Aug 152015
 

And on the fourth day of vacation, Henry expressed a barely audible modicum of joy when he spotted F-15s in the air.

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Wednesday morning, a/k/a The Day Before My Birthday, was our officially check-out day from King’s Creek. Chooch and I were sad, but then Henry held up our timeshare starter package as a silent reminder that we’ll be back.

Again.

And again.

And again and again.

THE LAST TRIP DOWN THE SIDEWALK. :(

Being a travel day, my plan was for us to be leisurely about it. We didn’t have plans with Octavia until the next day, so there technically wasn’t much rush to get to Savannah anytime soon on Wednesday.

Which is a good thing, considering that Savannah was twice as far away from Williamsburg as I originally thought! I was super pissed though because I thought we were going to be passing through Norfolk but Henry explained that we were taking a more dumb and Henry-esque route through the middle of all the states.

“We can’t get to Savannah by going that way,” he said as I whined about Norfolk and all of the things I found on Roadside America that now were not going to be anywhere near us.

“Yes we can!” I cried, showing him a map on my phone.

“THAT IS ALL WATER. THOSE ARE NOT ROADS,” he yelled, so by the time we arrived at a rest stop in North Carolina, we were all miserable and hating each other, which only got WORSE when Henry copped an attitude when we had the AUDACITY to ask for beverage from the vending machines! Oh, I’m sorry. Maybe give us an allowance then so we can purchase our own beverages!

“He hates us,” I hoarsely whispered to Chooch as we power-walked in anger out of the rest stop. But then I was all, “Ooh! A thing! Let me photograph you by that thing!”

Chooch leaning against a thing.

Turns out, that thing is a WHIRLIGIG and there was an entire PARK full of them somewhere “down the street” in Wilson, NC. I begged and begged Henry to take us there since he had previously ruined our day by being a tight-wad motherfucker.

I looked at my map on Roadside American and determined that the exit for Wilson, NC, home of the Whirligig Park, was straight up ahead. What I failed to mention was that the actual destination was another 20 miles or so from the exit ramp. Henry hates being lead astray and was unreasonably irritated about whirligigs. Who could be mad about these sharp metal sculptures of joy?!

Also, I failed to note that the park is not yet open. We rolled up and saw a dirt lot, a backhoe in action, and a small sprinkling of whirligigs. That was good enough for me! Henry slammed the car into park and mumbled something about “you two assholes can get out and look; I’m staying here. Fuck a whirligig.” Even Chooch was being ungrateful and uncaring about the whirligigs and I was pretty disappointed. Here we were, parked across from a national treasure (debatable, but still) and these two were trying to ruin it for me.

I pulled Chooch out of the car and into the blazing heat and made him be a good tourist with me.

The whirligigs are the creation of artist Vollis Wilson, and are currently in the process of being relocated from some museum to the park-in-process in Wilson, NC. Wilson is, how can I put this delicately, a real dump of a town, so the hope is that this park will help with the revitalization project that’s currently underway, and I can definitely get on board with that.

I might start creating whirligigs to decorate the Law Firm. The ceilings in the partnership center are tall enough to accommodate art of this stature. BYE BYE GENERIC ITALIAN ART, HELLO ERINGIGS.

 

Maybe it’s nuts, but I love these road trips that we take so much because I am fascinated more by small, unknown towns than actual big cities. This was why I tried in vain to get people to guest blog on here about their hometowns, because I want to know all the insider, townie scoop. (Still looking to feature people, just saying.)

This is why I decided that Wilson was where we were also going to eat lunch that day.

Just…not here though.

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We stopped down the road at The Creamery, which has been serving Wilson since 1946.

That man sitting next to Chooch ordered two large jugs of sweet tea. NORTH CAROLINA FLAVOR!

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I already mentioned this in my birthday post, but they had cabbage on the menu! I ended up ordering okra though because I love me some okra. It came deep-fried, and I am used to eating it steamed or boiled or whatever Henry does to it (maybe I don’t want to know), so that was different.

Another cheerful family lunch!

While we were there, Hot Naybor Chris called Henry. Henry took the call out in the parking lot, leaving me to sit at the table and panic because WHY WAS CHRIS CALLING WAS OUR HOUSE ON FIRE AT LEAST WE DON’T HAVE PETS ANYMORE TO WORRY ABOUT!? He knew we were on vacation so it must be something tragic and devastating! It reminded me of when we were on vacation in Ocracoke years ago and had some sort of gas situation at our house and my mom and Janna kept calling us about it and we thought it was OK but then it wasn’t, and we ended up leaving early because I was so freaked out that our house was going to explode and also I hated the people we were vacationing with, so win-win….?

Turns out, a package arrived for me, air mail, and Chris just wanted to let Henry know that he took it off our porch so it wouldn’t get stolen. After Henry came back in and told me this, I cried, “WHY DOESN’T HE EVER JUST TEXT YOU THESE THINGS!?” Jesus Christ, I was worried sick.

  4 Responses to “Whirligigs and Okra: Wednesday In the Car, Part 1”

  1. I didn’t know ‘whirligig’ was a real thing. I thought that’s just what people called something without a real name, like ‘whatchamacallit’ except not a candy bar.

    Chris just wanted a reason to talk to Henry. The bro-love runs deep.

  2. “And on the fourth day of vacation, Henry expressed a barely audible modicum of joy when he spotted F-15s in the air.”

    He can recognize F-15s from the ground? That’s impressive. That’s some heavy duty Service shit.

    “THAT IS ALL WATER. THOSE ARE NOT ROADS”

    What does that even mean, Professional Driver?!

    “Henry hates being lead astray and was unreasonably irritated about whirligigs.”

    Why must you make me laugh so bad EVERY TIME?!?!?!

    Also, please excuse my guest post delay about my hometown. I have written and scrapped two drafts because they just turned into essays of hatred about Massholes, and that’s not what the topic is supposed to be.

    A phone call for all that? Right; he just wanted to have personal time with Mehoover.

  3. Cool post. Whirligigs are cool as well.

Say it don't spray it.

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