A Childhood Dream Fulfilled At Last
Posted on | March 30, 2006 at 10:14 pm | 2 Comments
Okay, here’s the report of my vacation trip last weekend at long last. I’m just going to hit the highlights, so I can get something up about it before I forget everything. Been really busy since getting back. Last night I got to see the Denver Nuggets lose live to the Utah Jazz at the Pepsi Center, from the comfort of a suite. That was cool, except for the loss, of course. Anyway, onto the trip report (click on any of the pix for the larger version)…
The purpose of the vacation was to go visit my friends Shalini and Mitch (and Revvo and Mercury and Sunshine) in the Winston-Salem/Greensboro area of North Carolina. I like to get out there every year or every other year or so, but it had been about three since I was last out there. North Carolina is beautiful country and so different from Colorado. The Southern hospitality is awesome.
I headed out early Thursday morning for the airport and had to drive in some of the densest fog I’ve ever encountered. Good thing I left early. It took over an hour to drive there and in some spots I was crawling along at 25 MPH and was not able to see more than a few feet in front of me. It reminded me of the days driving home from the studio in Genesee late at night. Just trying to find the turnoffs was a chore, and I was always happy to find another car in the murk to follow. I was afraid that the flight would be cancelled (or delayed, which would be bad too, since I had to catch a connecting flight), but the plane took off only a half hour late due to de-icing the wings. We lifted off in the heavy fog, but it didn’t take long to get up into the sunshine. The pilot was able to make up the time and we landed on schedule.
Mitch and Shalini picked me up at the Raleigh/Durham airport, then we made our way east to Wilmington. The weather was kind of cold and a bit rainy, but I found it a welcome change from the dryness of Denver. The town itself has an old world charm with interesting looking buildings. After arriving, we toured a bit of downtown Wilmington on foot, including a stop at a watering hole with a lot of… local color. The bar patrons were very friendly. Then we met up with Wilmington residents Holt, Elizabeth, and Charles for dinner at a local Asian restaurant. The food was very good, but I was still suffering a bit from a bout of food poisoning or something the previous weekend and wasn’t able to eat as much as I wanted to (the lingering effects of that were pretty much gone by the next day). But the food and the company made for a really good time. Unfortunately, I forgot to take any pictures at the restaurant, a bad trend that would continue. We had a few beers at a local combination bar/beer store owned by a friend of M&S, where we got to hear some good old time punk music on the stereo and chat up the locals.
After staying overnight in Wilmington, it was time for the main event on Friday – a tour of the USS North Carolina battleship memorial. This is something I had always wanted to see ever since I was a little kid. I remember doing a 5th grade report on the battleship, and I really, really wanted to visit the memorial back then. Sadly, my parents never obliged and that scarred me for life. I was also really into assembling models of naval ships from plastic kits, and the North Carolina (aka the “Showboat”) was my favorite. I sort of forgot about the memorial over the years, and when Shalini suggest touring it, I jumped at the chance. We spent several hours on the (self-directed) tour, and I’m sure I could’ve spent a few more hours there, but we were all getting a bit tired and the crowds had taken over. I can’t describe how awesome it was for me to stand on that deck and look up at those huge 16-inch guns on the giant rotating turret. The ship just exudes power and grace, and everything on it has a purpose. I always liked battleships the best of any naval ships and it always saddened me to read of their demise in favor of aircraft carriers, which just seem… flat. Standing there on that deck, I felt that sadness for a bygone era come back. But I was glad this old warhorse had found a home and could be enjoyed by anyone at anytime.
After the tour, we did a long drive to Chapel Hill and had a nice but late dinner with Larry. It was at a middle eastern restaurant where the food was good but the service was very slow. At one point near the end, Mitch ordered a dessert and Shalini ordered a glass of wine, and the dessert got there like 15 minutes before the wine. It was very strange. But it was nice catching up with Larry and the atmosphere was cozy. Again, I forgot to take pictures. Ugh.
By then it was getting pretty late and we headed back to Shalini and Mitch’s home base, which was another long drive. I stayed at the Elephant Oaks B&B, which was a old house there that had been restored into a cozy little inn. Very comfortable. On Saturday, Shalini took me on a tour of Old Salem, and I got to learn a lot about Moravian culture. Those are the fascinating people who originally settled Salem. Then we went to the house to hangout – the two of them have become Firefly fans due to the Serenity movie and the Firefly DVD set, and so Shalini put on the CD of the Serenity soundtrack for me while she cooked a marvelous chicken dinner. Then the three of us went to see a play called Stay that was written and introduced by Angus MacLachlan, the writer of the movie Junebug. It was kind of an experimental workshop-type thing with only four actors and no real sets, and was somewhat depressing, but I enjoyed it. I don’t get out to the theater much, so that was a nice change. After that, we hit some local bars and I tried to drink my weight in beer (the lower altitude compared to Denver means I can get away with that). We ended the night at a local pizza place – the pizza really hit the spot and was much needed to soak up all that beer. I didn’t have even the slightest hangover the next morning.
Sunday was kind of a lazy day, just hanging out. I toured Fidelitorium and got to see Mitch’s new Neve mixing console and the other upgrades he had done to the studio since I was last there. The studio is just so warm and inviting – it’s a great place to record. The design is like nothing else, especially the use of wood. Eventually, it was time to head home and they drove me back to the Raleigh airport. The trip home was fairly uneventful, though there was a lot of sitting around on runways and I got back pretty late. I finished the book I had brought for the trip (Bangkok 8 by John Burdett, which was very good) just as we were pulling into the gate at DIA – great timing.
All in all, I had a great time, and I really needed the break from work (and from home). This was the trip I was supposed to take in February when I contracted The Illness. I’m glad I was able to reschedule it so soon. Special thanks to my generous hosts Shalini and Mitch, and to all those folks in the great state of North Carolina who made the trip an enjoyable experience.
For more info on the vacation, check out the trip pix and descriptions at flickr. I went into a little more detail about places there.
Latre.
Comments
2 Responses to “A Childhood Dream Fulfilled At Last”
March 31st, 2006 @ 9:46 am
looks like you had a blast!! wish you HAd taken more photos..Mitchs studio looks awsome!!!! weeeee
March 31st, 2006 @ 6:00 pm
I did actually take more photos, but didn’t post all of them. Some didn’t come out. Plus, it’s a time consuming process and I got tired of it.