Jennie and David: A Family Interlude

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Williams Residence, Cary, North Carolina

Last Thursday morning we pulled up the stakes, hitched up and drove on up the outer banks chain through Bodie Island and onto US64 and westward. That will be our general direction now for the rest of the trip. We crossed several bridges, one of which is being rebuilt with a multi-million dollar project to build an even longer and higher bridge. I wondered as we went through all the construction work whether the bridge would outlast the islands and just kind of hang out there in the middle of the water connecting two non-existent islands. Ferries don't haul nearly as many cars, but they can change where they dock, which might be more important in the next few decades. Oh, well, I guess we can say we kept a few construction workers employed for a couple of years.

We encountered off-and-on rain during a great deal of the trip which slowed us down some. I also had to double back once to go get gas because the next station was beyond my driving range. And we stopped for lunch at Williamston to eat at a high-rated cafe downtown, The Red Heron. I had a good, but not best, shrimp and grits. Joan, craving greens, ate a Caesar salad with chicken. As a result of all that, we arrived at our destination an hour or so late.

And we set up camp in my sister's driveway. With neighbors hurriedly calling in their children, we turned the trailer around in the cul de sac and backed into their tree-covered driveway. Jennie had warned a couple of the neighbors, but some of them were a little leery of a big trailer coming down the quiet lane.

Jennie and David have lived at this comfortable and relatively small two-story home for something like 22 years. That kind of stability is something I can only remotely ponder since the longest I've been at any one address is about 10 years with Joan in Albuquerque. As another marker of stability, David was recently laid-off from IBM after nearly 30 years of employment. My longest employment record is something less than ten and most jobs have been around four or five years duration.

In short, it is kind of difficult to put myself in my sister's life circumstances. But having said that, I kind of envy the predictability of it all. I myself value putting life's daily routines on automatic - developing habits so I can think about other less certain things. These two seem to have put almost their entire lives into habit-mode, which certainly provides a comfortable sense of security.

David has a multitude of projects he is working on, even if not employed, all on his several different computers in his office. He can, and does, disappear for hours and, according to his own report, will often stay up until 3 in the morning working on various Open Source computer programs. He even brags that he can go for an entire week without ever leaving the house! Although there is no way I can do that, I respect his sense of purpose and commitment.

Jennie teaches American history to high-school students a short distance away. Not quite sure how my seemingly timid and demure sister controls a rowdy class of students paying more attention to their cell phones than their teacher, but somehow she does. And I suspect she's pretty good at it. I know she is still moderately enthusiastic about getting up at 4:30 and heading out to school.

We had a great three days with them doing almost nothing. I did get the car in for a regular maintenance service. It needed an alignment and new air filters, which wasn't surprising. But I think it is ready for the 2000 mile trip home.

The trailer is another story. We are headed, today in fact, to our last stop on this trip which will require several days of dry-camping. That means no hookups, so we will be relying on batteries and the solar panel for power. However our dry-camping at Hatteras exposed the batteries as dead, so I had to replace them this weekend. I suspect that the long weeks last winter with the solar panel covered in snow meant that the batteries were not getting charged up. I should have disconnected them and stored them and I didn't do that. The result is I've lost them. As Joan says, I love buying new batteries.

The other problem emerged just as I was backing into the driveway - one of the wheels locked up. Me being the mechanical wizard that I am, I have no real idea what might cause that. However Dustin, Jennie and David's son-in-law, suggested that the self-adjusting breaks may have over-adjusted due to brake dust, heat, and general travel. He thinks that it might not be a problem as long as I drive forward. Since that is the normal mode of operating with a trailer I, hopefully, will be able to continue. We will see if, having cooled down over this weekend, the brake is still a problem when we hitch up this morning. We may need to pay a visit to an RV place and get the brakes adjusted. Hopefully this isn't a travel-stopper - we shall see over the next day or two. (Fortunately the next campground is dirt so I should be able to push the trailer back even if the wheel does lock-up.)

We also got some maintenance chores in. Joan did about six loads of laundry which should keep us in clean clothes and linens for the duration of the trip. And we stocked up on groceries for the next few days. We also got the car and the trailer cleaned out a bit. (It still has what we like to call 'camping odor').

Other than that, we just spent time with my sister and her family. David has a wry sense of humor that kicks in unexpectedly. Jennie seemed more relaxed and self-assured than I remember her being - I think she was glad to have visitors, if even for just three days.

Saturday evening we drove an hour out to see the 'Adams Family Farm'. That is the name for Sarah and Dustin's place out in rural Pittsboro area. They have a small farm with green pastures, a large pond with fish and turtles in it, and a whole complement of farm animals - some 60 chickens, a couple of goats, a handful of sheep, and a small herd of pigs. Dustin, coming from a New England farming family, is obviously very happy running this modest farm and very knowledgeable about how the process works. Right now it operates mostly to provide food for the family, but they do sell enough to cover a lot, if not most, of the costs. It was a fascinating trip. Sarah does the 'table' part of farm-to-table and served up a delicious frittata (made with just harvested eggs) and a salad of greens mostly from their garden. It was a wonderful meal. And we got to meet Abby and Matthew, their two young children. They are obviously growing up happy and healthy. Their parents are doing a good job.

Other than that trip, we stayed in, which is the Williams's style. David did the cooking the entire weekend, for which we are grateful. He is an accomplished cook and, as to be expected, has everything extremely well organized. But the results are fresh, tasty and nutritious. They eat all vegetarian which was a welcome change for us after all the seafood and BBQ of recent weeks.

It was a great visit and an opportunity to see my sister again. We figured out that we hadn't seen each other in about 10 years. We've both aged a bit since then - more grey hair and more complaints about body parts not working as well as they should. So it was a good time to reconnect. We hugged and said goodbye this morning as she left to start her week of teaching ungrateful kids.

And as soon as I eat breakfast, we will be hitching up the trailer and heading out for the last stop on our Southern Charms trip. It will be a long day and, hopefully, not too many problems. We shall report tomorrow! (17.1.65,17.1.66,17.1.67,17.1.68

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Photos

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Jennie and David

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Their House (and getting frisky!)

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A pond a short walk away

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The Goose Family