Bill's Blog

On to Greenboro

We headed north from Charleston along the coast. We passed by Myrtle Beach, the Red-Neck Riviera. Despite the wonderful, fine, white sand, it seemed like an awful place with hotel after hotel on a narrow beach. The development was overwhelming. We just kept heading north until we got to Wilmington, NC, where we spent the night. The next day we drove around the city. It has a beautiful historic district. We took some pictures. I keep on messing up by not taking enough photos, but we took a few in Wilmington.

After leaving Wilmington we drove north and east. We stopped in Magnolia, NC, in order to visit the Duplin Winery. There is a variety of grapes that in native to the coastal plains of NC, that being the muscadine grape. The grape produces more than 10 times the anti-oxidants found in normal grapes, making muscadine wine very healthy to drink. It makes a decent white wine with a very strong floral bouquet. However, this wine was not for me. I prefer red wines to whites. Even so, it would take a while for me to get use to muscadine wine. If you ever get a chance to try it, I highly recommend that you do as there is nothing else like it and it is pretty good. A couple of hours after leaving the winery, we were in Greensboro.

The last time I was in Greensboro, I had come to rebuild the stairway in my sister’s home. This time Betty and I came to be tourists and hang with Dawn and Mitzi. One of the first places that we visited was the Greensboro History Museum. It is a really cool museum. It had lots on local history from the earliest immigrants and settlements to the civil rights movement. It case you do not know it, the lunch-counter sit-ins started in Greensboro. Another area that many gun-nuts might enjoy is the civil war gun collection. The collection is very large with a large variety of musket types and manufactures.

We visited an art museum. We went to a couple of movies. There is an old, working flour mill out by the airport in Gilford. We went out to buy muffin mixes and ground grits, rolled oats and steel cut oats. The Old Mill of Guilford was established in 1767 and continues to be operational. The mill is powered by water and produces a variety of corn meals and grits, whole wheat flour, bran, barley and oats.

Our next foray was to Old Salem, which is a section of Winston-Salem that dates to colonial times. Old Salem seems like a museum in and of itself. But some of the old homes are still occupied by ordinary people. There is a large museum. It has a children’s toy collection and historical decorative arts and furniture, both of which were well worth visiting. We also wandered in to a very old gun smith shop. The gun smiths explained how the old muzzle loaders were crafted. They both make brand new rifles for the public. Their craftsmanship was excellent. We dropped into an old cobbler’s shop to see him making shoes. We saw many of the old buildings in the area. We saw the old graveyard from afar. And finally we stopped at the bakery, where they use the large old open fire ovens.

I also want to mention a side trip that I made to Chapel Hill on Saturday. It is a very beautiful college town. I was surprised once again by the beauty of the old homes and stores, not to mention the great old university buildings. It seems that the East is very different than the Midwest and the West. Homes, buildings and towns are much older and very often very beautiful.

Posted by bill at January 28, 2008 11:21 AM