An incredibly beautiful day, I need to exercise and there's an empty beach.   ..

What a perfect weekend for TV watching since the weather outside is frightful - ice and snow on the ground, 12 degrees below I've-never-been-this-cold-before with a wind chill that could make a big pair of Dumbo ears like mine freeze and break off. To add insult to injury, the miserably cold weather has been the same for 4 days in a row - unheard of in these parts.  ..

And what more needs to be said? ..

A dinner cruise - with delightful company and spectacular views of the water around us and above, an enormous, full rising moon - should have been enough. The night was still young when we arrived back at the dock, and Susan and I hadn't eaten much dinner and were still a little hungry. So instead of calling it a night and walking back to the hotel, we walked in the opposite direction to explore and find a good restaurant to have a glass of wine and an appetizer or two to finish off a perfect evening. Little did we know we'd find a rose among a lot of thorns.  ..

Some weekends just work and even though the family was scattered east and west in North Carolina, from Linville to Atlantic Beach (and Wilson, of course) and north and south from New York to New Orleans, it's been a picture perfect weekend. I'm at the beach doing my normal beach stuff - running errands, putzing around the cottage, taking long walks and having a good meal or two (...or three). Susan, Elizabeth and Page are on a girl's trip to New York while Joe and Alex are in Raleigh for a birthday and an action-packed, fun-filled Alex-centric weekend. Anderson and Campbell are on the wedding circuit and Cotton and Sawyer are left behind at home in Raleigh. In the meantime, my cousin entertained her father and friends with a special dinner in Wilson while Johnny and Susan visited Claire in New Orleans. Enough of the words....I'll let the pictures tell the story of one family's fan-damn-tastic weekend.  ..

It was that kind of week - the type that leaves me feeling jumpy and nervous; wondering what's going on in this crazy world. Every time I turned on the TV there was "Breaking News", which is never breaking "good news". That wording, highlighted in bold red print, grabs my attention and (whether intended or not) raises my anxiety level. On the radio, pundits were constantly arguing (as they usually are these days). Politicians are tweeting about each other, the "fake" news media and "Hollywood" types. It's a vicious circle that I wanted to escape, if only for a day.  ..

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Do I like eating by myself? No - but am I going to miss a great meal because I'm by myself? Definitely not (stop that snickering in the back row). This weekend Susan had to work and by Thursday was forced to cancel our weekend at the beach...well....HER weekend at the beach....but I wasn't going to miss mine.  ..

There was a turtle nest on the beach near our beach cottage and over the past 58 days we've watched it, kept curious grandkids from exploring it and distracted the grand-dogs so they wouldn't realize it was there. I hoped it would hatch while everyone was there but when they left on Sunday afternoon, nothing was happening. One last look at 8pm on Sunday night confirmed there was still no baby turtle activity and it was time to drive home to prepare for the week ahead. There's nothing like being anxious to witness a turtle hatch and then being an hour into a trip home to make the stars align. On the bridge over the Trent and Neuse Rivers in New Bern, almost halfway home, we received the call.  ..

Perhaps I'm not the best person to write about tobacco or farming since I have never owned a pick-up truck and haven't done a day's worth of back-breaking work to plant, maintain, or harvest crops. I don't recall going to a tobacco auction - although they were once so common here that I heard the auctioneer's chant and saw the frenzied activities inside many times when I passed a warehouse. The truth is I have no expertise in anything to do with tobacco - except - I grew up in Wilson, North Carolina when it was known as the "The World's Greatest Tobacco Market" and maybe that's all it takes.  ..