April 23-26: Raleigh

My mother’s childhood best friend lives in Raleigh, NC. We had never met before, and it was a wonderful and surreal experience to connect for the first time. We arrived in the evening, and she had cooked us a delicious dinner in her beautiful home. It is always nice to be welcomed into a lovely home environment on the road. We talked into the night and the next day KG and I went to explore the city.

We drove around looking for parking and when we finally found a spot we paid witness to an unfortunate situation. We saw a man and woman walking toward us, the woman yelling “Get off! Get away from me, don’t touch me!” Etc, and after obscenities flung in both directions, he shoved her into the wall of the building hard before laughing and walking in the other direction. He knew we were walking toward them, and there was another guy behind them. It seemed as though he would have done worse otherwise. This was a scary dude. The guy who had been behind them walked past us and the gal, looking terrified… all he said as he quickly passed the three of us was, “Uh….. OK, then!” Angry to be in this current time and place. We approached the woman and asked if she was alright. She said she was. I said, “You know that guy?” “Yeah. I know him.” I responded, “He seems like a real a-hole.” “Yeah. He is.” We asked again if she was alright and turned to leave when she assured us she was. As we began to walk away, the man came back towards her and they started conversing again. We saw a cop car down the road, and figured we should alert them to the situation. We ran up to them and as my asthma set in I choked out, “Excuse me! Sirs! There’s a guy…. Roughin' up a gal… down the way.” We gave them the info and they said they’d “keep an eye on them.” We had to walk back towards the couple to get back in our car, since the situation made us uncomfortable leaving it in that spot. Unfortunate, as it was so hard to find... but better safe then vandalized.

Things got cheery again after we re-parked and walked to the Museum of natural sciences:

We wandered around the downtown area, got a beer from the old newspaper office of Raleigh Times, bought a vintage dress from a vintage/antique shop, and had good times all around while Yoshi got to enjoy the air conditioned house.

See the inch worm?

When we returned to the home, we talked with our new friend into the wee hours of the morning. The next day, we all went for a sunshine filled stroll before KG and I went on our first kayak excursion of the journey. It took us a while to find river access, but finally utilizing our beloved inflatable that has long been strapped to the roof was well worth it. We met a snake, turtles, an otter or muskrat and a beaver! There was only one mishap on the river... which (unsurprisingly) was related to my weak bladder. No, I did not urinate on myself. But I needed us to pull over, and there seemed to be no non-steep, muddy inclines. When we found "the spot", we were worried just beyond the trees there may be people's houses across the river. Not wanting them to see anything unsavory, KG kept telling me to go "further back, further back" up the steep muddy slope. Heeding his advice, yes. I did fall in the river.

Snake is in there somewhere

Beaver is in there somewhere

We were hoping to get to Charleston in time for the big weekly farmer's market the next morning, so after more socialization with our gracious host (and showers, of course).... we were on to the next destination.

PS: Ah yes, and at some point while we were staying at the Raleigh residence, we found this on Yoshi -- fully engorged evil #2: