Harkers Island  May 22, 2012

What a lovely day!  A good ride and I’m ensconced in a wonderful house at water’s edge on Harkers Island. The house is the very generous offer of Kim and Alex Nice, kind friends of my son. Thank you so much!

The view from the Nice house.

 Harkers island is east of Morehead City and Beaufort but protected by Cape Lookout, which is the beginning of the long northward-running string of barrier islands along the Carolina coast. Unlike many other places along this coast, Harkers is a quiet hamlet of modest houses and long-term residents. There are no hotels or motels, and I’ve seen only three restaurants, all locally owned.

I was out early from Jacksonville, home of the Marine’s training base, Camp Lejeune.  The skies were bright, the winds light and the temperature moderate. It was the kind of day where you notice every thing, all your senses are heightened. Bobwhites whistle to each other across a field. The sounds of bass guitar strings being plucked rise above a roadside marsh as frogs serenade. What is that smell—honeysuckle? Not quite but oh how delicious it is.

White bulbous clouds climb higher and higher as the afternoon heats up. Will they become anvils and bring storms? Behind them are still more clouds, softer, less ominous—light pink.   I can’t imagine the beauty the Marine pilots out of Cherry Point must see as they scream overhead. Nine guinea fowl set up a terrible, almost mechanical noise as scurry away from the roadside.

A roadside sign read: Cornhole Tourney, $1,000 first place.  I was on a two-day bike ride in Ohio the first time I saw a similar sign. The phrase concerned me greatly for the remainder of the ride—cornhole tourney.  How in the world could someone advertise such a thing? Only when I arrived in Portsmouth, OH did I find out that in today’s world cornhole is what we as kids called a bean bag toss. I’m old.

A sign yesterday threw me, too. “Organic horse manure.” I’ve been riding this bike too long already. The world has passed me by in less than a month. Evidently someone has developed inorganic horse manure and my Carolina farmer wants to assure everybody that his horse poop is the real thing. I’m getting very old.

In the past several days I’ve gone past five blueberry farms, all of them closed. Pure frustration as blueberries are one of my favorite fruits and I haven’t seen blueberry pie on any menu.  Not even on the menu at Fat Fellas BBQ and Grille in Newport. But what it lacks in pie it more than makes up for in its barbecue, hush puppies and BBQ slaw. The best I’ve ever had. All washed down with endless glasses of iced tea. As I left I noticed plaques on the wall from various magazines and newspapers declaring Fat Fellas as the best BBQ in Eastern Carolina.

Danyel, my waitress, asked about my journey. I asked her about the turnoff to Harkers Island. She checked with Fat Fella, the owner who never showed himself but whom she assured me lived up to his nickname. She gave me the directions and went to care for other customers. Several minutes later she returned to refill my tea. She also presented me with two printouts from Mapquest showing me the exact route I needed to take. She got a very good tip!

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