our light dinner, we retired to the Sun Room to watch a slide show that I had prepared of all the places we had traveled in 2019, beginning with Atlantic Beach and including our trip to Britain and Ireland.  It was wonderful to revisit all of those places, and we talked about that and about the places we hope to visit in 2020 - a new year, a new decade.

The next morning, we awoke early as I prepared to go to Highlands for the 18th Annual Resolution Run which I have organized for many years.  As I was preparing to leave, Martha told me that she had been thinking about something I had mentioned yesterday, the option of possibly leaving a day earlier than planned for Atlantic Beach.  I had said it only half-seriously, but now the idea made a lot of sense.  We were already (mostly) packed, and the weather forecast called for rain all day on Thursday.  We quickly agreed to the plan; Martha cancelled the previous hotel reservation and made a new one, and I headed up to Town with much on my mind while she stayed home to complete packing.

Despite the wind and cold temperature, we had a good turnout - about 35 runners in all, including at least two very impressive snowy-coated canines.

I returned home as quickly as possible to complete our packing and load up the car.  After a light lunch, we were on the road!

Traffic was surprisingly light for New Year's Day and we encountered no rain at all; we arrived at the Historic Brookstown Inn in Winston-Salem before dark.  This historic converted cotton mill is surely one of our favorite places to stay on the way to the coast, and among the many delights is the hotel cat, Sally, who greets guests in the lobby.  Sally was comfortably ensconced in one of the chairs.

We called Martha's aunt Lizette to let her know that we were planning to see her a day earlier, and she gave us some very sad news.  Her cousin, Robert Bashford, had just died the previous day.  We had first met this remarkable man last March at Lizette's 90th birthday party.  Dr. Robert Bashford, a psychiatrist, professor and associate dean at the UNC School of Medicine, left behind a legacy of service to his profession and praise from colleagues and friends.  We are only sorry that we did not have the opportunity to know him more than our brief encounter had permitted.

Read more here: https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/education/article238911048.html#storylink=cpy

It had been a long journey, and we were tired.  We had not expected to leave today, nor had we expected to hear this sad news.  But it was lovely being in a safe port, on our way across the rough seas to Lizette's oceanfront condo in Atlantic Beach, here at the Historic Brookstown Inn, still bedecked in Christmas decorations.