Oh, the beauty of rest days.
We have been staying at Occoneechee State Park -- a lovely campground on the lake. We can't swim in the lake (safety reasons...and the uranium, that's another story) but it's lovely to look at.
It was one of those of utilitarian rest days. I got a lot done in a relatively short period of time and then was able to relax and just enjoy the scenery.
Day started with asking Ammon if he would drive us into town so we could get breakfast and laundry done..go to the library. We would buy him breakfast of course. So, a bunch of us piled into the back of the truck and headed across the bridge.
(you may have noticed the new "tones" to my photos. Look out, I've discovered (finally) how to do that on my camera, so...there will be a lot of that while I play with it)
We pulled into this parking lot to check the library hours and asked a woman where a decent place to eat was. This has been so key to finding decent diners across the country. You gotta ask the locals. We were going to go to this one place at a hotel, but this woman said the only place to go to eat was at the Blue Collar Cafe. Name was good.
"She'll serve you a home cooked meal."
Even better.
This place was great. It was tiny. The waitress asked if we wanted smoking or non-smoking, which was funny since there were only about 12 tables total in the place. We chose non-smoking. There was an older woman working the grill in the back, she smiled at us as we came in.
We took a look at the menu and loved the prices. "Damn, you can get a Rib Eye and Eggs for six bucks," said Patrick.
I have to say...that pretty much on any given rest day, I will go out to breakfast to get eggs over easy and toast. And sausage. So, I've eaten in a lot of diners over the course of this trip. This place...number one. By far. There was a pretty good place in Taos, but...this place had the best potatoes ever. You could tell they were homemade..they had great texture, kind of like potato pancakes. Eggs were perfect. And Patrick got that Rib Eye, and it was a decent size even for the price.
The cook, who was also the owner, named Nancy...came over to us and talked with us a little about the walk. We told her how much we loved the food. She told us that she bought the place several years ago from a white woman, also named Nancy, who had bought it in 1951 ("Of course, the colored couldn't own businesses back in that time.")
"I'm gonna write a book about my restaurant. Would y'all write a little comment or two in this notebook?"
We did..there were lots of comments from all kinds of satisfied customers. So...if you're ever in Clarksville...Blue Collar Diner. It's kinda hard to see off the road, it's just got this little sign and it doubles as a used car lot...so you wouldn't think it was anything. But it's something. Aww..look how adoringly Patrick is looking at Nancy.
After laundry and doing some blog posting at the library I walked back into the camp. Took a lovely, lovely shower (after 3 days...felt good) and then just hung in the woods for a couple of hours; writing, listening to music and sitting.
Wandered back into camp in the late afternoon and hung a bit with Patrick and Gilberto. Played Scrabble with Kathleen and Jen. Listened to Jen and Kid rehearse their musical number (Jen is doing back-up vocals during Kid's performance).
Took a couple of pictures of Masa - the ham - he made me take like, 7 photos of him. I liked this one.
There was a memorial service in the evening to commemorate a massacre that occurred on the island back in 1763 - wiping out most of the remaining Occoneechee Tribe - we learned that out of nearly 2 million people, only several hundred survived throughout contact with Spanish and European settlers over the years. Everyone gathered around the fire and said a prayer - the moon rose over the lake - a blue heron cruised by, squawking - and the breeze kept the fire bright and the camp cool throughout the evening.
I slept well. Good rest day. Nice.
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