We turned the air conditioning on last night for the first time this year, after hitting a high of 83 yesterday afternoon. The pollen onslaught has begun and everything is taking on a yellow cast. It’s going to cool off a bit this week but I’ve started pulling out my short-sleeve shirts. 🙂
I finally finished up processing photos from our recent Florida trip. I didn’t have an interesting story to go with them but they are pretty interesting on their own.
I didn’t see the person who this belonged to, but this guy appears to be ready for anything, including a quick getaway. There’s even a mousetrap hanging off the back, I suppose for…well, I don’t want to think about it.
We were only gone from home for a little over 24 hours, but I came back with a number of stories. This is the last one from our vaccine quest.
On our way home from Southport, we decided to stop for lunch in Whiteville, a town just off the main route. The Chef & The Frog, by the way, was excellent. On our way there we passed through the town of Fair Bluff. I had seen a billboard promoting their “Depot Museum” and wanted to stop. As we entered the town it was clear that the place was nearly deserted. The main street was almost completely devoid of shops. A former car dealership sat empty with parts of the building on the verge of collapse. Directly across the street was a building marked as being the Municipal Building, but it was boarded up and silent. Urns along the sidewalks contained plants that appeared to be reasonably well cared for, or as well as could be expected for late winter. Farther up the street a gas station was open, and a pizza shop showed signs of life.
So what happened here, I wondered? As it turns out, Wikipedia summarizes the events leading up to the situation we came across:
“In 1999, Fair Bluff experienced a 1-in-100 year flood event.
In 2012, the Police Chief of Fair Bluff Marty Lewis was arrested, tried and convicted for selling and delivering oxycodone and possession with the intent to sell and conspiracy to traffic while acting as police chief. He was sentenced to a minimum of seven years in prison and fined $100,000. On April 9, 2015 Marty Lewis filled an appeal of his case. On November 3, 2015 the verdict was unanimously affirmed by the North Carolina Court of Appeals, leaving in place the 90 to 117 month prison sentence originally imposed. Lewis will not be eligible for parole before November 2022.
In 2016, the town was devastated by flooding on the Lumber River caused by Hurricane Matthew, prompting the evacuation of hundreds of residents. As of June 2018 the rebuilding effort was still underway but several hundred residents who had fled rising floodwaters never returned and a number of businesses remained shuttered.
In September 2018 Fair Bluff was flooded again by the impact of Hurricane Florence, again forcing evacuations and leaving the downtown area under water again, and devastating the town for the third time in under 20 years. After Florence, many buildings in the downtown area of the town lay abandoned, with no plans to reoccupy or fix the buildings.
The population was 951 at the 2010 census but is believed to be lower following the two disasters, some estimates going as low as 450 people.”
That pretty much explains it – a town with a troubled past and cloudy future. But they do have a very nice train station.
I’ve gotten a few questions about our experience with scheduling and actually getting the vaccine, and thought it might be helpful to share a few thoughts.
The Process: I’ve mentioned previously how frustrating the registration process is for many of the county and health agency websites. Kathy & I are fortunate to be registered with the two major health providers in our area, so we were able to use our login credentials to access those sites, which likely led to a slightly better experience. We ended up with the Moderna Vaccine through Novant Health.
We were fortunate to find any locations at all on the very first morning of our eligibility. The fact that the one we found was 200 miles away was no big deal for us. We have the flexibility to go wherever we need to, and it was easy for us to make the trip.
The vaccination site was in the parking area of a community college near Wilmington, NC. The approach was well marked, there were National Guard personnel directing traffic into several lines, checking to confirm appointments and providing forms for completion. The one glitch was that we had pre-filled everything online, but they still had us manually complete paperwork with the same information. Taking the paperwork pre-filled and printed would not have helped.
We arrived at about 10:40 for an 11:00 appointment, and although the lines looked long, we queued up and were directed to the actual vaccination line promptly at 11:00 (not due to any process on their part, it just happened to work out). We sat in our car until someone came around, asked us a few more questions, explained the process and handed us each a card with confirmation of our follow up appointments for the same time and day of the week in four weeks. Shortly thereafter two nurses came up with the vaccine, plunked each of us in the arm, wrote the time on a paper stuck to the windshield, and told us that after the prescribed waiting time we would be released. We rolled out of the parking lot at 11:30.
The Vaccine: Did we have any concerns about getting the vaccine? None. We feel strongly that the vaccines have been adequately tested, we trust in the scientific validity of the data and believe that getting the vaccine has a much lower level of risk than not getting it. Everyone makes their own choice, but we feel that in order to do the kind of travel we want to do, more states, countries and companies will require a vaccination than not and we don’t want to be left out when the time comes.
Side Effects: None really, but it surprises me how hyper-aware we become when we’re looking for something. I call it “new shoe syndrome” because of how when we buy a new pair of shoes we spend days paying attention to every little twinge or pinch. We recently bought new tires for the car, and for the first few drives I paid close attention to the sound, feel and ride. After a while you forget about it. We stopped at a restaurant for lunch, and while there a guy came in wearing a really strong cologne. Strong odors like cologne and smelly air fresheners always bother me, so when my throat got a little scratchy I wrote it off. No big deal. Our arms hurt for a few days, especially while we slept. But my left hip is often sore anyway, and since I got my shot in my left arm, I just spent more time on my right side!
Eligibility: We’ve read about people gaming the system by falsely answering the questions, crossing state lines to states with more favorable rules or otherwise getting the shot before they should have. Kathy & I waited for our group to be called, answered all the questions truthfully and lucked into an early appointment. Could we have waited? Sure, but why? Everyone who wants a shot will eventually be able to get one, so it really doesn’t matter when we go. Could we have gotten an appointment closer to home? Perhaps, but once we got our appointments I stopped looking. I read somewhere about local appointments now booking out into May or June, but it doesn’t matter any more. The owner of the restaurant we had lunch at told us that someone called him the other afternoon to say that they had 15 Johnson & Johnson shots that were going to expire at the end of the day and to send along anyone who needed them. That happens too, you never know.
I don’t really have a lot to add. If anyone has questions I’ll be happy to answer them as comments or emails. Ultimately everyone is going to make their own decision and have their own experience, but I’ll help where I can.
The Photos: These photos are from the town of Rowland, NC which is on the NC side of the NC/SC line near South of the Border. They are in-camera JPEGs taken using the Kodachrome 64 recipe from Fuji X Weekly. The conditions were less than ideal for Kodachrome and look a little warm/brown for my taste, but I’m not sure I got the white balance right. I’ll try them again under sunny skies and see how they look. I also shot in RAW and will process those my usual way for comparison. It’s an interesting look and I’ve been enjoying playing with them.
Anyone who has traveled I-95 up or down the east coast has seen them. Endless billboards, counting down the miles to Pedro’s Place – South Of The Border at the NC/SC line. Sayings that these days might trouble the Easily Offended, but meant and usually taken in good fun.
YOU NEVER SAUSAGE A PLACE!
(YOU’RE ALWAYS A WEINER AT PEDRO’S!)
Growing up in western Pennsylvania, my family vacationed in the mountains of North Carolina, where my dad was from. On the one occasion I can remember when we went to the Outer Banks, we drove across North Carolina to the coast. I don’t remember how we got back, but we never went that far south.
Kathy’s family, on the other hand, made an annual summer vacation trek to Florida from Ohio. Back in the 60s, there was no I-77, or at least it didn’t go as far as it does now, so the preferred route was the PA Turnpike to somewhere in eastern PA, probably Breezewood, then over to I-95 to Florida.
So imagine, riding down I-95, July in North Carolina, 3 kids in the back seat of a Volkswagen Somethingorother with no air conditioning, Day 2 of a 3-day adventure, tired, hungry and bored. Those signs looked like an oasis to a person dying of thirst in the desert. The closer they got, coming from either direction, the higher the hopes. Seeing the signs for miles and miles, until as the border approached, the Sombrero-topped observation tower and the 100+ foot tall Pedro statue loomed on the horizon. Three kids silently willing dad to take the exit. But he drives on by, hopes dashed for another year.
So on our trip out to Bolivia, NC this past week, Kathy realized a lifelong dream – I took her to South Of The Border! 🙂 And it was about what we expected. We had an average lunch served by an enthusiastic but largely ineffective waitress, prepared by what I imagined to be a single moody cook, preparing each meal in the order in which it was received. The interior of The Sombrero Room Restaurant, while clean and cozy, looked like it might have been salvaged from a former Chi-Chi’s. We didn’t go into any of the shops, but they looked to be filled with the kinds of things we call “mommy-can-I-gets,” to tempt gullible kids (and their parents) into leaving some of their money behind for Pedro’s safekeeping.
The place evidently attracts a crowd during peak tourism season – it’s been in business and growing steadily for 70 years. There is something for everyone – a gas station, truck stop, motel, two restaurants, a convenience store (actually two), a campground and more shops than I can count. Not to mention the observation tower and 100 foot Pedro! But on this grey chilly Thursday in March there appeared to be more employees than guests. It’s certainly attractive – clean and colorful and large enough to make it impossible to miss and almost as impossible to ignore. I’m sure many strong-willed dads continue to resist the pull of the place, but many more likely succumb to the wishes and requests of their passengers.
Kathy and I received our first dose of Covid 19 vaccine yesterday. Getting it involved a trip to Bolivia. Bolivia, North Carolina, that is! 🙂
When North Carolina announced a few weeks ago that they would be opening up vaccinations to Group 4 (our group), I knew that because it included anyone from 18-64 it was going to be a huge group unless they somehow broke it down. Well, they did, sort of. They determined that the first wave would be people 18-64 with pre-existing health conditions, which in my opinion (and the CDC’s guidelines) is just about everyone. That essentially created a huge group vying for the next batch of vaccine, especially when I’m not sure how good of a dent they’ve made on the 65 and up crowd. I know all or most of our neighbors have gotten it, but we have a pretty aware and active bunch.
Anticipating a wait of days or weeks, I went online Wednesday morning with my pre-saved folder of websites for the local hospitals and county health organizations. These websites are extremely aggravating, as most of them require you to enter and re-enter information, only to take you to a page that says there are no appointments available. I don’t know if it is result of poor (or no) user testing or if it is intentionally designed to keep people from continually refreshing multiple pages. There has to be a better way, but I’m not smart enough to figure it out!
When I went to the website for Novant Health, one of our two large local hospital networks and one for which I already had an online profile, a few clicks took me to a page to show what appointments were available. There were no appointments available locally, but they were showing numerous appointments available at Brunswick Community College in Bolivia, North Carolina. Where the @#$%^ is Bolivia, I asked? Well, Bolivia is a little crossroads just outside of Southport and near Wilmington, in the southeast corner of the state and a little over 200 miles away. Kathy & I immediately snagged appointments for the same time on the same day. ROAD TRIP!
Of course it doesn’t take much of an excuse for us to load up the car and head somewhere. But the promise of a vaccination appointment just two days away was not a hard decision to make. So we found a motel, an Italian restaurant and a place for breakfast, just like we would do anywhere. It’s good to have lots of practice. 😉
I’ll talk more about the trip and the vaccination process in another post, but suffice it to say it was smooth as silk. They automatically provided us with appointments for our second dose in the same place at the same time in 4 weeks, so we’ll go back and do it all over again!
Oh, and we made some photo stops along the way there and back, so that will also be the subject of future posts! 🙂
We’ve passed by Lake Okeechobee on a number of occasions as we’ve transited central Florida, but have never taken the time to stop until this last time. The reason we hadn’t seen the lake before is that it is almost completely surrounded by a 30 foot earthen dike, preventing views of the lake from the roadway, but keeping the water where it belongs.
The only way to actually see the lake is at one of the access points to the Lake Okeechobee Scenic Trail. Even in the few towns around the lake there is no actual ‘lakefront.’ There is a large roadside park at the Port Mayaca Lock and Dam on the east side of the lake about 30 miles south of the town of Okeechobee. We stopped there on our way to Okeechobee, where we spent the night before heading out to St. Augustine.
We only spent about an hour at this stop, but it looks like a place with a lot of photographic opportunities depending on weather conditions. If you don’t mind man-made objects like dams and pilings in your photos they might really add some interest to a nice morning or evening sky. We had a few clouds around for our time there, but it was a little early in the evening for really nice light. It had already been a long enough day, so we went on to our day’s destination. We’ll see about returning for longer on a future trip!
While we didn’t specifically look for wildlife during our time in Florida, we did come across some examples of the local fauna. Here are a few of my non-wildlife-photographer results. I don’t think I ever saw an armadillo in the wild before. If I did I don’t remember it. I have seen plenty of the others, however.
I did a postcard from Lake Placid a few weeks ago but wanted to share a few more of the photos. I know 25 seems like more than a few, but there are a lot of murals!
Small towns these days have to work hard to attract tourism, and these murals are a testament to the pride of the community and the hard work required to see the project to completion on such a grand scale. It was an enjoyable day, we had a good lunch and enjoyed a few hours walking around this pleasant town. Thanks to our friends Bill & Cathy for sharing it with us! 🙂
I have a number of “non-mural” photos too, and will save them to illustrate some future post.
