By the next morning, all the news was talking about was Hurricane Erin and how close it would really get to smashing North Carolina. No other states, no other areas, specifically North Carolina and even more specifically, the Outer Banks. It was some of the strangest weather coverage I'd ever seen in my life, because it was not just local news, but national news-magazine shows like Good Morning America and The Today Show were heavily covering Erin from all angles, and had reporters onsite in Cape Hatteras where the winds and surf were picking up like crazy as the storm moved closer.
Look, I've been in the epicenter of some really weird weather news coverage before, it's nothing new to me. Tom Brokaw legit stood on my street corner in St. Joseph, 100 feet from my front door, in December 2007 to report live on the great Missouri Ice Storm after it rolled through. Jim Cantore from the Weather Channel has visited different places I've lived numerous times for various weather events. I lived through the Blizzard of '93 in West Virginia, and countless other awful snowstorms, thunderstorms, and tornado outbreaks since then. But, when I can stand on the front porch at my parents' house, turn my head towards the ocean, and literally see a storm that's three hundred miles away out to sea physically churning because it is so big, it's a little different. Weather maps on television don't do the size of these storms justice. They just don't. When you can look towards a hurricane that's hundreds of miles away and its storm clouds still fill the horizon, that is a monster of a storm.
It was about this time when I really began to pay closer attention to Erin. If the winds and waves were bad enough, the storm could affect us by delaying or canceling our flights out of Wilmington the next day. Yes, we were quite some distance from the storm, but those winds and waves it was whipping up were no joke, even as far removed from it as we were on the island. I figured it was better to be informed and to be prepared.
During the day we had multiple people reach out to us to ask if we were being evacuated. Psh, no. There was never a question of that happening past, say, Sunday night or so. It just wasn't going to get close enough.
Of course, nothing happened -- the original forecasts were pretty accurate, and Erin churned out to sea as expected. As I write this, it has transitioned into a post tropical cyclone and is heading out to die in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.
So, Wednesday -- and my parents' birthday, our last full day of vacation -- was here. When we asked them what they'd like to do and if they'd like us to take them out to eat, they said yes, and offered up a place they liked -- with vegan options -- called "Koko Cabana," which was right on the beach on the pier. Okay, sure. Sounded appealing enough, I guess.
Daisy and I had looked over the menu and it sounded good, so we said that was fine and we'd be happy to take them out. My mother suggested, originally, that we go for a late lunch between the normal lunch time and dinner, around 2. She later updated this to "let's be there when they open, at 11." Okay. Neither of us had any problems with this. So, we all got into the rental Jetta and made our way to the restaurant around 11 that morning.
My mother ordered the shrimp quesadilla. Dad ordered the fried shrimp plate. I ordered the "Koko Burger" with the meat subbed out for an Impossible Burger, and got a jumbo pretzel for us all to share. Daisy ordered the island bowl with tofu and got a virgin strawberry daquiri on the side.
My parents seemed to thoroughly enjoy their dishes. Daisy and I faked enjoyment through ours. That giant pretzel was easily the best part of the meal for me, because the other food looked good, but it was unquestionably terrible. By far it was the worst meal I'd eaten while on the trip, and keep in mind I'd spent $23 on grocery store Chinese takeout from a hot bar.
Look, it's hard to fuck up a burger. This place somehow managed to make a burger that looked good but was nearly completely flavorless. Daisy's "island bowl" looked great presentation-wise, but she said nearly everything in it was off and just tasted sad. We both could tell even at the time that neither of us liked the food, but we put on our smiles -- it was not about us, it was about my parents and celebrating their birthday, and they were loving every second of it. A lot of these restaurants, especially the higher-end, on-the-beach places that sell a lot of seafood, put up the front that they're "vegan and vegetarian-friendly" but their vegan/vegetarian options are lackluster or an afterthought only put on the menu to placate people like us. This was absolutely one of those places. It just wasn't good.
The bill was $130 for all four of us to eat there, and I happily paid because birthday, without a second thought about it.
After the meal, we took the back way home and drove down "Yacht Drive," which connected to the other end of my parents' street. From the end we normally come in on, that side connects to the main drag through town and the beach strand access points all the way up and down the island. Yacht Drive, however, is the backside of the island that connects via the Atlantic Intracostal waterway (basically, a long canal that ships can use to access the ports and a popular recreational boating waterway). It's a long, wandering drive through the back of the island, and at the end of it -- a few blocks from my parents' house -- is a very pretty little park with docks that jut out over the water that can be fished from. Where the docks come off the shore, many oysters wash up, and little quarter-sized crabs -- hundreds of them -- were eating all of those shells clean. It was fascinating to watch; very much something you don't see in Nebraska.
We got group photos on the docks (thanks to a very helpful girl who was also there with what appeared to be her brothers, who were fishing), watched the water for a bit, and then went back to the car.
I could not resist making the joke that we'd become the people who took their senior citizen parents out for a leisurely scenic drive after their early bird special dinner -- which was one of the few jokes I made that my parents actually found quite amusing.
After we went back to the house, we asked the parents if they had any other plans for the day or wanted to do anything else. They did not, on either count. I told them we would take them out for ice cream at the place we went to in order to meet Daisy's friend, if they wanted -- that ice cream was amazing and it was indeed hot outside again. They said no, it was a long drive, etc. This led Daisy to look for any vegan ice cream options on the island. She could not find any. I would've been happy to just go get ice cream for them and bring it home, honestly, if the place was close and we could avoid too much melting. They just didn't seem that interested in leaving the house again. Daisy did, however, find a vegan smoothie/coffee place about five miles away that had a natural foods grocery store attached to it, and it looked promising.
It was then time for the birthday gifts. My dad had gotten my mother a new wooden headboard for the bed, as she hates the current brass headboard/frame and has a quilted cover over it (I don't know why, as it's a gorgeous design). That had arrived earlier in the day and until it could be installed, it was put into the other spare storage room upstairs in the house. My mother, as mentioned, got him the shoes and a shirt, and the new Stephen King book.
I got my dad a Superman shirt, a flash drive full of music, a hardcover Alex Ross Fantastic Four book, and had prepared my old Fitbit for him -- complete with charging cables, extra watch face covers, and the metal band -- so that he could have the same Fitbit I got my mother and they can both use the same app, same accessories, etc etc. We got my mother a Chewy gift card so she can get stuff for the dogs, some new bath towels from Costco (brought down in Daisy's suitcase), I had ordered and sent the Panera coffee she requested beforehand as well. I think maybe Daisy got her a few other little things, I can't remember now.
We also gave them the gift card to the Mexican place I'd gotten during their birthday party.
By this time it was mid-afternoon and they were in for the day; they declined joining us for the smoothies/coffee place, so Daisy and I went out on our own to do that -- where she ended up getting a really good chocolate-based protein smoothie and I ended up getting a phenomenal iced coffee with a dash of oatmilk in it. She then asked if there was anything else I wanted to do while we were out.
"Actually yes," I replied, "I would love to go to the good Walmart in Southport, if you'd like to do that."
Let me explain.
Let me explain.
When we came into town and drove down to the island, we'd stopped at the Walmart in a town called Leland, which was on the way down from Wilmington. It was a terrible Walmart; they didn't have half of the (very few) items on my shopping list and had almost no clothing section to speak of. Normally, we go to the Walmart in Southport (about, eh, 20ish minutes from the house) because they always have everything in stock and always have a giant clothing section with a lot of clearance racks every time we're there. We had some space in our luggage and we know the selection will always be good there, and it somehow felt wrong to go to the island and not stop at that Walmart to see what they had. It's legit the only time I/we get sort of excited to visit a Walmart.
Plus, it was late afternoon on a Wednesday -- of all days/times during the week, this was likely the least busy time to go bargain hunting at a Walmart.
We were very fortunate this time around; Daisy found several pairs of shorts, a dress, and some other odds and ends. I found the clearance racks and the men's t-shirt racks and loaded up on comic book shirts and music shirts for both myself and my dad -- I got one for me in my size, and one for him in his size for everything but one shirt (they didn't have one in my size). Now, my dad has a ton of shirts, but he did not have a Willie Nelson shirt or a Stevie Ray Vaughan shirt, and I knew he'd never venture out himself to get these things or look through the racks even if he did venture out, so I grabbed them up for him. He was, indeed, incredibly appreciative.
We filled the car with gas and returned home, tired, hot, and sore. The rest of the night, while we were awake, was spent packing and arranging everything we could to take home with us. My mother was asleep early, by around 9 or so. Daisy and I were up until 11 or so -- I was doing laundry and packing, and she was biding her time while I did the laundry, playing with the dogs, so she could shower and go immediately to bed afterwards. Our plane was scheduled to lift off around 9:15 in the morning, and we would be picking up bagels at the bagel place both for us for breakfast and to bring home to the parents, so we had to be out of the house pretty early.
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