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Visiting a museum and eating at Dooley'sSaturday morning arrived, and although I had gone to bed at 2 am the previous (or
rather this) night, I still woke up at 7 and could not go back to sleep, but I
stayed in bed with a book until 8 am. I should actually have woken up in the old
dentist's office on Margaret and Dick Martine's property (now rented out as
Airbnb), but due to the delays en route from Copenhagen to North Carolina, I
found myself instead at a Holiday Inn hotel near Charlotte-Douglas International
Airport. The day before, I had been in contact with Margaret and told her that I
probably would not arrive on Friday, and had been told that they were not at
home all Saturday, as they were going to a 100 years birthday party. They would
therefore leave the door to the "office" open and place the key on the coffee
table, and then I could just come whenever I wanted. NB! The house is far out in
the countryside, where you not simply pass by and it can't be seen from the road
so the risk of someone discovering the open door by chance and stealing
something is absolutely minimal, if it exists at all.
My Dodge Charger Daytona Hemi race car parked outside Margaret and Dick's house before I moved it away a bit so it did not block the driveway. I mentioned in my first
article from the trip,
Delayed - again that when
I got the car at night, it was not exactly the car I had booked from home. I had
booked, as I always do, a so-called full-size, ie, typically something the size
of a Chevrolet Malibu, Mazda 6 or Toyota Camry or something like that, and the
car I had received was almost the right size. It was a little bit longer than a
normal full-size, but besides that it was not much like a normal car in the
samew group from the rental company. The car I had got was a bright red (with
black staffing front, roof and rear) Dodge Charger Daytona Hemi (which was
obvious from the staffings on the car) This is a so-called "muscle car", as Ford
Mustang and Chevrolet Camaro are also named. In 2010, Tim and I drove such a
Camaro, but on that occasion we paid for an upgrade. I did not do that this
time, just got the other category with no extra charge. I have to perhaps add
that the Daytona has a little more muscle than the other two mentioned - at
least than the smaller versions of these. This "animal" was equipped with an
engine of 6.4 liters and 397 horsepower, though I wonder how the made room under
the hood for all these large animals. It turned out to be an excellent car, even
if I did not use its potential powers at all. I simply have too much respect for
the size of the American speeding fines that one has to pay on the spot as a
foreigner, so I rarely got over 85 mph, where there were 70 (except for a single
overtaking on a highway, where I hit 100 mph/160 km/h), and by and large I kept
to the speed limits, so it was typically me who was overtaken on the freeway -
even by large trucks In fact, the only flaw with the car was its appetite - or
perhaps rather thirst. On average over the entire trip, I drove 23.5 miles per
gallon or 10 km/l. In the mountains much less, and even though the gas only
costs around DKK 7 a liter (less than half the price that we pay in Denmark - a
little over $10 per gallon) with the dollar exchange rate that was going around
Easter (Americans think it's a horrible price - and they don't even have to
convert the currency), and even though I only drove one really long drive, my
fuel consumption became a bigger expense than I have been used to on this type
of vacation, where I live somewhere and am not on a road trip. Iredell Museums is (of
course) the workplace of the museum's director, Emily Baker (and another
employee), and it was just Emily I had come to say "Hello" to. Emily is the
model who appears as "ghostly Laura" on the cover of my book, and as a thank you
for that, I would therefore give her the two mugs. Actually, I had them made
already in 2020, right after I had published the book, which I had sent her, but
as covid-19 came in the way, my trip was cancelled so I could not give her the
mugs, so that gift was now two years late - probably the same delay, as if I had
sent them by Post Nord (the Danish notoriously late postal service). When I
entered the museum I first saw a lady I did not recognize (the assistant) and
who did not know me, but Emily came out from the back. Emily is a trained
historian specializing in medical history, and has previously been the head of
the department in Old Salem Historic District in Winston-Salem that deals
specifically with medicinal and medical history. Now I got to give her the two
mugs, and then she had to explain to her assistant what it was all about. We
chatted for about 45 minutes before I continued. Before I left, I asked for the
address of their "outdoor area", Gregory Creek Homestead, as I would like to
visit this place one of the days I was in the area. After visiting the museum, I took a walk around downtown and recorded a video that was posted on my YouTube channel, Glocal Explorer, on Saturday, May 7, 2022, so if you're interested in seeing how the city (or at least some of it) looks like, you can watch the video there. Incidentally, there will be new videos from the trip every Saturday until mid-July 2022, where there will be another topic, whatever it may be. Along the way, I passed the Statesville Historical Collection, where I wanted to see if my friend Steve Hill, who has collected everything on display and much more, and who runs the collection with volunteers, was present. He is usually not on the weekend, if you have not arranged a meeting in advance, and he was not this Saturday either. From Statesville, the
county seat of Iredell County, I continued west to Lenoir, the county seat of
Caldwell County. Here too I would visit the local history museum, to present a
copy of my book to the museum director there, Cindy Day, who was very helpful
during my most recent visit in 2019. I have more about that story on
the page
from the summer trip in 2019. Unfortunately the
museum was closed, which it usually isn't on Saturdays, but outside the flag was
flying at half mast, and it was on other public buildings in the city - but not
in other cities I visited, so something to mourn must have happened locally.
Next stop was Wilkesboro, county seat of Wilkes County (county seat visit day
this Saturday). By the time I got there, it was around 4.30 pm, so I decided to
have an early dinner at Dooley's Tavern and Grill, a pub with excellent food,
before heading out to the house. I had myself a Tom Dooley Club Sandwich with
turkey and ham (and more). Not a regular club sandwich though. This version
consisted of small square pieces of sandwich bread with meat and dressing in
between, and then put on a skewer. About 10 pieces of bread with filling on each
skewer, of which there were two. And the meal had been ample for two people. I
simply could not eat my way through it all. For the food, I drank my favorite in
the area, a hard cider and later a Pepsi, and it all came to less than $20,
tips included. Then I was ready, and could now drive to the house without having
to leave again until the next day. Should I get hungry later in the evening, I
had my fruit and a bag of chips that I had bought at Walmart, but it proved not
to be necessary - so much did I eat at the diner. |