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USA 2016
In 2015 we spent four and a half months on the East Coast of the USA spending time with our son in Durham in North Carolina and exploring areas north and south of there travelling some 17,000 mile. As it is now winter in New Zealand it was time to head to a warmer climate for a few months. So we are now back in summer time USA until the end of September. Three flights, and connection time meant that twenty seven hours after leaving Auckland we arrived in Raleigh-Durham in North Carolina. With little sleep we were glad it was early evening and it felt okay to be heading to bed within a few hours of arriving. We have now spent two weeks in Durham. What have we done during this time? Obviously we have been here before and checked out most of the touristy places. This time we have relaxed, enjoyed the lovely weather (with temperatures between 27-33 most days and a couple of 37 which weren't so great), visited a number of local areas, an outdoor music concert, a number of local restaurants, Peter has completed maintenance on both the car and caravan after being in storage for seven months and of course spent time with Cam. We spent another enjoyable evening supporting the local Durham Bulls baseball team at the stadium in down town Durham. The lovely warm evenings certainly add to the fun of being at the baseball which is popular with a wide cross section of the community. Sadly the peanut seller who was there last year did not have his contract renewed - his selling antics made too much noise and was a distraction to avid followers. For us, we really missed him. We had a very interesting visit to an old mill in a state park called West Point on the Eno. The mill was originally built in the 1780's but fell into disrepair and was washed away in 1942 during floods. A committed group of volunteers arranged for the building and the mill is operational at week-ends. While we visited they were finishing the milling of corn meal and grits (a Southern speciality which neither of us like). The volunteer who showed us around was chewing the whole time and then would open the door to spit outside. Disgusting! He explained he was chewing tobacco. I thought that habit had died out many years ago. We also had a new experience that we are not keen on repeating - three times now we have seen a snake. The first was looking in the kitchen window, the second on the deck and the third curled up amongst the hose on the front lawn. They tell us that these are friendly snakes that are good for the area as they eat any mice or rats that are about, but to us (and Cam also, let me say) any snake is one snake too many. And we have seen evidence of a mouse or two, and even captured one which obviously avoided a snake. With time available we have also tried to undertake a few chores around the house for Cam, and have come up with all sorts of ideas of how he can make some improvements. Some of these may come to fruition when we return after our caravan travels. As Cam is now away for work it is timely for us to head off tomorrow. The caravan is already hitched to the car. We will initially head north west towards Indiana and we have twenty days before our pre-booking at Glacier National Park in Montana which is about 2500 miles away. Oh, and just to finish, I still confuse the light switches in this part of the world where up is off and down is on. Perhaps I am just a slow learner.
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