After muttering to myself for hours and hours in a roaring wind it was just lovely to find Megan and Mike and Dell at home in the evening. Finally I was able to speak in incomplete incoherent sentences and be perfectly understood without having to make clear who I was and that I was indeed sane. Dell is looking to move up in two wheelers over the years and posed to set a benchmark. Rebecca received me with her normal grace and hospitality, though Suthu wasn't too sure, and we watched the Patriots go down to defeat.

Coming up through Tidewater North Carolina and Virginia in mid winter there was so much more green than I expected . Large expanses of winter wheat were coming up bright and strong through the cotton and corn stubble. Plus, the featured tree is the southern pine which never loses its color. I now realize that the only paper mills I have seen have been in the Southeast, a region rich in pine and other great sources of fiber. I crossed three plants today.  

The road was a familiar one we have traveled often to get to Emerald Isle and the Outer Banks. Yet it was much faster than I remember. Big new freeways have been set up to allow one to bypass the urban centers. I never did see much of Wilmington NC or Jacksonville NC or New Bern as I waved goodbye to Mike and Elaine's home and hustled North on US 17. True for many of the coastal cities I sped through -- the raised bridges give the circumnavigator a great view of the port. Thus I got a glimpse of famous old battleships like the USS Alabama in Mobile, USS North Carolina in Wilmington and the aircraft carrier USS Yorktown in Charleston.  

There should be more ferries. They bring you down from a 60 mile an hour race through the land and make you stop and remember -- it wasn't always so easy to cross a river. The final ferry at Jamestown was just perfect. The sun was setting as we crossed towards the first British settlement in America in a boat twice as big as that used by those early adventurers.