What Washington, Bath, and Edward Teach had in common: just us. (NC)

Washington is a small town across the Tar-Pamlico River, and today the group went to the Estuarium. This is an educational and exhibit area dedicated to protecting estuaries, defined as the area where fresh water from rivers and creeks mixes with salt water from the sea. A one-legged very energetic young-looking woman with gray hair and a beautiful NC accent (“I’m a 40-year cancer survivor!”) talked to us about the crab industry and life living on an estuary. In a slide she pointed out the area where she lives, and it is indeed beautiful: water lapping at her front lawn, acres of pine trees.

One photo shows an 18^th century house with a cannon ball lodged in the wood. The house next door also has one. These were not necessarily lodge at these points, but the cannon balls were found during renovation. This likely happened during an unsuccessful attempt by the Confederates to retake Washington, then under the control of the Union - or if not that, to at least harass the Union occupiers.

After lunch Marcia and I drove 16 miles to Bath, the first incorporated town in North Carolina, founded in 1705. We were unable to get in any of the historical houses and instead walked about town admiring the old architecture and views of the sound.

Bath (the photo with the boats) is perhaps most famous as the home of Edward Teach, better known as Blackbeard. Although already a pirate (or privateer, if he was on your side), he was invited here by a friend, the governor of North Carolina. As Blackbeard, he won by terrorizing as much as anything. In battle his hair was ragged and twirled out at each side, and burning tapers under his hat gave the impression of smoke pouring from his ears. The British Navy finally ran him to ground at Ocracoke Island, leaving him with 25 stab wounds and a detached head. The head was brought back to Bath, but I don’t know what happened to it. They never tell you these things.

At camp we had GAM (“Get Acquainted Meeting”) #5, our final, leaving four couples we will never formally meet. At tonight’s GAM we met Bob, who retired from the Navy and a defense contractor career and now travels with his wife Betty and sister Norma; a retired airline pilot named Andy and his wife Jan, a young-looking couple with great-grand children; Judy, a retired computer programmer, who lost her husband a couple years ago; and Ken, who has an engineering degree and retired from a career in technical sales. Ken’s wife died suddenly a few years ago and he decided he needed a new life more than he needed money: he gave his stuff away to his kids and grandkids, sold his home, and now travels full-time doing whatever he wants, and very happy. He spends a couple months each winter at Disneyworld as Mickey’s bodyguard, which gives him a backstage pass to the entire park and impresses his grandkids no end. (He gets minimum wage, as do the costumed characters unless they have speaking parts; speakers like Snow White get a couple dollars more per hour.)

At camp we were to have a ‘smores social but the governor (the current governor, not the one previously mentioned) banned all fires just yesterday. So instead we received gigantic ice cream cones at the camp store and were given the makings of ‘smores to cook in our microwaves. Just not the same thing.