June 15 — Oriental, NC….friendliest city ever??

So….a day off the cruising circuit also means a day to get stuff done. Like laundry. Like grocery shopping. Like cleaning the boat.

We went grocery shopping at the Piggly Wiggly (can you believe there is a grocery CHAIN named that??) about a mile from the marina where we are moored. Armed with our trusty canvas boat bags, we left the store fully loaded for the trudge back to the boat. And it started raining. And it was still hot. And putting on a plastic rain coat was painful. AND an angel pulled over and asked us “are you boaters?” We no sooner said yes, than offered us a ride back to the marina. A lovely lady….and we never got her name. I intend to send a letter to the local newspaper praising her and perhaps she’ll see it and our thanks.  Our other thought was that we should have bought more wine:-)

Oriental, NC is definitely friendly. I decided I desperately needed a haircut. So I walked to a salon that had a friendly “walk-ins welcome!” sign.  Have you ever watched a Paula Deen cooking show? I felt like I was getting a haircut from her. Every “move” was described along with the reason why…. the monologue included everything but “bless your heart.” Actually, I think it did include that phrase at least once. “They” say that the correction to a bad haircut is only 3 weeks away. My haircut isn’t really bad. It was the hair sprayed “big hair” look that she was going for that got me. I smushed my hair back onto my head a couple of blocks later and think that it is going to be okay.

We had dinner tonight at M and M Inn. It was terrific. We were stunned about how many special appetizers and dinners were offered.  And completely happy about how delicious our meals were. I had soft shell crabs and Cliff had a Cajun meal of shrimp, andouille sausage, black beans and rice.  There are only 800+ people in Oriental….but we learned there are 1200 boats and apparently that combinations keeps this restaurant (and others) going. Our waitress was the owner’s daughter and she told us that her dad refuses to close the restaurant during non-tourist season so they depend (apparently somewhat successfully) on locals to keep them going. Amen to that.

This sign on a local business says way too much about Oriental, I think.

Off to Bellhaven, NC tomorrow. Staying at Dowry Creek Marina which is in a secluded area along the ICW. They have gas grills, so maybe we’ll go for the lamb chops that are in the freezer tomorrow night. Sounds yummy at the moment!