I'm getting ridiculous on the Top 10's, but its my blog. One of the most politically, socially remote areas of the country actually has a lot to hide from the general public found in the major metro-s of this country. The fact that Eastern NC is inaccessible in all points, except for the beach, make all of these places a little more great...
10) Barbecue...before someone amputates my face for not putting this at Numero Uno please remember that barbecue is only a small percentage of our eastern diet. Nevertheless it is some good stuff! Whole hog barbecue is what dreams are made of...and eastern NC folks can make dreams come true - and lot's do so on the weekends!
9) Backroads - There are few better places in the state that have better backroads than the eastern portions. Mountain backroads are cool, but they are full of slow driving folks. The hairpins scare a lot of folks. Or backroads are built ip in swamps, so you can see plenty of wildlife. And the roads are nice and flat and you can still meet the speed limit.
8) Fresh seafood - beats barbecue hands down! And you pretty much have to eat seafood fresh, otherwise it tastes like it smells and it smells like seafood in Nebraska. Nebraska doesn't have an ocean - not in last 100 million years anyway. While I still haven't caught on to eating a steamed oyster, I can slurp down raw ones by the dozens. In my home state, we get them pretty fresh, too - and my dad imparted up on me a propensity for eating the "sea boogers", as I once heard them called.
7) Small town festivals - based on yesterday's blog, you could probably tell that I enjoy a little festival. The State Fair is fun - fun with 100,000 of your closest friends. Nope, I like mine with 2,000 folks. Lines are shorter, crowds smaller, and parades quirkier. In Eastern NC, there's the Collard Festival, Swamp Festival, River Fest, Edenton Music & Water Festival, and tons more in every tiny dot on our maps. The probability of encountering someone you know is high, as well as meeting someone attending as a "homecoming" who has great stories of how things used to be....
6) Brackish Water - Only the Chesapeake boasts more brackish water than North Carolina's coast. Brackish waters teem with fish of both fresh and salt water - as well as brackish only fish. Even in our bracksh rivers and streams I have encountered pods of porpoises in areas where the river is literally less than 50 yards wide. I have also seen jellyfish in these tiny rivers.
5) Water Access - This tags right on to number six. Having brackish water is no good if you can't find a place to put your boat in! Ramps, slides, and ditches, whether professionally constructed or histrically constructed make our waterways very accessible. The only downside to this - other folks are catching on...
4) Big Cities - Greenville, Wilmington, Jacksonville, Goldsboro, Kinston - all of these places are really big cities by my standards. Yet, they still maintain a smallish-town feeling. While each of them have their "issues", cities like Wilmington are some of the most beautiful in the world. Most of the cities are built on rivers, which makes water access and water views easy and spectacular, respectively. These cities are home to major universities and professional sports teams, all which provide citizens with something extra. Smaller towns like "little" Washington are often nearby and are steeped in history and tradition - and you can tour more than one city in the day. The big cities also house some of our bravest women and men in military bases.
3) Hurricanes - Most would put hurricanes in a bottom 10. And while they are destructive, they can also bring a region out of a drought, freshen up the waters, freshen up the soils, and help stave of forest fires. They can also open or close inlets from the ocean to the sounds, but when this happens ecosystems can change, usually for the good. Sure they put us humans at a disadvantage for a couple of days, but the positive environmental impact of these storms far outweighs a few thousand downed trees (which provide habitat for rabbit and quail), flooded roads, and muddy yards.
2) Fishing - I hate to fish. But everybody else loves it. There are few better places to meet a creel than Eastern North Carolina. Charter fishing on the coast is big business and big fun (for everyone but me). My unbiased reportings allow me to put this as # 2. Go buy a license, catch a fish, clean a fish, cook a fish, eat the fish - and say that all that time and effort isn't worth it. The few fish I have been lucky enough to false hook and cook up have been well-worth the trouble...
1) The Far East - Not China and Japan, but the extreme edge of our region - the Atlantic Ocean! If the beach isn't the most important part of our region, then I am not sure I am qualified to construct a Top 10. The beach draws lucky folks from all over the world. They spend their money in our satellite towns (or bloc towns, as I like to call them). They eat and enjoy our food. They visit our history and cultural museums. They come back, year in and year out.
Enjoy the day...
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