Sunday

We spent most of today at our friends' house (Chris and Jessica). They live down on the waterfront of the Pamlico river, and it really is beautiful down there. This is the view they have from their porch:



Our friend, Jeff, from Seattle was here for the weekend, so we got to see him, too. He was unfortunately here for a funeral (he was friends with the man who died in that tragic motorcycle accident here on highway 11....so sad). But it was nice to see him even if the circumstances of his trip to this side of the country were not all that wonderful.

It was really cool to spend the day out on the waterfront, drinking (a little), eating (a LOT), and talking and catching up. We really just don't get to see Chris and Jessica that often. The drive to get there is about an hour. And while that might not seem like much, we are all trying to work, and weekends seem to get eaten up with home maintenance, yard work, and all that kind of stuff. Blech. Plus, we all have a houseful of pets. That is one of the best parts of hanging out with Chris and Jessica though. They have dogs and cats running all over their house, so they don't even blink an eye at having to step over piles of sleeping dogs, or kitties trying to steal food off your plate at our place. That makes it nice. Pet lovers gravitate to other animal lovers, I think. But the pet thing can make things tricky for getting away. We got Stephen to drop by and let the dogs out at least once over the course of the day, so....yeah. Its hard. Oh, and you have to factor in that Chris works in Wilson, which is quite a big commute for him. Every day! I don't know how he does it. He drives about 180 miles round trip on a daily basis.

We had a storm come through this area a few weeks ago that damaged their bulkhead. From the porch we could see the damage, and that a big chunk of the yard had disappeared into the river. But we had NO idea just how big the hole actually was. It was an optical illusion. From our view, it appeared to be deep, but maybe only about 5 feet wide. When we walked out there to see it up close, we were all amazed at just how large a chunk of earth was missing. It was more like about 20 feet in width. They are in the process of having the bulkhead repaired right now. But then there is going to have to be a huge amount of dirt brought in to fill in that hole.

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I don't envy the expense of that repair....like at ALL! But it was a good day, and we wish Jeff safe travels as he flies back home to Washington (state) tomorrow.