The Destinators – Page 14

The Outer Banks

We’d never been to the Outer Banks. What are these things? What’s out there? They are a chain of long, thin islands shielding the coast of North Carolina, although they’re not normal islands. They’re more like sand dunes, evolving by the minute from the wind, tides and waves, and slowly shifting the Outer Banks south and west over time. They’re long, over 100 miles (the inlets between the islands close up and form anew in different places with time and the storms), and quite narrow, from a few hundred feet to 3 miles wide, and they are low, with an average elevation of 12 feet above sea level.

Beaufort, NC

There is in this blog another post with a very similar opening photo to this one. In that post, we introduced our readers to Walker, who lives with our friends Hope and Carlos in Beaufort, NC. But the photo above is recent, and Walker is almost five years older here than in the previous photo, and don’t we all wish we could have aged as well as he!

Murrells Inlet, SC

My cousin, Sam (aka Cecile), is 17 years older than I am. She got married and moved away about the time I was learning to walk. Like her sister Jeanette, we didn’t really get to know each other back then. (I did get to know their older sister, Helen, who stayed nearby.) Sam moved back to our home town just months before I headed off to college and I met her once. Since then, we’ve met each other mostly at funerals. We vowed that we would connect sometime simply for fun. That time finally happened.

Myrtle Beach, SC

Dorothea Taylor is one of my favorite instructors at Drumeo, my favorite online drum education program and drumming community. She’s relatively new to Drumeo, having joined the instructor team about 2 years ago. However, she’s not new to drumming, nor music education – she’s been playing for 56 years and working with students for almost as long! Dorothea preaches the benefits of using rudiments (think marching bands – yup, she started out in a drumline) on the drum kit – and rudiments are what I most need to learn to take my drumming to the next level. Her no-nonsense, disciplined teaching style resonates with my learning style.

Monroe, NC

My friend Lloyd has only ever sold one guitar, and I bought it. We met online through the Blues Guitar Unleashed forum, which we were both using in our quests to become the amazingly excellent blues guitar players we are today. Since that seminal transaction, we’ve gotten to know each other pretty well through our online interactions. We have met in person once or twice, and we have tried and failed to meet in person at least one other time. This time, it was relatively simple for Sue and me to adjust our northbound route between Florida and Vermont to include Monroe, NC, which (not coincidentally) is where Lloyd and his wife Maurette have chosen to make their home.

Sumter, NC

One of the things we do for kicks when needed while we’re traveling is to google ‘organic food near me.’ It’s a great way to find little natural food stores and it takes us to places we might not otherwise have visited, usually with good results. At other times, outstanding results…

We found a little natural food store in Sumpter, SC. We arrived about 30 minutes before it opened. Not a problem as the map indicated a park nearby – the Swan Lake ~ Iris Park. Wow.

Visit with Mom

Shortly after she and my dad moved south (almost 30 years ago), my mom announced that, despite her having lived all her life in New Hampshire, Florida was now definitely her home and she would never even consider moving back to New England. Of course, the rest of our family remains in New England. However, with regular calls and in-person visits a few times a year we’re able to stay sufficiently close. The motorhome turns out to be a perfect tool for the job…

Jabs and jams, part 1.5

This time, it was a cosmic, serendipitous, path crossing of two Drumeos…

During an online conversation about drumming, fellow Drumeo member Shawna (aka Music Dragon) mentioned she was heading out on a road trip. I perked right up and asked about the trip. Numerous online conversations later, she mentioned that although she lives in North Carolina, Shawna was starting her road trip from her mom’s place in Florida. Florida? Where? Satellite Beach, about 5 miles from where my mom lives… And, she’d be in town for 2 weeks – overlapping with our stay. Gotta meet up!

Aiken, SC

Apparently they had been thinking about it, too. We knocked on the door. They opened it. US: Wow, how long has it been?! THEM: 17 years! Trish and Jim hadn’t changed a bit. And, of course, neither had we.

We all lived in the same small, socially active neighborhood in Connecticut for about 12 years. They moved away to South Carolina at about the same time we moved to Vermont. Although we’ve stayed in touch that whole time, and we did try to meet up, it did indeed take 17 years to get together live.

Jabs and jams, part 1

As Doug mentioned in the previous post, we’re on our way to spend some time with my mom in Florida. We decided to treat ourselves to a little bit of normalcy. We made plans to visit a few OVFs (Old Vaccinated Friends) along the way. Doesn’t that sound, er, normal?