Boats, Bugs, Surf and Foam

We have been busy the past several days.

On Friday, Mickey & Patti took us all around Kinston, NC - their hometown. We saw their beautiful house that they sold, the nice townhouse where Patti's son's are living and the garden center that they owned. It's still called Ivey's!

We then went to see one of only a few (I can't remember but I think there are only two) of the Confederate Ironside boats. The one we saw is the CSS Neuse. The wreckage was found years ago in the Neuse River, but only in the last 10 years or so was it recovered and brought to dry land. I am amazed that this much of it still remains in tack today. Here are a couple of pictures of how it looks now.



There is a group of Kinston citizens that are building a replica of the CSS Neuse that will be open for tour. They have built it to exact measurements and are very close to completion. See below pictures.



Now to the bug - this one found us while we were waiting to see the remains of the CSS Neuse. Don't know what it is and have never seen a bug this color. Do you have any ideas?



Yesterday, Dean and I drove to North Topsail Beach - I just had to see the Atlantic. It's been a long time and I've forgotten how pretty the surf is. The sand here is coarse, not the soft kind that I'm used to at Gulf Shores. I guess because of this it packs hard and walking to the waters edge was very easy - no sinking sand.



We had lunch at a neat little place in Sneads Ferry - Dr. Rootbeer's Hall of Foam. The owner is a rootbeer nut! Anything root beer, he has it. They also make the best homemade root beer, which tasted very much like the root beer that my parents used to make in the summer when I was just a kid. Good BBQ and a glass of homemade root beer - made for a very good lunch.



This wall is full of root beer signs. I gave the owner a little history on Barq's - it wasn't called a root beer for many years - just Barq's. Nothing beats a Barq's in a bottle with peanuts - takes me back to my teen years. Speaking of which, I've come to the conclusion that North Carolina or at least this part of the state is lost in the 50's and 60's. The decor and music that you hear in a lot of the restaurants etc is of that era theme.

Well, I've covered the boats, bugs, surf and foam. Not sure what will be next.