Corolla
What better way to celebrate
the beginning of summer than arriving at a beautiful beach? That was the expectation, though reality was
a little disappointing. Our excitement
built up as we drove across
Bumper-to-bumper traffic was
further sobering and my visions of a rustic retreat evaporated. I almost dialed up an old friend who has been
coming here for a week very year since the 1980’s to complain. The tales my buddy (Doug) shared had painted
this picture of a remote environment - utterly shattered now that we were there. My mind had been seeded by Doug’s sharing of
a conversation he had with a local years ago.
The environs apparently struck Doug as miles from nowhere and he inquired
what folks did when there was a medical emergency. The local (or ‘Banker’ as they are called)
dryly responded “people die here”. This
conjured a hardscrabble picture in my brain, a place populated by rugged
individualists, akin to my beloved
After limping past four
Medical Centers (each advertising ‘Emergencies Accepted’, no less!) in a
suffocating mass of traffic after one mile on the Banks, that image was utterly
demolished. .Our running joke would
become “yeah, people die here” – because they can’t get to a hospital for all
the cars or that their hearts had been clogged by salt water taffy!
Slowly we plodded north
towards Duck, where we had planned to rendezvous with Jeff and his family. We met up at a trendy strip mall, where we
enjoyed lunch and everybody went shopping for a bit (except for me – not
shaping up as my ideal vacation). We
spent the balance of the day inching further northward towards Corolla
(pronounced CUH-RAWL-AH….not like the
