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What a weekend...(of course this will be a long read <g>)

Good church friend (gcf) and I left Thursday around 9:30 AM and after a stop to eat a bagged lunch and a stop for gas, we arrived at our hotel in Durham around 6:30. The hotel was SMALL but mostly nice. I have to say "mostly" because we had a NUMBER of leaks on the bathroom. There was a stagnant puddle near the toilet, a steady drip coming from between ceiling panels and a couple leaks near the top of the bathroom mirror causing an almost cascade of water down the mirror. Unfortunately, with all the graduations going on, the hotel was booked solid, so no changing rooms, but a lovely young maintenance man came to our room around 10:00 PM and managed to stop the leaks...and then the next morning, there was a leak in a different place that sent water pouring down the other side of the mirror. Oh well...the beds were comfy, breakfast was nice, the employees at the hotel were all great and we had a fantastic dinner at Captain D's Thursday night. AND I got to watch my Cavs upset the Celtics at home.

Friday was chaotic from start to finish. We checked out of our hotel and drove over to Chapel Hill where I dropped gcf off on E. Franklin street, which is in the heart of downtown CH. I was worried about her spending all that time alone, with no transportation, but she told me later she had a fantastic time walking through the (free!) Ackland Art Museum, then enjoying lunch at Sup Dogs, plus ice cream at Ben and Jerry's before wandering in and out of a few stores. Honestly, she couldn't stop talking about the art museum and her yummy hot dog lunch and people watching <g>. I OTOH, had a bit of trouble getting back to Friday Center where the shuttle was running to and from Carmichael Arena, where the graduation was being held. My Google Maps app decided to suddenly stop "talking" and I was trying to navigate by glances at the screen while traffic around me was frequently either at a standstill or rushing by*

* OK, I need to take a moment to comment on how TERRIBLE NC drivers are. Seriously, maybe not the worst in the country but pretty bad. I'd already told gcf that from past experience, I knew they would constantly do at least 10 MPH over the speed limit and be reluctant to let anyone in if you needed to change lanes, but I wasn't expecting all the honking if you impeded anyone's process even for a second. At one point in Nag's Head, we were on US-158 and a car turned left out of a parking lot just as the car in front of me was trying to turn in. I had brake suddenly...at least three cars behind me honked their displeasure as they zipped over to the next lane and blew past us. Um, sorry for not causing a three car pileup? And almost any time I slowed down just a fraction because I was looking for a destination, I got honked at, even when there was ample room to go around me. Sheesh.

Anyways...I was going to meet Sis and the rest of the gang at the shuttle parking lot, but they got there first and went ahead of me. With all the info Sis sent me about graduation, none of it mentioned the only bags allowed inside the arena had to be clear plastic, so we had to grab the essentials and leave our purses in the car. The ceremony was the usual--long, boring, hot and full of pompous speeches--but I got to see my nephew acknowledged several times for various accolades as well as getting to see him get his degree. Afterwards, there was more confusion as first we had to see if our reservations at The Crosswinds inside Carolina Inn were still good (the ceremony ran almost an hour over) and then when they were, we were told their parking lot was full and we had to find somewhere else to park. I had to park at the Target on E. Franklin Street. Sis and those with her had to park even further out; Sis isn't very mobile, so they wound up taking an Uber back to the restaurant. We were a party of 11; we got some appetizers for the table and then, because it was too late for lunch and too early for dinner, we were told we could only order off the "bar fare" menu, so we got some salads and sliders and fries. The food was pricey but amazing, especially the sweet pea and spinach hummus and the chickpea sliders, but my favorite was the fried lemon slices that came with the fried shrimp. Really, they were better than they sound <g>. Unfortunately, my time with the family ended all too soon...I barely got to speak to my niece and her bf* (soon to be fiancee?) and only had a short time to chat with everyone else.

* he is SUPER reserved, so it's not like we would've had a long, in-depth conversation <g>, but he seems really nice and Niece is obviously head over heels in love, which was lovely to see.

I met gcf at the Target and we headed for Carr Mill Mall in Carrboro. Unfortunately, the website lied...they said they were open till 8:00 PM but what they meant was the restaurants were open till 8:00, while the stores closed at 6:00. We got there at 6:30 :-( We had enough time to grab a bottled beverage to go at the nearby Weaver Street Market before setting out for Nag's Head. When I first thought of this vacation plan, I assumed that the beaches would only be maybe an hour away. Nag's Head is over 3 hours from Chapel Hill, and after my still screwed up Google Maps sent us WAY out of the way to get back to I-40E, we wound up not getting into our hotel until after midnight.

Of course after a winter that saw several sunny 60° days and a warmer than average spring, our beach day started off SUPER windy and cool. We both had jackets on as we strolled the beach (the hotel had beach access right off the back, right from the breakfast area) and the wind whipped our hair around so we could barely see where we were going. But to our delight, we discovered a surf competition going on just a bit westward of our hotel. We watched for a while, then went to Jeannette's Pier where we saw some fishies in a tank and gcf grabbed a bunch of souvenirs for both herself and friends. For lunch, we stopped at Pizzazz which had a very reasonably priced pizza buffet. We even picked up a small pizza to take on the road with us the next day. After Pizzazz, we went to The Christmas Mouse, which is two story Christmas store open year round. No matter what your Christmas decorating style is, and no matter what the theme of your tree is, you can find something here. I got a beautiful decorative box (that had nothing to do with Christmas) and a OBX magnet. Next was Sugar Planet...we were both expecting it to be a candy/fudge/ice cream store but it also had a ton of souvenirs. I picked up truffles for a friend (and yes, some for me) and fudge for Dad (and yes, some for me), and gcf found cute, and cheap*, necklaces for the twin daughters of a good friend of hers.

* Just before leaving for NC, I saw an article that named OBX as one of America's cheapest beach vacation destinations. I'm pleased to say they're right; overall, souvenirs and meals at restaurants were quite a bit cheaper than what you wound find at, say, Myrtle Beach or Virginia Beach or other beachy tourist traps.

We went back to the hotel for a little more beachcombing, then we grabbed dinner at Tortugas Lie, a Caribbean-inspired joint that was small but funky. I was slightly disappointed in my Coco Loco chicken--it was very good but I was expecting it to be uh-MAY-zing--but gcf raved about her burger and fries. We were seated at the bar and a nice guy a little younger than me struck up a conversation with us (mostly me), telling us about how he and his two brothers live in SE Virginia but come to OBX to go "tuna fishing" several times a year. He recommended a few places we should go in OBX...unfortunately, we weren't going to have the time to visit any of them. After dinner, it was back to the hotel in time to see the sun set over the bay (we had a nice view of both the bay to the left and the ocean to the right and to watch the Cavs lose to the Celtics.

Sunday morning, we got up stupid early (for a vacation) so we could have one more free breakfast and another stroll by the ocean before leaving around 8:30. Of course it was already a sunnier, warmer day than Saturday had been. One nice thing about our hotel: it's pet-friendly, so we got to meet a number of delightful doggos and even a friendly cat that belongs to one of the hotel neighbors but likes to hang out by the front door and greet the hotel guests. It was with a heavy heart that we finally left the OBX*...

* I have to admit...most of my life, I associated OBX with the snobby middle class folk around NE Ohio who thought they were better (and richer) than everyone else, and I wasn't sure I was going to like the area. But Nag's Head was...kind of perfect. I went to Virginia Beach 30 years ago...I didn't care for it. It was overcrowded and overpriced and a little dirty. OTOH, Sis raves about Edisto Island and how "unspoiled" and "undeveloped" it is. She loves that there's no major restaurant chains or big box stores on the island...I actually like having a McDonald's or Wendy's or Taco Bell nearby in case you need to stretch your budget with a cheap meal. I was pleasantly surprised to see a number of stores I recognized: Nag's Head has a "mall" with places like Ulta and Homegoods and other familiar names. But they also have a ton of mon and pop places too and it retains that "beachy" feel.

The drive home was...taxing. Because of my uncertainly over my Google Maps (and gcf's complete and utter incompetence when it comes to anything tech), I'd written out the directions. I'd been warned before going to OBX that there's just no good way to get there. The ride down to Durham was amusing because we took I-77 down in a straight shot through 3 states before getting to NC and having to hop from freeway to freeway*

* another knock on NC: you can't hardly anywhere without having to get on a freeway...or two...or three...

The ride back was a twisty, turn-y, two pages of written instructions nightmare, and there was one particularly ugly exchange around Northern VA/Washington DC/Maryland that was confusingly marked and dumped us off the highway almost into a mall and then got us BACK on the highway. And of course I was in the wrong lane and had to switch lanes, and of course the driver behind me laid on his horn and wouldn't get off it for quite some time. We encountered a number of places in VA where traffic was just...stopped, for no apparent reason. Or it was slow for no apparent reason. Virginians...is this normal? What was supposed to be a 9 hour and 43 minute trip home turned into just over 13 hours, including a 30 minute stop for lunch and at least two stops for gas, one of which wound up taking us further away from the highway than we wanted to be. I had to drop off gcf first, passing almost by my house, and didn't pull into my own driveway until almost 10:00 PM, after leaving Nag's Head around 8:40 AM. I'm not saying I will never again do a long road trip, especially when I'm doing all the driving...but I'm hoping not to do another long road trip for a while.

But seeing my nephew's face light up and getting a hug from him when we first met up at his graduation? And hearing my friend thank me repeatedly for bringing her along and going on about how much she loved the beach and walking along, picking up shells? Worth it.