Pfoderie: TRIP TO THE PINES OF NORTH CAROLINA Part 2

Monday morning we woke up well rested and fully recuperated from the long trip. I got up at 5:30am and after our coffee I had the privilege to tour the entire tobacco farm with Tim. I came back to the house with great information and knowledge, from seeding ,growing, harvesting, drying, bailing to selling tobacco.

Around 10am Donna and I left the house and drove to Sneads Ferry a town on the North Carolina coast to visit Vickie, Donna's cousin. We arrived early and had some time before Vickie finished work, so we decided to find a seafood restaurant on the beach. We had some cravings for some really fresh fish. We drove a few miles up and down the coast and all we found was a diner and an Italian restaurant. So we drove all the way to Surf City and settled for a fun beach place. Food was OK, since we been very hungry.

Donna found the beverage menu

Colorful beach restaurant

Shortly after 5pm we drove to Vickie and Gary's house and were greeted by both of them.
Vickie met Gary last October and they will get married this October in their mountain home.

We spent the first hour cooling off in the pool with some beverage and later had a great Spaghetti Dinner with some more beverages. We all reminisced about past adventures until late in the night We had a fabulous time.

Gary and Vickie's back deck

Cocktails before dinner

Gary and Vickie relaxing after dinner

Next morning we where planing on swimming in the Pacific Ocean, but first we went to buy a half bushel of fresh oysters. The fishermen and his wife explained to us that the coast here is full of sharks and 2 people where bitten just the past week, all this because of the extreme hot weather. There goes my desire to go swimming. We only walked ankle deep in the water up and down the beach mostly looking for some extraordinary shells.

Donna collecting shells

To bad there are sharks out there, they kept me from swimming

We cut the beach time short and headed back to pines. Arriving at the house I had to clean and scrub half of the oyster and open them for our dinner. Aaron, Donna, Tim and myself enjoyed them tremendously and even Carol tried a few.

Wednesday was for us to relax. First, Carol helped us to bring our rental car back. After we had to get ready for the kids arrival. Later that afternoon, Brian and I left for Southern Pines to pick up some Sushi and Sashimi at Ten-Ya for everybody's dinner, an adventure in its self, since our GPS went out, but we found the Restaurant and the way home with no problem to speak of.

Lots of fun trying to inflate the air bed for the kids

Allways time for the babies

Windy is ready to take one of them home

Aaron has lots of talent, he plays great classical music on the piano, he is great with the kids,

he was teaching Jacob to play in no time

Thursday, after donuts for breakfast, Brian chauffeured Windy, Donna, Jacob, Luke and myself to Charlotte. They were going to see the Nascar Hall of Fame while Donna and I went to visit our dear friend Jill.

Brian knows how to treat his boys

Hall of fame main entrance

Waiting for Jill to pick us up

Jill picked us up and we had so much to reminisce about our lives the past 5 years, and later we joined the Spalding family for lunch at Dish, a famous Diner, advertised on a Food Network's Diner's, Drive-in's and Dive's TV show. To my surprise the food was excellent.

Window shopping downtown Charlotte

The famous diner " Dish"

                          Back home, at Carol and Tim's place, we finish the day with lots of Heineken and good pizza.

                          Friday, our last day of vacation in North Carolina. It started off with Brian trying his hand as a tobacco farmer topping and removing undesired grow on the tobacco plant, row by row in sweltering heat.

                         Pete picked me up at the house later on this morning and we went to rescue Brian, taking him with us for another educational tour. We visited Gary's farm with acres of asparagus, corn and tobacco fields and we also had a glance at Pete's landscaping business.

Aaron as a tennis pro takes time out to teach Jacob

and Luke

( sorry there are no action shots from this tennis session, my photographer took only shots of them picking up balls)

In the afternoon I attempted to open up the rest of the oysters. The first oyster would not cooperate with me and I stabbed myself in the hand. Beside losing lots of blood and a bruised ego, there was not much damage. After Donna and Brian doctored me up I went on and shucked over 100 oysters without incident.

Next we had to make a Beer run and Brian and I organized the coolers for to nights Family reunion. It was fabulous. I believe all the family members and lots of friends came to the party and most every body brought some food. We all enjoyed a great cookout with hamburgers, giant hot dogs, potato salad, cole slaw, baked beans, deviled eggs, cookies, brownies and ice cream.

Happy Aaron and his friend Fran

Pete and Brian talking work

Chuck and Donna and Tim's hand

Gary and Pete bogarting the oysters

Mike, Gary and Hanna

Mike and Jane

Jacob, Hanna, Becky and Jane

Jane, Lewin, Chuck and Tim chilling on the front porch

Jacob organized a ping pong tournament and to nobodies surprise Aaron and Mike made it to the final, with Mike, who is Hanna's long time boyfriend, becoming the grand champion.

The rest of us men "competed" on the round table drinking and testing different kind of liqueur with Tim's real West Virginia Moonshine earning top honors.

Round table conference presided over by Hanna

We just solved another problem

Notice, the front row is sober

Heavy discussion

Meeting about to be adjorned

My new buddy Mike

I believe it is safe to say that everyone had a very enjoyable and happy time at the party!

We left Tim and Carol's house the next morning at 9:15am local time to start our trip back to Missouri. Brian, who never lets anybody drive, subcomed to the moonshine from the night before and had to leave the driving to Windy for the first couple hours. He took over after that and brought us home to
St Charles safely at Midnight.