Passing Through Newport News

Day 2 of my trip to North Carolina earlier this month dawned overcast but my cousin and I went out for an early morning walk on Buckroe Beach, which her condominium unit overlooks.  We brought her three-legged pet Gabe, who lost a hind leg as a puppy in an encounter with a car but who gets around just fine as an adult dog.

The beach has a center square with a pavilion which serves as a sort of dog park where neighbors can meet.  There's a sign in the common area there which warns that there might be live ordnance buried on the beach, dumped there by mistake by the Army years ago after dredging operations offshore on a firing range a mile or so out to sea that was active during the war.
I left in mid-morning to drive to Vandemere, the tiny town on the North Carolina mainland coast where my college roommate lives in a hurricane-resistant house on stilts, driving through the tunnel to Newport News in Virginia to take rural backroads through rustic North Carolina.   Along the way I drove past gas stations advertising gas under $2 per gallon, the first time I have seen gas so low since the last administration.

Arriving at Jimmy's place mid-afternoon, we relaxed on his porch, overlooking his riverfront view past his former dock ruined by hurricane Florence, and then enjoyed a spaghetti and sausage dinner and called some college friends out west as the evening wore on.  We made plans to visit several North Carolina towns in the next few days as Jimmy is contemplating moving to a larger town someday and, who knows, I like picturesque seacoast North Carolina too, where federal retirees get beneficial tax benefits.