June 20, 2016
Sage travels
We spent our rest day in Plymouth holed up at the Sportsman Inn without exploring the old downtown area. We decided to rectify this on our way out of Plymouth this morning. Most of the active businesses are out on US 64, the old section of town has many empty store fronts. But there is a beautiful park on the Roanoke River and many interesting civil war sites, including a replica of the ironclad CSS Albemarle.
The Albemarle was built in a corn field on the banks of the Roanoke in 1863 and saw action late in the civil war in 1864, The Albemarle had only 2 cannons but was able to win an engagement with 4 US ships that had a total of 60 cannons. The Albemarle's armored sides were sloped at 30 degrees and the projectiles fired by the US ships were deflected without destroying the Albemarle. Once the Roanoke River was cleared of US warships the confederates were able to capture the US fort in Plymouth.
Eventually the Albemarle was sunk in a daring Union raid. The sunken ship was later raised, repaired and finally sold for scrap. The replica we saw does not contain any artifacts from the original ship.
From the banks of the Roanoke we could see a paper mill. For the first 20 miles as we headed North from Plymouth a steady stream of logging trucks were heading south hauling logs to the mill.
We made an unscheduled stop at a fire station (yes, they use Motorola radios). Jeanna and Kerry had a conversation with the firemen in Southern. Alain and Viktoriya were able to catch only a few words and phrases of what was said.
In addition to the crops we have seen in the past we saw wheat and a beautiful sweet smelling white and purple crop. We took guesses as to what this sweet smelling crop could be. Jeanna suggested it was sage. At our next stop at a "Duck Thru" (a local convenience store chain) a local woman confirmed that the crop was indeed sage. Only later on did it emerge that the firemen had told Jeanna that the local farmers grow sage but Alain and Viktoriya were not fluent enough in Southern to have picked that up.
Lunch in the town of Winton in a small cafe was surprisingly good, although they accidentally switched Viktoriya's grilled chicken wrap for a club wrap. For some reason Kerry was unwilling to leave Winton until we had sampled every hill in town at least once.
Rather than staying in a hotel we are staying in a rented house in Gatesville. The house is comfortable, has a kitchen and laundry room and is much less expensive than a hotel. Good work by our trip planner Jeanna.
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We took advantage of the kitchen to prepare a gourmet dinner after a shopping run at the Gatesville Dollar General.
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