On our last couple of days in Lumberton, we just mostly chilled out at the Caldwell House, and then we moved on to our motel for our last night in town. However, we did manage to get a few walks in around the area. Linda and I both noticed that the humidity seemed to be much higher in North Carolina than it was in Florida. This was probably due to the fact that there was a breeze blowing most of the time in Florida so we may not have noticed it as much. At any rate, we took a walk late one morning and we were dripping and dragging by the time we got back to home base! On one of our walks, we went to Stephens Park, which is only around the corner from Brad's house, and a few blocks from the house we used to live in. We used to walk there quite often when we were in Lumberton. It is a beautiful place. Below are some pictures and video that I took on our walks. If you want to hear the bird songs, turn your sound up for the videos.
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| Cypress knees along the banks of the Lumber River |
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| Approaching Stephens Park |
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| Yellow-Rumped Warbler |
The part of the river that runs through Lumberton is now named, appropriately, the Lumber River. The entire river is 133 miles long and was originally named Drowning Creek (which is still the name of the river's headwater, or origin point). This part of the river was originally called the Lumbee River by the local Native Americans, which means "black water" in their language. At some point after the town was settled, the name was officially changed to Lumber River because it was used to transport logs for the logging industry, which was a main industry at the time.
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| Lumber River |
I saw this dragonfly on the ground on the banks of the river. I thought it was dead, but it was so pretty I took a picture of it anyway. The other day I read that sometimes female dragonflies will lay on the ground and play dead, so that the male dragonflies will leave them alone. So she may not have been dead after all, just faking it. I love how the upper part of her body is "Carolina Blue".
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| Dragonfly |
We walked past our old house one last time. We had such good times in this little house, at first working on it with Mike and Scott to get it in shape, and then enjoying the fruits of our labor. However, we went a little overboard with planting bushes, I do believe.
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| Our little house when we lived in Lumberton |
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| Placing a coin |
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| Mike & Scott's previous house |
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| Mike & Linda |
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| Scott |
We had a nice visit with our friends and enjoyed the tour of their new home. Mike went into great detail (as usual, LOL) on the different elements of their house. After the tour of the house, Mike went outside to grill the chicken for lunch. I sat outside and talked to him while he grilled. I was glad he was outside grilling because while we were inside, I was about to freeze. Even though the temperature was in the high 90's and the humidity was high, I had chill bumps on my arms. Yes, you guessed it, I was getting sick. We managed to visit with our friends until mid-afternoon, then we had to cut our visit short because I was burning up with a fever. We went back to the motel and I immediately got into bed. Some time during the night I sweated out my fever and by the next morning I felt good enough to head out on our return trip home.
Below is some hummingbird video I managed to shoot at Mike and Scott's while I was sitting outside, freezing to death. They were all over the place! I was so jealous!!
THE TRIP BACK HOME
We took a different route on the way home because we were further north at our starting point. The trip back home was pretty much uneventful, even though I felt bad the entire time. I was so afraid this cold that I had was going to turn into pneumonia, but thankfully it didn't. My birthday, June 27th, was my worst day. I spent the entire day napping in the front passenger seat while Linda drove all day. But by the time we got to our motel that night, I was beginning to feel better.
We didn't really encounter any problems on the way home, but we have voted our "Denver Day" the worst day of the entire month-long trip. If you ever decide to go through that area, I suggest you bypass Denver if at all possible. The traffic was horrific, and this is coming from two old ladies who have had to navigate through the Seattle traffic on numerous occasions. The traffic jam began well before we even reached Denver, and continued until we were out of the state. This means that traffic was backed up on a four-lane interstate almost all the way through the entire state of Colorado! It was unbelievable. Needless to say, we are NEVER going through Denver again.
We did pass through a lot of beautiful country on our trip back, with some interesting and strange objects included. Below are some pictures that bear witness to that fact.
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| "The Pyramid" Bass Pro Shop outside Memphis, TN |
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| Entering Washington State |
And so it is that on June 28th, we arrived back home in Yakima in the early afternoon. I don't think I've ever been so happy to arrive at home. Of course, the first order of business was to go see if I could find Summer Girl, since she tends to hide when we are gone for a long time. I walked out the back door and started calling her, and before I could even reach the garden area, I could hear her plaintive little meows. Here's what I found in the garden on the straw.
Later that afternoon, I was able to entice her inside the house. She settled in on my lap with the most contented look on her little face.
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| Our sweet girl |
All in all, we had traveled 7,252.5 miles on our journey and had gone through most of the states in the southern half of the country. While in St. Augustine, we had come across a gift shop that had magnets of all the states. We purchased the ones that we had been through and posted them on our refrigerator when we got home. Please note, we did not actually go through the state of California on this trip, but we put it on the map just because we have made that trip so many times in the past.
That evening, we had what I have to say was the BEST gin and tonic drinks that we have ever had...served in our new (old) Heisey Rose stemware that was given to us by our dear friend Brad.
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| The BEST gin & tonic |
Thus ends our road trip Back East. I want to thank everyone who reads this blog for sticking with me while I documented our trip. I hope it was interesting and informative for the most part.
Next week I'm going to take a break so there will be no post, but I plan to return with a new, more recent, post on September 25th!
I hope to see you back here then!
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