Day 20 -- Winston-Salem to Enfield, North Carolina -- 167 Miles

Have you ever strolled through a cottonfield? I hadn't until today. In fact, I've seen loads of cottonfields zip by outside my car or truck window over the years, but it had never occured to me to stop and get up close and personal with one. But today we are camping in the town of Enfield in North Carolina, and the camp is literally surrounded by cottonfields. Naturally, as soon as I had set up our water and electrical (no sewer here), I retrieved the camera and got right down to business.

First I walked across the rural highway on which our camp is located and tried to get a shot. The field was sort of small and uninteresting and had obviously received too much water at some point as there were lots of bare patches and spindly plants. But the bare patches made for easier walking across the field, so I persisted.

One of the things I discovered in the bare patches were cotton plants with unopened bolls. At the time, it didn't occur to me to photograph one, but now I realize it would have made a good comparison alongside an opened boll. Oftentimes failure is just as intereseting as success when it comes to plants.

Abandoning the first field, I recrossed the road and entered a field on the same side of the road as our camp. There I saw healthier plants, but the field was so well-formed and perfect I didn't find it interesting, either. Besides the sun was not quite in the right quadrant. I did stop short at one point, as I was bushwacking through some low growth toward the field and reminded myself that I wasn't in familiar territory. I knew that most states in the southeastern part of the country come complete with snakes with which I had never had any experience.

In the second field I snapped a few shots but nothing that thrilled me at all. I began to make my way back to camp disappointed that I just hadn't seen any vistas that knocked my socks off. That's when I noticed that just off the eastern border of our camp was yet another cottonfield, so I briskly made my way in that direction.

Once I had arrived at the third field, I was a little more heartened by such things as the convergence of light and shadow, the irregular tree line in the background, and the blueness of the sky since I was shooting with the sun a little more over my shoulder now (photo upper left). There was also more of a pronouced change in elevations in some spots.

At one point I happened to glance across the road to the east of the cottonfield and saw a different kind of plant growing there. Naturally I had to go and investigate. Crossing the road, I climbed a slight berm and discovered a whole field of soybeans. Now I HAVE walked amongst fields of soybeans on prior vacations as we sojourned across mid-America. I have to say that I find soybeans particularly uninteresting, both to photograph, and to see up close (photo left).

But while I was busy NOT appreciating the field of soybeans, I turned and there before me was a huge field of peanuts -- not the plants, just the peanuts in their shells lying in great clumps on the ground (photo lower right). Once again, this was not something that I had ever seen in person. I'm not sure exactly how they harvest these legumes, and I'm not sure once they do whatever they do with the green part of the plant, how or why the peanuts end up on the ground. Maybe they have to be left to dry.

I tried taking a few photos of the peanut field but I could not conjure up a way to make them look exciting or appetizing or in any way artistically presentable. But I did bend down and grab one shell, crack it open, and pop the peanut in my mouth. I don't suppose many of you have ever tried eating them right out of the field, but I encourage you not to bother. The peanut, liberated from its shell, had absolutely NO taste whatsoever. I stooped down and picked two more off the ground to take back to Concetta to see what she thought about them, then recrossed the road toward camp.

It was after I had left the peanut field and returned to cottonfield number three that I hit on the idea of doing a closeup of the open cotton boll. And that was when I wished I had shot the closed boll in field number one for comparison. But by then, the light was failing and field one was a long distance away, and I just shrugged off the idea. Let it suffice to say that the unopened boll was hard and greenish brown, and shaped like a fig, and no one in their right mind would photograph one. Still, I may go back to field number one in the morning and get that shot.

Today, by my calculations, we drove half the remaining distance between Winston-Salem and Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. I hope that's true. The nights have been getting quite cold up here along Interstate 40, and we look forward to dropping south toward warmer climes once we have achieved our objective of visiting the place where the Wright Brothers made their famous first flights.

Today we had to stop at a Walmart on the way to our evening camp. While we’re on the road, we rely on Walmart if we need to fill prescriptions since their computer system can easily tap into the information recorded by the pharmacy in Carson City. Usually, they ask us to give them about twenty minutes to fill the order, and we go off to do some grocery shopping.

So it was today I found myself standing in a longish line waiting to talk to the girl in the “drop off” line when the guy ahead of me turned, saw my Navy emblazoned ball cap, and launched into a discussion of life in the service. He had been in the Air Force, he told me, and I told him I had been airborn as well, except I flew for the Navy.

Our conversation went on for some moments without the line moving perceptibly, and then it was the Air Force guy’s turn at the window. I told him it had been great talking with him, and he said the same, and then he left me and walked up to the counter.

Immediately after the Air Force guy left, the guy behind me started talking. “I got a draft notice,” he said. I turned around to see who was talking. “and when I got to the draft board they told me that since I was a high school science teacher they were not going to take me.”

”Wow!” I said. “That was a lucky break!” The old guy smiled and said, “sure was!”

After that impromptu opening, the Science Teacher and I got into a spirited discussion of the Vietnam war in which neither of us had participated. He had a deferment, and I had an enlistment in the Naval Air Corp based in America.

Each of us firmly held the opinion that the war was an embarrassment and a criminal waste of life. This went on for several more minutes, then the Drop Off counter girl called me over, and the Science Teacher and I said our goodbyes, wished each other well, and emphasized how we had enjoyed talking.

The point I’m hoping to make is that encounters such as what occurred today are nothing new. It happens to me all the time since I started wearing a U.S. Navy ball cap. Most of the time the guys who stop to talk are other service veterans, but sometimes I think it's just folks who need someone to listen to their story.

And that's all for now. We wish you many happy adventures of your own. Ciao!