Sorry for the massively overdue blog post - internet access has been very limited up until recently!
I did forget to mention in the last blog post that I actually got the $500 off of Ellen for the work I did on her website!
Tara & Jims
Anyway, from where I left off last time, we were at Tara and Jims - WWOOFing. We continued to work doing jobs around the farm, which included building a fence, driving the tractor and mucking out the horses. Sarah even gave some of the horses a haircut!
Near Efland is a massive lake called Jordan Lake. We went there on one of the days to go swimming and take a break. Everything about the lake was really nice, but it was quite funny to read the "Emergency Evacuation" signs dotted around. I began to read one...
"If you see orange flares or hear warning sirens, evacuate the area immediately".
I pondered what that could mean for a while, when Tara noticed my puzzled look and told us that there's a nuclear power plant on the other side of the lake, and the signs are just incase they have a Chernobyl incident. "That's good to know" I thought to myself, and we continued with our picnic. We had a couple of Newcastle Brown Ales, a bit of a swim and headed back.
Sarah's Birthday
We had the day off for Sarah's birthday, but with little money and no ideas what to do, we decided we'd go to one of the local wineries :). We set off and had to get petrol first, because I thought I'd try and clear some of the rubbish in the engine by filling up with the premium petrol last time. All this did was burn up much quicker than the regular petrol. Along the way, Roger decided the shift down gears himself, making for a real jerky ride with a backing tune of noisy revs. Sarah looked at the petrol gague, and we were almost out.
We arrived at the petrol station just in time, where we had to wait for a free space. We pulled up behind this black car, and Roger just stalled. Phew! We got to the petrol station just as we ran out! So here we are, without petrol, burning up in a hot van waiting for this black car to move. Eventually two guys came out of the petrol station and began to push this black car. It had also broken down!
We rolled into the space next to the pump and filled up. Hoping that the problem was purely to do with the lack of petrol we had, we started the van. He started fine which was a relief, so we continued onto the winery.
We got to taste about 13 wines here which were all produced by this little winery. They were all pretty damn good too, bar the dessert wine. We bought a glass each and went and sat down at their lake to relax.
A few days later, we had a real nice thunderstorm which I'm sure you'll all agree that Clare would have loved. I tried to get some pictures, but I was just too slow :(.
Back to Ellens
At the end of our time there, we contacted Ellen to see if we could pop back there for a week before we started heading South towards Florida. She was more than happy to have us back again, but there was something new this time. She had another WWOOFer there called Yvonne from Melbourne, Australia!
When we arrived at Ellens, she was outside with Yvonne cutting the horses hoofs. Yvonne is a criminal defense lawyer, who works for Legal Aid. She's just on a break from work and has been to the Middle East and now America. We also met Larry again that evening with his son Jason and family friend, Alan. We had a nice massive dinner with burgers, salad, fresh bread etc..., at which we said grace - still seems funny to me :-\.
Larry and Ellen headed to bed, so me, Sarah and Yvonne played Jason and Alan at Pictionary. Commonwealth vs. America. Not meaning to blow our own trumpets, but we kicked their butts. I think they got about 11 spaces around the board by the time we won! Some of these pictures that were being drawn were hilarious. Alan left that night as he had to get back to his place where he was staying.
Work the next day was similar to what we had done before, I was working on the website for Ellen, whilst Sarah worked in the nursery - this time with a new friend Yvonne. Most of Sarah & Yvonne's work was to transplant the Juncus (name of this fancy grass) into new containers.
Canoe / Hint of Line Dancing!!
The next day after work we all decided to go for a canoe up the lake to this half-developed estate that's been abandoned for the moment. When I say "we all" I mean me, Sarah, Yvonne and Jason. We decided to buy some wine for the occasion, and off we paddled. We got to this abandoned estate which had a really weird feel about it. It's all brand new, there's a few new houses, lots of empty plots, lush green patches of grass but there's no one there. It was like a ghost town. We sat and had a chat for a while, before heading back to Ellens as we were supposed to be going (wait for it...) LINE DANCING that evening. Oh dear.
We left Ellen's, with Ellen, in search of this church where they do the line dancing. After finding the church, it's thankfully completely desserted and there was definately no line dancers in sight! A bit saddened by the fact that we couldn't do it, Ellen took us to see the Edenton Sound, and said that they do it on Fridays at some other placed called "Dave's Red Barn".
Thunderstorm
I felt safe for now, I had until Friday to work out a plan to escape the line dancing. Wednesday night came and Ellen stayed at Larry's for the night. We had an awesome thunderstorm that night, so we decided to sit out on the dock with wine, watching the thunderstorm.
We could see it slowly getting closer, which was when Yvonne started saying "Shouldn't we head back up to the house now and watch from there", to which I replied "Well, when it hits that tower over there (points at tower) we should move". Continuing to get closer, it didn't hit the tower but the rain was just about starting, so we headed up to the house to sit on the decking and watch from there. As soon as we got to the house, the heavens opened. Really opened. We've never seen rain like this before. Chatting away and BOOM! goes a crash of thunder hitting about 50 yards away. Whilst that seemed to stun us for a moment there was another BOOM! shortly afterwards, equally as close! Chatting away, the thunder seems to have passed over us, but the rain was still chucking it down. A little tipsy, I piped up with "How much will someone give me to go and do a dance in the rain?". After some fierce negotiating with Yvonne, we agreed on the whopping sum of $2. Sounding great at the time, I ran out into the rain, did a dance and ran back onto the decking. In the 15 seconds I was out there, I was soaked right through. Still I won $2 though!
The next night, we had made plans to go out with Tracy who works on Ellens nursery. We arrived at her house where we met her friend (forgot her name), and as soon as we walked through the door, I noticed a rolled up dollar bill next to some white powder on the table. Without wanting to feel awkward, I decided not to say anything. We had some wine here, had a tour of the house and just before we left for downtown Edenton, Tracy piped up and said to her friend: "Damn! It didn't work, they didn't notice!". Their little setup with the dollar bill and white powder (which turned out to be baking soda) was a joke that was wasted on us.
We ate some lovely food at a place called Seans, and went to another bar for some more drinks. We didn't stay out massively late, judged by the fact none of us had hangovers in the morning. That evening was line dancing, which I hadn't managed to squeeze my way out of!
Walk-Dancing
Ok, so we pull up to "Dave's Red Barn" which was housing the line dancing that evening. We went in and saw a band with more members than Slipknot on stage, and lots of people going about their line dancing on the big dance floor. I'm not too sure how to describe line dancing, but it seems a bit "ritual" in some ways. When a song begins, a few people will stand up and start their line dance (there's a finite number of line dances apparently, all with set moves - it's not like they're just making it up on the spot). Once they have started, people will gather behind them and proceed to copy the "starters" steps.
The song ended and everybody sat down - that's a point, after every song the stage is clear, then the next song will start and most of the same people will get back up. Seems pointless sitting down to me :-\. There was a young girl who had just had a line dance, and sat on a big empty table in front of where we were standing. She said we could sit there, and it didn't take long until I asked if she could show us how to do some line dancing, turns out she teaches it on Mondays.
We waited for a suitable song, and when one came up she said "I'll start this one, follow my steps". With that we (me, Sarah, Yvonne and Ellen) shot up to the empty dance floor. We got into position and copied the girl (forgot her name... in fact, I don't even think we asked her name!). This "dance" was about 10 steps in total, and took about 2 repeats of the entire "procedure" for me to get it. It kinda went like this (starting with both feet together):
- Right Foot Forward (then back to start position)
- Left Foot Forward (then back to start position)
- Right Foot Forward
- Right Foot Right
- Right Foot Back (then back to start position)
- Right Foot Right
- Left Foot Right (behind and to the right of the right foot, so you do a 180 turn)
- Right Foot Left (in front and to the left of the left foot, so you do a mini side-shuffle)
- Left Foot to Starting Position
Yep that's it. You basically walk to a song, and walk in the same way for the entire song. After about 25 loops of this "dance", I looked behind me and no word of a lie, it seemed like a scene from Night of the Living Dead. Hordes of old country folk were copying our dance (like they're supposed to do) but it just seemed completely odd. Many of the people just looked bored, but still wanted to do the walk-dancing as I've just decided to call it. Along with the bored looking walk-dancers you also get serious hardcore walk-dancers that love starting the walk-dances at the beginning of the song. If someone starts a walk-dance before them, they go off and start their own walk-dance in another part of the dance floor with their mini walk-dance clan. To top it all off, "Dave's Red Barn" is a dry building where they don't allow alcohol. We're glad we went line dancing, but I doubt it's something we'll jump at in the future.
The next day (Saturday) we headed downtown Edenton to watch their festival they had on, then we went back to Ellens for another canoe up the river. Sarah and Yvonne decided they'd swim, so I took the one man canoe, wine, towels, clothes, camera, corkscrew, beers, water and the kitchen sink to that deserted place we found the other day. The current was really against Sarah and Yvonne (and me), and it was about a mile away. We eventually arrived, had some beer / wine and headed back. Sarah and Yvonne were knackered so yeah, I took them back in the one man canoe. Almost sinking, and with the feeling that I was paddling in quick-drying concrete I was surprised it only took about 20mins to get back!
Fishing
On Sunday we were taken fishing with Richard who owns the farm just north of Elizabeth City. We dropped one net and headed a bit further out (in his boat) to fish with rods. After about 20-25mins of just nibbles on our lines, Sarah gets a bite! After reeling in, she's actually caught quite a nice catfish!
Myself and Yvonne didn't do too good, I caught a small "croaker" as they call them, Yvonne had the smallest though.
Leaving Ellens
We left Ellen's on the Monday, heading towards Asheville, North Carolina. We decided to help Yvonne out by taking her there, plus we wanted to see it too as it is at the other end of the Blue Ridge Parkway which we've seen before. 6hrs 30mins later we arrive and check into a Motel. We had quick showers and headed downtown Asheville with a couple of travelers each (for those that don't know, they're beers to drink on the way!).
Asheville is really nice, it's quite high in the Appalachian mountains, and has even higher mountains as the backdrop. There were plenty of pubs to choose from here, we even heard about a town called Brevard which we visited the next day.
Brevard is similar to Asheville in the way it looks. However, they had a state park next to it where they had this sliding rock. It only cost $1 to get in :). We didn't spend too long here as we had to get back to Asheville so Yvonne could catch her Greyhound bus to Nashville, Tennessee. Once Yvonne was on her coach, we headed to our Flying J, about 400 miles away.
To Florida
Halfway through the journey, we switched drivers and Sarah decided to get some sleep in the back. 5 minutes later, the lorry's tire in front of me just blew up! I swerved slightly (not much traffic around) and he pulled over. It's so common to see blown tires here because of the varying heats apparently. Tires that cool down and heat up too much are prone to blowing and littering the interstates. I think locals call the blown tires on the side of the road 'Alligators'. We arrive at the Flying J, and get some sleep.
The next day we decided to go straight to Florida to meet up with Steve, Kerry and the kids in Orlando. We finally arrived at the resort, which is a gated community with huge, really nice houses (pics to follow). We got to their house and pulled onto the drive, stinky, sweaty and tired! We were greeted with smiles, hugs and handshakes despite warning of our disgustingness!
They showed us to our room and have let us stay with them which is a massive help seeing as we just had to get two new tires for Roger! Since we've been here we've been swimming in the pool, met some friends at one of the bars here, relaxed lots and have been to a town called "Celebration" where I had fish and chips :D! We're currently planning our route from here to our next destination, but we'll post a full blog update of this place with pictures in the next blog which I hope won't be as long a delay as this blog was!
We hope everyone's ok!
Missing everyone lots!
Love Ed & Sarah xxx
P.S. Here's a final thought for anyone on the road (you get this everywhere!)
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