If you’re ever heading to the Outer Banks of North Carolina and you would like to take a route of a different kind, there is an alternative way to get to the popular east coast beach house mecca. As you come to the southern border of Virginia, you can take Route 17 through a small little North Carolina town called Edenton. By taking this alternate road, you might lose an hour of your beach time but you will gain something wonderful in its place: a trip back in time to another era and another way of life. Edenton awakens the mind and soul to things of importance in days gone by: quiet, nature, neighbors, and slow paced meals.
Edenton was established as the colonial capital of North Carolina in 1722. Today it is a sleepy little old fashioned town that is part Charleston, part Mayberry. It also still maintains a marina (Edenton was once North Carolina’s second largest port) that can lead you to some of the best fishing on the east coast. The downtown area reminded us of Fredericksburg, Virginia and Edenton certainly played a role in some important Civil War history. It is only an hour west of the famous Lost Colony, Manteo, Alligator National Wildlife Refuge, and southern beach resort town Nags Head, but it is a world away from the fast paced, hectic vacation land we are used to thinking about when considering eastern Carolina.
We started our adventure in Edenton with lunch at the Old Colony Smokehouse. I read that the pitmaster of this fine BBQ establishment was on the Food Network’s Chopped: Grill Masters and if you wanted real North Carolina barbeque this was the spot to pick. We arrived for lunch at about 12:45 p.m. (the Smokehouse opens at 11 a.m. and is only open Thursday-Saturday) and the smoked pulled chicken and turkey were already sold out for the day. The Smokehouse wasn’t crowded and we easily found a table, but we overheard the workers saying it had been hectic just an hour or so earlier. People want their BBQ in Edenton and they get there when the doors open!
Left with the Texas Brisket, Smoked Half Chicken, and North Carolina Pulled Pork, we were not disappointed. The flavorings were delicate and really didn’t need any sauces to accompany them; although, we did try the sweet and delicious Cheerwine BBQ sauce. The green beans tasted like my great grandma used to make which means they were probably simmering all morning. The loaded potato salad filled with cheese and bacon was a wonderful side as well.
After a good old fashioned BBQ lunch, we opted for two of their specialties for dessert: Banana Pudding and wait for it…Fruity Pebbles Cheesecake. Both were sinfully sweet and gone within a few bites. We left the Old Colony Smokehouse with full bellies ready to walk off some calories.
We drove to Downtown Edenton past the old mansions from the late 1800s and right up to the Albemarle Sound. The downtown literally ends at the water’s edge where young men cast their lines for catfish and where Edenton’s old lighthouse is located. The old downtown stores look like something you’d see somewhere in the 19th century American Midwest with everything you need along one Main Street: barbershop, bakery, hardware store, pharmacy, and of course, a good old fashioned bookstore.
As a librarian, Michelle stops at any and all bookstores and this time would be no different; she always manages to find something good. The Garden of Readin’ bookstore would prove her right again and would launch one of those wonderful moments in life you can never predict and can only get when you travel to new places and open yourself up to new experiences.
Our younger son Henry is not like our two older children in that he does not have a passionate love for reading. Throughout our two older children’s childhoods, we would read to them constantly and they both became ardent readers on their own and still are today.
Henry was different. He was the child we put the iPad in front of instead of the book.
We did this with only a little guilt because we never used it as a pacifier and we did so with a purpose. We let him read and play on it with the idea that he was going to live in a modern world different from ours and that it would be necessary for him to be a connoisseur, a navigator, and a curator of all things digital. We needed to prepare him for a world where there would be no physical books in hands.
And so Henry never really took to reading on his own. He never read the classics or much beyond Diary of a Wimpy Kid a 100 times. Our departure from previous success in establishing readers in the spirit of “these times they are a changing” failed.
So, here we are, on a hot beautiful summer day walking through the cool insides of the Garden of Readin’ and I spot a book. I thought it might add to the discussion we had earlier in the morning on the beach. Henry was out in the ocean swimming and appreciating nature, the gift and heat of the sun, and he suddenly started talking about religion and the universe and how we all got here: the deep questions every kid at 12 or 13 begins to ask himself.
We had a great discussion, enjoying the questions and appreciating that we didn’t have and likely would never have all the answers.
As I walked through the Edenton bookstore, the book that jumped out at me was The Blind Watchmaker: Why The Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe Without Design written by Oxford Professor Richard Dawkins.
I picked it up thinking maybe I’ll read it when I get home and maybe it’ll give us something else to talk about with Henry on the beach; instead, something beautiful happened.
On our way home from Edenton, I asked Henry to read the introduction of the book to me. I hadn’t seen or heard him read in so long I wanted to see where he was reading a difficult text.
He starts to read The Blind Watchmaker and he was absolutely enthralled by it. He loved it. After he read the introduction, he read the preface and he says to us “this is doing something to my brain. I love this. This is amazing.”
Now, mind you, this is Richard Dawkins, the world reknown evolutionary biologist, discussing the very difficult ideas of Darwinism. Henry reads the book to us all the way home for an hour and twenty minutes. It was my favorite moment of the summer by far.
I absolutely never would have predicted he would have a love for scientific nonfiction. Henry simply reading the introduction and the preface to us in the car led to great discussions about the Webb telescope, science in general, collaboration, the scientific method, physics, astronomy, Christianity, and teaching.
One of the most remarkable and surprising things Henry said to us was that reading out loud in the car was enjoyable. He told us he doesn’t read a lot because he doesn’t like to read by himself. He told us that reading to us was a communal experience and it was more active, it was more physical, and he really enjoyed it.
So, we will continue reading Professor Dawkins’ book tonight and in the days to come and we’ll see where this takes us and where it takes Henry’s life of reading as he enters the eighth grade. Perhaps he won’t be the consumer of Charles Dickens and Mark Twain and other classic literary figures like his brother and sister. Perhaps old Henry will gravitate toward nonfiction and scientific journals and maybe even Professor Hawkins’ other books.
These are the types of wonderful things you just can’t predict when you travel. Seeing new places and seeing new things can answer the oldest of questions and start new journeys. We came to Edenton to eat good Carolina BBQ, but we left with something much more filling.
I’ve been loving your work for a year and loving the tiny sense of contact with you and your wonderful family. This particular episode did it for me: subscribed. Thank you for these rich gifts.