Wilson Gives Folk Art a Whirl

I really enjoyed the visit with Tony and Donna so don't assume that the paucity of photographs should be attributed to anything other than my willingness to sit and read, watch TV, or ride along with Tony as he's going about his daily business. We went to a movie, got our vehicles washed, walked the dog (that would be Satchel), had lunch at Jimmy John's, and most importantly, avoided over-exerting ourselves.

This fine feller is the aforementioned Satchel. Satchel has me figured out. {Parker's going to hang around for a few days without doing anything important, but he's going to keep pulling out his camera lighting off that flash-thing that I hate so much. . .} The last several visits, when I pull out my camera Satchel gets up with a great sigh and removes himself from the room. Though there is no apparent haste, he manages to be gone by the time I get the lens cap off and the camera turned on. Then, on the day I leave, he climbs up on the couch and lets me take pictures of him. Go figure. . .

On the 22nd I drove up to Paul's and Lee's new home in North Carolina. This was another period of light duty. Lee was gone for a day so Paul and I went for an area fam (an area familiarization flight) though we accomplished this without leaving the ground. The next day, I drove 40 minutes or so east to Wilson to see Patrick.

There is a park in Wilson called the Vollis Simpson Whirligig Park. It opened in January this year with half a dozen or so whirligigs and will eventually have 27. The restored Whirligigs are from the personal collection of the late folk artist Vollis Simpson. North Carolina, as you may imagine, is into folk art.

Pat and I checked out the park and it was interesting, certainly in scale. These things are about 25' or so up in the air. The day we visited was still, but I watched an online video from UNC showing that on the day of the dedication it was quite windy indeed. Since the whole purpose of whirligigs is to celebrate the breeze, I judged the demonstration to have been a success.

After the park, we tried out a new sandwich shop associated with a microbrewery or we tried out a new microbrewery lucky enough to have a fine sandwich shop attached. I can't remember the name of the place and I can't find the stickers I was given, though they're surely around here somewhere. In any case, this place had great sandwiches and a whole lot of beer.

By the time I got back to Paul's Lee had returned from Virginia and supper was on. Lauren and Burr came over and ate with us and we got the word on what aunt Becky's been up to. The next day Paul and I drove to the Marine base at Cherry Point and I saw the quarters that we lived in when I was in first and second grade, the base swimming pool where I learned to swim, and the base theater where we watched Saturday morning serials. We checked out Morehead City and a few miles of Atlantic Beach, then headed home.

Then Sunday, Paul, Lee and I took a drive to check out Falls Lake State Park, about 10 miles WNW of Wake Forest (the picture above), then drove into Durham. This was another area fam, I believe, since Lee was planning to attend some function at Duke the following week.

I'm going to take off Thursday and go with Karen and Richard to Brownwood to have lunch with Linda and Roger and see Roger's photo exhibit. So the last post for my Carolinas Road Trip will be delayed by a day. I'll bet you can't wait.