North Carolina to Massachusetts

The Wheels Roll Again

Free to Roam About

We’ve had a really busy time since our last blog update.  From Monterey, TN we drove to Mt. Airy, NC to Mayberry Campground, one of our favorite places to stop in NC wine country. Mt. Airy is also very close to NC wine country so we also got to visit our favorite winery, Raffaldini.  We’re planning to come back to Raffaldini for a Four-Season Wine Tasting Dinner in October to celebrate our anniversary.

Might be Tuscany

From Mt. Airy we drove to Lewisville, NC and a one-night Harvest Host stop at Old Nick Williams Distillery and Farm. We planned this stop to visit with friends Jan & Fred Heins and Mary Lynn & Terry Riddle who now live near Winston Salem, NC.  We met for lunch at PigNOut, a small BBQ restaurant in Lewisville with more than ample servings of fine NC BBQ.

We then took a tour and tasting at the ONW distillery, a family business that has survived by ingenuity, creativity, a good product, and determination. We recommend that anyone who wants to support local businesses should visit Old Nick Williams Distillery and Farm. They have a wonderful area for concerts and an informative tasting tour.

ONW, the current bottling name, replaced Old Nick Williams, because their name was challenged by a number of other distilleries who won court cases even though ONW had been a product since 1768. They are not allowed to use the original name because of lapsed copyrights, thus ONW. 

We visited one day before a concert was planned with 500 tickets sold. The facilities are impressive with new parking added the week before our visit. But remember as the sign says- Don't Chase the Chickens!

  

From Lewisville we returned to our old neighborhood, Carolina Trace, in Sanford, NC where we were able to park our RV at the “Holder Yacht Club” and spend a few days with friends Colleen & Charles Holder.  Unfortunately for us we were not able to stay with Colleen and Charles long enough to help Charles celebrate his 75^th birthday.  Our loss!

Part of the Holder Flotilla Docked at the Holder Yacht Club

While at Carolina Trace, with a lot of help from Charles, we were able to reinstall the microwave/convection oven, that fell off the wall in Alabama. A story for another time.

We also had a wonderful visit with our “Men’s Cook” group at Marsha & Red Davis’s house.  It was nice to visit with Marsha and Red and we got to see our friends the Heins and the Riddles again.  Twice in 4 days!  

As usual Red put on a fabulous feast that reminded Terry, Fred, and Ray why they never liked having to host Men's Cook the month after Red’s dinners.  Prior to dinner at the Davis’s, we had a nice short visit with Gary Peterson and his friend Diane.  It was good to finally meet Diane and see Gary again.

Our last night at Trace started with a visit with our Laurel Thicket III neighbor, Doug Shoesmith and a nice glass of wine or two!  After our visit with Doug, we went to Barbara & Fred Berman’s for dinner and were joined by friends Jacqui & Joe Danek and Carolyn & Scott Schaeffer. It’s always great to return to Carolina Trace because we have so many friends there who we do not see often enough.  The bad part about visiting Carolina Trace is we never have enough time to visit with all our friends there.  It’s very similar to visiting family and friends in New England, never enough time to see everyone.

The day before we left Trace, friends from FL and TN arrived for the party. We had to say good-bye to Clara & Sam again having left them in TN just days before.

Colleen, Charles, Clara, Sam, Lalia, Ray

Speaking of New England, after we left NC, we headed to Massachusetts for a two week stop to visit friends and family.  Even with two weeks it’s difficult to see everyone and it does keep us busy. Our 1^st stop in MA was to visit Lalia’s Mom and sisters Susan and Barbara and then her brother Len.  We had not seen Lalia’s mother or sister Susan since Covid started and we had not seen Barbara and brother Len in at least two years so that was a very happy time for us.  Our 1^st week in MA included visits with old friends Janet, Eileen, and Dick from our working days plus lunch with Lillian McCarthy who Ray has known since his high school days!  It was an amazing week even with the New England weather. Our temperature went from sunny and hot with a high temperature of 100 degrees one day to 57 degrees two days later! Week two will be in the next blog update.