Inheriting The Wind

   It's been almost two weeks since we last talked so let me bring you up to date. We're still in North Carolina, leaving Wednesday. As in Florida and Texas we've brought the cold winds with us. I guess it's that slipstream effect, with the weather being sucked into our wake as we've moved to each location. It was warm before we arrived and the forecast calls for 20+C for the ten days after we leave. While here we've had a couple of 20C days but the majority have been sub 12. No surprise.

  As I said last time this is a beautiful spot. There's a track about a mile long laid through the surrounding woods where I take Max for his walks. It's serene and bucolic. I feel a bit like Robert Frost with miles to go before I sleep. We usually come upon a family of deer and Max tries to get all up in their grills, ruining my chance to commune with them, but he's a dog and he's only doing what dogs do.

  There's a spot I like to wander down to, where a stream crosses the property. It's kind of my happy place here.

  So, as you can see, weather notwithstanding, this has been kind of a special place for us. The house is comfortable, the animals are great and the property is wonderful. What a terrific place to be in the fall when all the colours change. Sigh.

  Now, before I go on to tell you about our adventures over the past two weeks I'm going to shift gears... to politics. As Canadians visiting a "red" state (conservative/Republican) it's been uncomfortable reading the daily dose of poison that dribbles out of Agent Orange's mouth. As we drive the roads here we see many Trump signs and flags and the voters' sympathies are never far from sight. Of course, we saw the same stuff in most of the southeast as we toured through Florida, Mississippi, Alabama, Texas, Georgia and South Carolina so nothing new there. 

  What's different now is his desire to subjugate Canada, blathering on about "Governor" Trudeau and our becoming the 51st state. Support of Trump aside, we've seen no evidence that Americans want any part of his insane plan. When he first started, people thought he was joking and said so to us when they found out we were Canucks. Now, the mood has changed. We're encountering people who wonder if they should move to Canada. I read every day about people who voted for this but didn't vote for this.

  MAGA has never been about borders or abortion or the price of eggs. It's always been about intolerance, misogyny, racism and Trump's desire to become King Donald. What we're seeing now is the manifestation of his ambition. There is no significant opposition from either Congress or the Supreme Court and his daily constitutional abuses are buried under the flood of BS that streams from his social media missives.

  People here are wising up, slowly, but it's happening. I'm not sure if it was the abuse heaped upon Zelensky or the Greenland/Canada/Panama threats but it's not what most of his  supporters signed up for. Look for things to happen. It's percolating.

  Enough politics. We've been here two weeks and we've done whatever there is to do here, given there's nothing to do here. "Here" is Hillsborough, a nice little town almost smack dab in the center of the state. Ten miles to our east is Raleigh/Durham and thirty miles to the west is Greensboro. We've been to both places and... yawn. The interesting parts of NC are in the Asheville area three hours to the west, or the coastal area three hours to the east.

  Because we do the Atlas Obscura thing we've managed to find some oddities, which makes boring places less so. I'll start with a big chair in Thomasville.

  Yes, the Thomasville furniture company is there... and so is their ten foot tall chair. In a similar vein is the town of High Point's World's Biggest Chest of Drawers, complete with six foot long socks, hanging out (see Penny at the bottom for scale).

  High Point surprised us. We thought it would be a sleepy little nothing town but it turns out it's the furniture capital of the world, or so it seems. Driving through town to get to the big dresser, we passed about a hundred furniture companies, stores, interior designers, etc. If you want furniture this is the place.

  Near High Point is Winston-Salem and their claim to fame, after tobacco, which powered this whole part of the country until people found out it kills you, is a coffee pot on a stick.

  I'm sure there's other stuff but we went there for some South Carolina BBQ (which is our favourite and near impossible to find in North Carolina) and then we left. Speaking of barbecue, yes, we did try the North Carolina variety, in Lexington, NC, the self-proclaimed BBQ capital of the world. You know this because they have pig statues all over.

  In Lexington we tried the western North Carolina variety as it's different than the eastern North Carolina kind. Here's a quick primer for those of you non-afficionados. Here are the major types of barbecue:

• Dry rub, no sauce: Found in the mid-west from St. Louis up to Chicago. Ribs are the thing here. Don't even try looking for brisket.
• Texas: Brisket, chopped or sliced, slathered with a sweet, tomato-based BBQ sauce. You can find ribs and pulled pork but Texas is all about beef.
• Alabama: Pulled pork and ribs but they use some kind of white sauce. All I can think of is biscuits and gravy so the thought is unappealing. Never tried it.
• South Carolina: Mostly pulled pork and ribs although you'll find brisket. Usually accompanied by a mustard-based sauce with a bit of sweetness.
• North Carolina: It's called "whole hog BBQ" where they spit-roast a whole pig until all the meat falls off the bones. You won't find much brisket or ribs in these parts, just pork. Eastern NC uses a vinegar/pepper-based sauce and western NC prefers a tomato/vinegar sauce.

  There. Now you know. Our preference has always been for the SC kind, thus our trek to Winston-Salem as it's hard to find in NC.

  We've done more than eat and look for silly statues. But not much. We've done some hiking with Max, who's quite the trouper, given his little legs. Here he is with me at the old Occoneechee dirt track, which was one of the first two tracks to host NASCAR events when it started in 1949.

  I'm thinking of making an offer on the car. Looks like a fixer-upper. Here he is again on the Occoneechee Mountain Trail, which winds around a "mountain". Classic case of making a mountain out of a molehill.

  It was a nice hike, rewarding us with a beautiful view of the I-85 freeway.

  As I said, we're into our last few days here before we take off for Washington, DC. Our original sit was cancelled but I've managed to arrange a couple of replacement sits so that we have two weeks there. With the current political climate we'd toyed with the idea of just going home but we have theatre tickets in Washington and would rather not take the loss.

  I've also been looking forward to this part of the trip, specifically because of the political climate. I'm expecting protests and demonstrations galore although Americans have struck me as weirdly passive to this point. With any luck, that's beginning to change and we might be in the midst of it. Maybe I'll go buy a bullhorn, climb up the Capitol steps and incite a riot. Oh. It's been done before. I'll have to come up with a Plan B. Stay tuned.