Heading for the pool in Uncle Alan and Aunt Liz’s golf cart

A few days after my son and his family arrived from England, we all traveled from Greensboro to Beaufort, North Carolina to visit my oldest daughter and her husband, Aunt Liz and Uncle Alan to the children. Liz and Alan own a boat repair business near the coast. Their housing development also has a pool that everyone happily jumped into.

For a bonus, Liz’s daughter, Melanie was visiting at the same time, with her son (my great-grandson) Vinny. Although she lives in Greensboro, we don’t get to see them often enough. Freya and James had a blast playing with Vinny in between all the other activities on the long weekend.

The Olympics started that weekend and they made a nice background to the other things we did, providing entertainment and conversation starters when things got quieter.

On Sunday, Alan took us for a boat excursion around the Back Sound and out to the Cape Lookout National Seashore and the beach that sits in the shadow of the hulking Cape Lookout Lighthouse. Along the way we got a view of the city of Beaufort from the water and even saw a group of wild horses milling around on the shore of one of the protected islands of the Rachel Carson Wildlife Preserve.

We spent some time on the beach, with the children dabbling and swimming in the calm, clear water. Some of us walked up to the lighthouse, though we came to regret doing that barefoot, since the sand in some places was really hot. Afterward we had a picnic lunch on the boat before returning. (Boat picture from Stephanie McCullough.)

On Monday we checked out the pier and a few shops in Atlantic Beach before returning for a great dinner of shrimp and fish fillets cooked on the grill by Alan.

Tuesday meant a trip to New Bern, a town with a lot of history and some very neat shops and places to eat. We skipped the old governor’s mansion, which is worth a visit, but we’d done it before.

Instead we stopped in at the Birthplace of Pepsi museum, a modest storefront selling Pepsi products in bottles as well as ice cream and a variety of souvenirs. They do have a nice display of older bottles and promo items for Pepsi products. Since my son is a major consumer of Mountain Dew, when he can get it, the place pressed a few of his buttons.

We checked out a couple of wonderful shops, including one that featured marvelous blown-glass items by local artists. Prices were way out of my range, but I still admired the wonderful creativity and artistry on display. After a great lunch at Captain Morgan’s eatery, we hit a couple more shops, including a neat candy shop that had a variety of old-fashioned candies before heading for home.

Later that day some of the family went to a local arcade where the owner refurbishes and sells game machines popular in the eighties and nineties. While waiting for them to sell he leaves them available for use. And, as my son explained, since they’re older, they still have the older prices. You can play games for a quarter! Ten dollars worth of quarters kept them all entertained for a couple of hours.

The next day we bid a melancholy farewell and headed back to Greensboro.