New Years Start

January 1, 2012 marks a full year since I retired. The year was as varied as any I have experience up to this point in my life. I look back at the decision and I do not regret it at all, yet I still feel connected to the work I left, those issues related to the poor, family strengthening and work related to fatherhood. The upside relates to spending a lot of time with family, close and extended, and seeing some beautiful places and meeting hundreds of interesting people.

New Year's Eve started with a home-cooked dinner with some friend, Paul and Cynthia, who recently moved to Myrtle Beach. We ended it back at the RV park. I ventured out to witness the biggest bonfire I have ever seen and I also walked the Camanche Pier, the longest wood pier on the eastern seaboard, a quarter mile long.

The RV park sponsors the bonfire each year. They spend a full day before hauling large logs out onto the beach.

A view from the pier looking north

South of Myrtle Beach there is a wonderful garden, Brookgreen. Well worth the stop, full of sculptures. The garden is over 9100 acres and over a thousand sculptures!

Gold leaf sculpture

The Brookgreen Gardens also have a certified zoo featuring native animals of the region. We were quite impressed by the tree fox, owls and the walk through aviaries. Here is one of my favorite pictures of the hundreds I took in the Gardens
over the two days touring.

This particular fox that climbs trees has claws like cats

A beautiful swan ends our day at the Brookgreen Gardens

Wilmington, Carolina Beach and Southport North Carolina

Pulling up stakes, we headed down SC Highway 17 intent to spend some time on Carolina Island and the surrounding area. The USS North Carolina, a WWII battleship, now a floating museum in Wilmington, was one destination I didn't want to pass by. We decided to tour the Battleship before going to the RV park on Carolina Island. I suspect that I am not the only person who has a constant interest with anything associated with WWII, now heightened by my Kansas City visit to the WWI memorial this past November.
Of course, each ship we tour dad has to check out the dentist's office.

Yes, there was a lot to see and read, but one of the things I notice are the unusual, like this door latch. What a feat of engineering in itself.

Surgery table, two at once???

I liked Carolina Beach, its island and the surrounding area.

A short ferry ride to Southport was also well worth it. Southport would be good living, charming and friendly. I took my bike with us and I very much enjoyed riding through its streets looking at its historic homes and its sea views. I even came across a boat that sunk, an outline still visible years later.

Carolina Island beaches were some of our best shelling collecting area so far!

I will say "goodnight" with this parting picture. Next entry will take us to Myrtle Beach, New Year bonfire, and who knows what!

Remembering Christmas 2011

Ho, Ho, Ho

New Bern is within an easy drive distance to our next destination, Sneads Ferry with daughter, Sarah, son-in-law, Simon and two little grand-boys, Tristan and Xander. Sneads Ferry lies a little away from Jacksonville, North Carolina, home of Camp LeJeune, a large Marine Corp Base where Simon is stationed. We had looked forward to the visit for months and we were glad it was all working out to spend Christmas 2011 with the young family. The last time I saw the young boys, the youngest was just a week old so I had a lot of pent of grandpa need! Louise felt the same. We were looking forward to some good visiting and a lot of fun, and we had enjoyed both. We went to the beach, the park, a special working farm and, of course, the play ground. Sarah fixed a special Christmas Day dinner which left all very satisfied. Some Christmas gifts caught up to us as well, an extra treat.

Opening Gifts

Xander was very happy for his brother's Christmas gift, a tricycle!

Brother, Tristan, was enamored with his train board set, here playing with his daddy

And a couple more pictures of grand kids, just because...

Leading up to Christmas, we all went out to Mike' Farm, a working farm that also happens to be an attraction including dinner, farm animals, and a Christmas hay ride. It reminded Louise and I of Knotts Berry Farm in South California in its early days prior to it growth into an amusement park. The farm is just outside of Jacksonville.

We enjoyed spending the week with Simon and Sarah and the kids. We miss them already. Here, Tristan taking a stroll on the beach with grandma Louise...

Thank you Simon and Sarah for your open invite to spend Christmas with you. We look forward to our next visit and we love you all! I suspect Tristan's towers will even be greater! Soon he will need two sets of Jinga Blocks.

New Bern NC

My last entry skipped an interesting fact I thought I would now share with you. When we were on the outer bank islands in North Carolina we noticed that the newer construction built homes and businesses up on stilts, up to a full 11 feet higher than ground level. Asking at the information center in the town of Ocracoke why such a height, the man stated that it was based on the last 100 years storm surge flood levels! It is hard for me to wrap my head around such a storm, but even if it covered four or five feet of ground, it would cover practically all the land surface of these outer bank islands of North Carolina. I was told by this same gentleman (and others in subsequent conversations) that the old time locals stay put in their homes during these hurricanes with their storm surges, it's just something you live through. Fine for them; I would go inland myself. The picture above is the port of Ocracoke, view facing east. It gives you a sense of the low flat land. No hills here. Despite its low lying disposition, I found Ocracoke to be a very pretty pleasant town with a rich maritime history. A small section of the old town still have homes that were made from salvaged shipwrecks, like the one pictured below.

New Bern. Heading inland from the outer banks of Hatteras and Roanoke Islands, our destination initially was New Bern, NC. New Bern was one of the earliest settlement of North Carolina, settled by some Swiss from Bern, Switzerland, thus the name. We stayed at a KOA just north of town, a pleasant park with a fishing dock that looked across the inlet to the old downtown. I already shared with you one of its sunsets, but here is another that greated us that evening.

Up to this point, New Bern town holds the cake for the most historical markers along its roadsides and in its downtown area many of the homes have historic plaques of famous people who were residents. Here are a couple of examples, including a picture of an old Episcopal church in the New World, dating back to 1750.

My overall impression was that New Bern would be a decent place to live. It is a bit inland but finger of water allow this town to be also a pleasure boat town with access to the ocean. Next entry, Christmas with family: Simon, Sarah, Tristan and Xander in Snead Ferry. Lots of fun.