Author: Huck

Life, liberty and the acquisition of happiness

Huck

We visited Monticello, the home of Thomas Jefferson.  I knew the bare minimum on TJ before going to Monticello but I feel I know him much better after the visit.  We started our time at Monticello by watching a short video and near the beginning was a quote by Jefferson that really stood out to me…

The happiest moments of my life have been the few which I have passed at home in the bosom of my family.

Wow…TJ and I think alike!  Our family has always made it a point to spend mornings together before school, we walk the elementary kids to and from school, and we eat dinner together even with busy soccer, robotics and dance schedules.  We make it a point to go to church together and we try to have some leisure time together on the weekends when time allows.  I love love love this time together.  But like Jefferson I felt like these moments were relatively few or, maybe more appropriately, that they were going by too fast.

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Towns and Burgs

Huck

From the Outer Banks we headed to Newport News Virginia.  Why?  Well, there is a campground (I think it is city owned) that had pretty good priced camping (electric and water) and it was only a short drive to Williamsburg, Yorktown and Jamestown which were high on our list of places to visit.  So after dropping off the mini fridge at the scrap yard we continued north over/under the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel and showed up at an amazingly wooded park just on the edge of Newport News proper.  We had called a week or so in advance to make reservations but they said there was no need….and they were right, we had our pick of many awesome sites.  We chose site 96 as it was well positioned between the playground and the bath house.  A bunch of cub scouts and their families were camping in a nearby group site so our kids had fun playing with the wad of kids over at the playground before dinner.
Newport News park

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Stuff

Huck

We value experiences and relationships more than we do stuff.  But stuff still has a way of keeping you tied down. So part of the idea of this adventure, at least in my mind, was to force ourselves away from our stuff and replace it with those things we value more.  When you live in tight quarters there is not much room for physical stuff.  Even if we had the space, we are filling our days with exploring the outdoors, nature, history and science that we don’t have time to futz with physical stuff.  Yet somehow we still have too much stuff and so something’s got to go.
Ditching the dead fridge

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Lost

Huck

I’m positive that I took American history during my school years.  But for some reason, nothing (or very little) seemed to stick.  I can remember my childhood friend Gordy Carlson’s phone number (598-2426…it was even before 10 digit dialing!) but can’t remember when the war of 1812 was!  Just kidding.  But its almost that bad.  I’m ashamed at how little I know.  But I think this old dog IS learning some new tricks about history and its filling me with lots of questions and desires to learn even more!  I hope this adventure is having the same effect on the kids.  Perhaps when they are learning American history in the classroom they will already have a solid foundation and they can capitalize on the opportunity to dig deeper to where their questions lead them.

All that to say, I had no clue that there was a group of English settlers who came to America well before the Pilgrims I learned about in school.  It was 1587 and they settled on Roanoke Island just a short drive from our campground.  So we packed a lunch and drove out to the Roanoke Island Festival Park.
Ship

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Lights and Flights

Huck

We had to say goodbye to Ocracoke as we moved on northward.  We arrived at the ferry terminal just as one ferry was leaving which gave us an almost assured spot on the next one.  This ferry will take us to Hatteras, does not take reservations and is free!  While we waited for the ferry we did a little more beach combing where we found a dead puffer fish (we think) and a dead jelly fish (we think).  We boarded the ferry and set sail.  I took my computer into the passenger lounge to do some work while the rest of the fam stayed in the vehicle and….uh, I don’t know what they did.  We arrived at the Hatteras ferry terminal and made a beeline to the famous Hatteras lighthouse.
Hatteras lighthouse

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My friend the lighthouse

Huck

We had heard great things about the Outter Banks of North Carolina and so this was on our must see list.  Ocracoke was the low key gem that many suggested and the target of our next visit.  Little did I know that I shared a special bond with this island that goes back almost 20 years.  But first, we must take to the seas to get to this barrier island and for this we have to load Ava and the Beast onto another ferry.  This one, unlike the others we’ve ridden, costs some cash and reservations were recommended.  The ferry was at 10:00am and they asked that you arrive at least 30 minutes prior to that.  We had a 2 hour drive so to give us a little margin I wanted to leave the campground at….WHAT???  What time did you say??  7:00??  In the morning??  Yeah…this is early for us but I am proud to say that we were rolling at 7:15…not too shabby.  We loaded onto the ferry and sailed away.
Ava on the ferry

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Neuse news

Huck

A year or so ago I came across a PBS show called A Chef’s Life and found myself enjoying it quite a bit.  I liked the story, I like the farm to table concept and I like Chef Vivian’s involvement with the community.  Kinston NC sounded like a pleasant place to live.  Totally unrelated I was reading a blog from a full time traveling family (honestly don’t remember which) and saw that they stayed in Kinston, NC.  I put two and two together, added twelve and carried the five and realized that maybe we could stop through Kinston during our trip!
Date night
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Seeing more friends

Huck

We are horrible guests while on this trip.  We don’t make plans very far in advance which means we don’t give people very much notice when we are coming into visiting range.  From South Carolina we headed to Fayetteville North Carolina to visit our friends the Staats.  They are stationed at Fort Bragg and were able to get us a spot at Smith Lake campground for our stay despite the short notice.
Smith Lake

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