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.