A half an hour shy of the noon hour, with a good cup of coffee by my side and an asiago cheese bagel providing me a measure of sustenance this first morning to a new month, I sit unsure how much time I may have to write, to consider, to muse over the possibilities to this day. Panera Bread, where I sit here in Williamsburg Virginia, as I learned the hard way two weeks earlier, limits their Internet access during their peak hours. Thus, this being the noon lunch hour, I may find myself cut off just as I begin.
Therefore, to begin...
The entire month of July saw me residing within the state of North Carolina. For roughly a week, I occupied a cabin at the Smithfield/Raleigh KOA Campgrounds at Four Oaks. No complaints. The people were exceptional. The accommodations, I found quite appealing. From there, I moved on towards the coast, to Elizabeth City, the county seat for Pasquotank County, the area of the state where my family appears to have emerged. I also found records for Sextons in Camden County, Tyrell County, and Perquimans County; but Pasquotank was the most common and thus the next area of my destination in sight.
Oddly - or expectantly, I don't know - locating accommodations within Elizabeth City, especially when funds run with frugal limitations, was no easy, simple task. The Motel 6 where I stayed a few days in Metropolis Illinois, the girl there told me they leased their rooms out by the week, and the cost for such a lease from them ran just over $200.
This became my target cost. Two hundreds dollars for a week's rent. If I could locate a simple room, with a bathroom in tow, my time spent in Elizabeth City would be blessed by God as the right move, the correct direction, the on-course course.
The best price I came across, from two hours of calling this place, that place, and the other was $350. I cared nothing for $350. It seemed too much for a simple room with a bath. Yet, if that was the best I could find, that was the best I could find.
When I pulled into the parking lot for the hotel offering this price, and finding myself extremely disappointed for what appeared less-than-satisfactory, I started calling numbers one more time. This is when I came onto The Beechtree Inn, just outside of Hertford North Carolina, twenty miles from Elizabeth City, straight down highway 17.
Three-and-a-half weeks after that Saturday afternoon, I leave that place, extremely happy and pleased God led me to a place where I did not wish to leave. Even after my genealogical quest which led me 1500 miles from the center of the state where I was born hit a treed-in-wall, I did not wish to leave. The people were golden. The environment was serene. I hope one day comes when I can return.
This brings me to now, today, this very moment, just shy of noon with Panera filling its tables with occupying guests seeking food and sustenance.
It's lunchtime! What else is one to expect?
Charlottesville Virginia, the home of Thomas Jefferson's Monticello, is only two hundred nineteen miles from The Beechtree Inn at Hertford North Carolina. I saw Monticello a year and a half ago during the cold of the winter months. I always sought to visit it during the more amenable weather of the spring or fall.
My single day of visiting its grounds those many cold months ago reminds me of my several weeks at Beechtree. Perhaps, it's a Southern thing. I don't know. With God's help, I will reach it's borders today, visit it tomorrow, and maybe learn something to carry by my side as I venture further and farther in this expansive adventure called life.
No comments:
Post a Comment