Wilmington, Days 4 and 5: Lobster Feet

OK, the first problem on day 4 was getting out of bed.  I put my feet on the floor, put some weight on them, and just about passed out from the pain.  They were swelled up and beet red, and I could see blisters starting to form.

The fact is I've had blistering 2nd degree sunburns before on my thighs  (which I wrote about in this blog) my arms, and my neck before.  But they never really put me out of commission. This was something new.  I had never had a sunburn which made tissues swell up, but apparently it's common when your feet get sunburned.  Strangely I was fine walking around but standing still, my ankles felt tightened in a vise.

So let's get moving!  My posse and I walked to the Bellamy Mansion, an antebellum home near downtown Wilmington.  It wasn't long and wide like the plantation homes you normally picture - rather, it was tall. There were four floors above the ground and one below.  The attic was tremendously hot on a day like this, but it gave room for the heat to rise and keep the rest of the building cool.  Each room had a fireplace (kinda silly-looking on a 100 degree day, but ...).  A gravity-fed hot shower was fed by a tank on the 3rd floor.  The big columns rose to the sky.  



Architecturally, I really liked the staircase in the back of the house.   It's an outside staircase, technically - the picture to the right feels like you're in a room, but in fact there's no fourth wall.  It's kind of a spiral staircase, but it doesn't spiral all the way around.  Beautiful curves, no?

It was a cool tour, and we topped it off with lunch at the Reel Cafe.  Then Pam and Brad and Liza headed back to Durham, leaving us a car to do some exploring on our own. My feet were pulsing in and out like a cartoon foot after having an anvil dropped on it.  Amy had a nice warm sunburn on her back. So  Amy and I responded by napping.  


We got up, swam in the hotel pool, and went to Cape Fear Seafood Company to eat.  (We passed Cape Fear Physical Therapy on the way - their version of therapy is holding a pistol on you, so you forget the pain you're feeling.). We started with a "Cape Fear Signature Dish" - crab dip.  As we were spreading it on toast points,  a live crab crawled out and bit Amy on the nose.  (All right - I promise, that's my LAST Cape Fear joke.)  Amy had Grouper Picatta, a nice twist on the traditional chicken or veal picatta.  I had fresh blackened catfish with Beurre Blanc - the fish itself was fantastic, but the spice was kicked it over the moon!  Best blackened ANYTHING I ever et.  The waiter mentioned that the "owner's mother whipped up some berry cobbler if you're interested."  Hell yeah!  Must be nice owning a restaurant where your mother just brings by extra stuff every once in while.  Amy had key lime pie - also spectacular.  


I mean really ... if you vacation on the coast, you really gotta eat seafood, right?  We did our part!


We finished the day at Orton Pool Bar, reportedly the oldest pool hall in America.  Amy had a gin and tonic, which they make with homemade tonic.  (Evidently there was no bathtub for homemade gin, but no matter.)  I had a flight of Kentucky bourbons: Knob Creek, Bakers, Bookers, Bakers, and Basil-Hayden.  I'm a big fan of bourbon so this was the perfect end to a Southern day.  And of course, bourbon is an extremely potent sunburn cure.  Or at least it makes you forget your sunburn.

The next day we woke up and once again, I had trouble getting out of bed.  My feet were starting to develop big blisters, and it was harder to get my swollen feet in my sandals.

We hobbled over to Penders Cafe.  Classic Southern diner - Coca Cola signs everywhere (although, ironically, they only serve Pepsi), a counter with swivelly seats. Amy got the sausage biscuit, and I had their pretty solid $3.99 breakfast special - eggs,bacon, toast and grits.  I've taken a liking to grits, although I'm still a little baffled why it's popular down south and not in the traditional "corn belt" states like Nebraska and Iowa.  Nebraskans may husk corn, but they don't eat it.  Anyway, as Charleston's Post and Courier proclaimed in 1952, "An inexpensive, simple, and thoroughly digestible food, [grits] should be made popular throughout the world. Given enough of it, the inhabitants of planet Earth would have nothing to fight about. A man full of [grits] is a man of peace." 

Amy and I left Wilmington that morning... at peace, throughly charmed, and ready to go back again.  When the weather was cooler, of course!

We spent the rest of the day with Pam and Brad, Liza and Becky and the dog Peter in their beautiful house in Durham.  (Peter is the dog-formerly-known-as-Amy's-dog, and he's pretty cool on the dog scale)    I kept my feet up with ice, as Brad kept my mint julep glass full.  This is important!  That evening we had BBQ ribs, which ranks among the best I've had!  People have different versions of BBQ, and these were smokey, salty dry-rub versions that I tend to prefer over drippy, sugary ones from Kansas City.  They reminded me of Charlie Varga's in Memphis, or the Dinosaur in Syracuse... but the quality of the meat was better.  We also had fantastic Cornell Chicken ... amazingly, I didn't actually know about Cornell Chicken until a month ago (6 months after I started working at Cornell).  Put a side of okra next to it and finish it off with pound cake for dessert.  Mmmmmm!  

Maybe it takes my feet days or weeks to heal, and I won't be able to work off all this Southern food I ate.  Maybe I'll end up a portly Southern Gentleman, with a mint julep in my hand, a white suit, and sitting on the porch with my hound dog.  Good enough!  Vacations are fitting rooms to try on new lives for a few days, walk around them, see if they fit.  I wouldn't mind this one at all.

Wilmington Day 3: Burn Baby Burn!

Back when I was a kid, there was no sunscreen at all, and you slathered yourself up with cocoa butter, olive oil, ... or to save time you just lit yourself on fire.  But nowadays when us too-fair-skinned people are faced with a 95 degree day with lots of humidity (for instance in North Carolina in July) we grease outselves up with the most SPF's we can get.


On Thursday, Amy, Pam, Brad, Liza and I hopped in the car and headed down to Forth Fisher, Atlantic Ocean beach extraordinaire.  Armed with a cooler of water, diet root beer and deli items, crackers and nuts, beach chairs, and ... SPF 100 sunscreen.  Yes, SPF 100!  I spread it thickly over my arms, shoulders, legs, all the places I normally get burned.  I put a little on my feet too.  Then we went shuffling through the sand and into the waves.

This was my first full immersion in salt water, and it was pretty awesome!  I love the ways the waves tickle and bubble over the sand.  It's like it's massaging the coast line.  And then to be in the water and pelted by waves.  Glorious!  Sometimes they looked ferocious, like the were going to knock you down from above, only to fade out inches from your body.  And sometimes they looked tame and walloped you from behind.  You get used to being pulled back and forth in its wake.

Marine life ranged from sandpipers skittering over the coast ... to pelicans riding inches above the water, moving up and down as it encountered waves, as if there were invisible wheels beneath them ... to a class of kids and their boogie boards watching for tamable waves to ride in.

I went in the water four times.  The fourth, I was jostled about by the waves like the poor female prospects in Night at the Roxbury... so much so that I got dizzy.  So I climbed out to the beach chairs, popped in my earphones and listened to some Bossa Nova.  And that's where I got burned.  It was very subtle - with the wind whipping around me, and my body cooled down by the ocean, I didn't feel tremendously warm.  But my feet were getting a little pink.  Oh ...no problem, I thought.

By the time we left the beach in late afternoon, my feet were turning a few shades redder.  Amy bought some aloe vera gel for her toasted back, and I popped some on my feet.  Weird.  I was a little crispy elsewhere, but nothing major.  Just my feet.   Hmmmm.

For dinner we went to Riverboat Landing in Wilmington.  It was half-price night on wine, and we got a bottle of Chianti that became my trip favorite.  We started with fried dill pickles (classic Southern) and caprese salad (well, Southern Italian, maybe).  Amy went for the duck, because that's what she does and I love her for it. Brad did shrimp and grits, Pam went for the steak, Liza had spinach ravioli, and I did chicken jambalya - a nice burn on it.  Afterwards we hit Market Street for ice cream cones. And then Amy and I lounged around on a park bench, watching the river flow by.

Ahhh yes.  It was quintessentially Southern, laid back, take-your-time day.  Brad got me a t-shirt, "We Don't Care How Y'all Do It Up North."  I'm going to wear it to Cornell - it's just offensive enough to raise eyebrows, but not enough to get me fired.

And as I went to sleep, I thought ... hmmm, my feet sure look red. 

Wilmington Day 2: Accidental Head Butt, Fireworks Junk!

July 4th used to be my least favorite holiday.   It was hot, sticky, long, slightly fake and manufactured, full of people, and had no redeeming qualities ... until I met Amy, whose opinion is exactly the opposite.  I suppose it was this idea's novelty that made it so fascinating.  And yeah, I'm changing my opinion.  

The fireworks were to start at 9:00 close to where we staying, and we didn't dare move the car for fear we'd lose our parking space. So we decided to stay in historic downtown Wilmington.  Except all the history - museums, old houses - were closed.   That picture of me (in my new Australian hat, mate!) is in front of the Bellamy Mansion.  That's the closest we got to it.  

But we found two ways to explore downtown nonetheless.  The first was by trolley.  Our tour guide was a tall old African-American southern gentleman who prefaced each sentence with, "If you please would guide your attention to..."  I thought sure by the time he said this,we'd have passed the attraction.  But Wilmington has plenty of old architecture of all different styles, interesting steeples, solid warehouses, and plenty of porches.  

After lunch, our second expedition was by boat.  The Henrietta Three, modelled after a steamboat, carried us on a 1.5 hour trip down the Cape Fear River (I expected Robert DeNiro to appear on the deck - alas, no.)  The captain told stories of the old docks, the ferry that used to shuttle carriages across the Cape Fear, and the ship repair yards.  My favorite was a story of the vertical lift bridge,and how two cars got trapped on its middle span as it lifted for a passing ship.  One car had a woman in it who allegedly screamed the entire time (this was actually proven untrue - the woman corrected it saying she couldn't get a sound out).  The other car had a man who jumped off the span onto the fixed part of the bridge, watched his car go up, then fall off the span into the Cape Fear ... with his golf cubs in the trunk.  He was not happy about that.  Anyway, we got a great view of the modern docks, where ships come 15 miles from the ocean up the Cape Fear to leave their wares.  

After a refreshing swim in the hotel pool, we did dinner at Circa 1922.  We shared some wine and tapas - the duck pastrami in particular was fantastic.  Amy had grouper, and Pam had steak, which they reported to be fine.  Liza had a huge dish of English pea risotto, which everyone judged as the finest meal of the table.  The dill and herbs made it really shine.  Brad had a Asian platter, and the waiter joked it was supposed to be for "hefty men", but he finished it off with gusto.  (He didn't get the meal free - it's not that kind of resturant!)  I had the Southern classic Shrimp and Grits.  But yeah, the grits had melted cheese, and were the most awesome part.  Better than the grits of the previous night, even.  Brad remarked, "I need to taste your grits," and I said, "Not on the first date."  

Coming out of dinner, Amy and I felt a little goofy.  We decided to fake a head butt.  (How did we ever think this would be a good idea?  I dunno.) Only we were totally off in our judgment, and suddenly that head butt turned dangerously real.  Bonk!  The next few moments were unclear, due to brain trama.  The next thing I remember is we were laughing on the sidewalk.  Nothing celebrates America more appropriately than a good ol' head butt!  

We returned to our table at the swimming pool to find our places all saved and intact.  I was amazed.  At 9:00 we watched the fireworks, which were fired from behind the USS North Carolina.  They were pretty awesome!  Exploding shapes are this year's rage in fireworks - hearts, diamonds, stars, etc.  And our viewing angle was incredibly good, but we were pelted with what Amy called "Fireworks Junk".  Little pieces of ash and cardboard rained in our eyes, our hair, and our drinks.  None of it was burning.  That's always a plus.

Amy and I ended our day with a vanilla ice cream cone at the local Granola-eaters-coffee-shop-and-internet cafe.  It's like a little Ithaca follows us wherever we go.  

Wilmington, NC Day 1: Cape Fear!

Warning: the next few days are gonna have a lot of Cape Fear jokes.  This cannot be helped.

So what I'm doing down here on the Atlantic coast?  It's just pure vacation.  It's weird that people do this every year - they take a week off of work in the summer to see the sights, to rest, to eat good food.  Whenever I have done this in the past, it's been an anomoly, something I had to plans months for, and often was a logistical nightmare.  And I usually only did it wen I was at some sort of breaking point - where the choice was either go on vacation or go stark-raving mad.  Now, at least for the time being, it's becoming routine.  I can depend on it like the fact that a hill goes up for only so many blocks, then goes downhill for a bit.

Anyway, Amy's sister Pam and brother-in-law Brad invited us to do vacation with them this year.  (They have been avid followers of this blog, and now they wanted a starring role!)  A few weeks ago, the plans came together and we decided to go for Pam's home state of North Carolina and a beach vacation.  I've never been on a beach vacation.  I've seen the ocean (both Atlantic and Pacific) but I've never squished my toes in the sand or read a "beach book" or built sand castles or let the surf pound on me. It sounded cool.

So we booked a plane to Durham leaving at 5:40 AM.  We had to get up around 4:45, and that after a night of watching fireworks in Ithaca and not getting in until midnight.  Those of you who know Amy already realize what a tremendous feat this was for her, and if there were awards for heroic behavior in the face of adversity, she would get it.  We got to the airport at 5:10, and the desk clerk sneered, "You're tardy."  I would argue there is no such thing as tardy at 5:10 AM!

Anyway, Pam met us at the airport, and we had a nice Greek lunch (gyros, souvlaki) with the entire family - including their daughters Becky and Liza.  Becky having a work life that she couldn't ignore wouldn't be joining us, but Liza will.  We piled our stuff in the cars to head down to the coast.

Wilmington is on the Cape Fear River about 15 miles from where it empties into the Atlantic Ocean.  As everyone knows, it is named Cape Fear because if you pilot a boat down it with your family, you will get attacked by Robert Mitchum (or Robert DeNiro, if you're in the color version) and fear for your life.  Everything is named Cape Fear - Cape Fear Whole Foods Market, Cape Fear Community College. There's a Cape Fear Daycare, but it's full of bullies.  Sorry folks.  This is gonna get worse before it gets better.

OK, so definitely you want food affecionados to guide any vacation - this was instrumental in making Paris a great trip.  No exception here.  Through the storm of chain restaurants, and chefs who haven't worked out their mommy issues, Brad is our beacon.  He leads us to Manna Avenue on Market St..  Amy has a neon pink-purple cosmo, Brad has moonshine (it's hip these days), and I have the Shrub of the Day, which is a boozy concoction with bourbon, vinegar (!) and concord grapes.  All of a sudden life got slower.  It's as if we shoved the car into Southern Gear.

For dinner, Pam ordered Cornish Game Hen, which presented itself as a few sushi-sized pieces.  On the other side of the spectrum, I had The Porkshank Redemption, which was a huge, smoked barbecued pork shank served over grits.  The meat was boiling hot all the way to the bone, which is very unusual, and it tasted like smoked heaven (is there smoke in heaven?  In my version, yes!) .  Amy had grouper with an olive sauce.  Brad asked so many questions of the waiter, that I forget what he actually had.  But it was all close-your-eyes-while-you-eat good!

And then an after-dinner beach preview.  I stood there on the side as tons of water rolled up and over my feet, leaving a pile of sand.  In 10 minutes I was buried above my ankles in sand, but not having moved an inch.  I figure an hour or so, and I'd be up to my neck in sand like those guys in the Huey Lewis video.  (You know what I'm talking about - don't pretend that you don't!)  Isn't that cool?  You can basically run a vacation where all you do is stand still and get entertained.  For free!

But the day shut down early - our early morning rising had taken its toll on Amy and me.  We collapsed into bed, ready to greet the Fourth of July.