Morning comes with a low, dark overcast. A misting rain remains from the night's storm.
I'm running low on packed breakfast and lunches. Up on the nearby porch with the awning I break down a six-day package of meals into individual gallon bags. That will last me the few remaining days of the trip. Looking at the short term forecast, I realize the weather won't be right for sailing to Ocracoke.
Rain goes away, blue skies and suddenly it's a very comfortable morning. I walk a couple of blocks for breakfast, then head to the dock house to do laundry.
Mid-afternoon. I'm sitting on the porch in one of the dozen rocking chairs under an awning. A petite elderly black woman ("elderly" meaning a year or two older than I) comes up the steps, sits down in a rocking chair at the far end of the porch. We exchange a typically southern summer greeting:
"Hot today." "Feels like summer's already here." "Nice to be in the shade."
I go back to looking out over the river.
After a few minutes the woman asks if the building next to the porch is a museum. I tell her it is a visitors center, mostly brochures and such. I mention that the only museum I know of in town is the Underground Railroad Museum a few blocks away. She says she had noticed that museum driving in to town.
I return to looking at the river, the long bill of my ball cap tilted low over my eyes. The water is flat and grey. A humid mist dulls the color of the boats anchored out and the trees beyond.
The woman's voice snaps me out of my reverie. "We ought to go there now." Caught off guard, I say "What?" "We ought to go to the museum." "You and me?" I ask. "Yes," she says. "Right now?" "Yes."
I think for a moment, say "Okay, let's go." I walk down the row of seats as she stands up. "I'm Steve." "I'm Darlene." We shake hands.
As we walk the four blocks or so toward the museum, I tell her I'm from Virginia, visiting on a little boat. She tells me she is visiting from a nearby town where she lives near her children and grandchildren. I ask her if that is where she was born. She says no. She mentions the place where she was born and I don't catch the name, though the world "island" might be part of it. I ask her again, she just waves arm to the west, says "on the other side of the mountains." I wonder if she means the Smokey Mountains.
We get to the museum, it is in a small railroad car, only to find a hand-written note taped to the door saying it was closed for the day. There are small windows, so we look inside to see what we can see. An old brick building next to the museum has a mural showing a woman standing in the foreground with sunflowers nearby, and a ship out on the ocean. Maybe Harriett Tubman, we speculate. There are a couple of historical signs about the civil war, we walk over to read those. Walking around the corner we find an old train depot, beautifully preserved, the train tracks long gone.
Our visit to the museum turns into an exploration of old buildings in Washington. Behind the depot there is a large brick building with a sign for the Atlantic Coastal Line Railroad, a rail line that no longer exists. The building is now a civic center. Darlene and I look at the old buildings, try to figure out what is original, what is new. We stop at each historical marker, there are several, reading the text and trying to picture the old buildings as they were a hundred, maybe two hundred years ago. I am surprised by the easy, comfortable conversation between the two of us, two complete strangers. There is something magical about it.
We cross the street to the old flour mill, now a brewery, and find more signs with maps and photographs. Then walk down to the waterfront where we see rows and rows of pilings on the far side of the river. No docks, no buildings, just pilings jutting out of the water. Maybe for fish houses, maybe for the timber industry, there is no sign to explain that. It is a pleasant stroll through town. I suspect that if someone had seen us from a distance, they might have thought us to be a couple visiting town.
After looking at the river, Darlene says we ought to go back. We start walking back to the porch. Halfway there, she says "I need to get a drink of water, and then I'm going home." I tell her I enjoyed our walk. We shake hands and say goodbye.
I'm the only customer in a bar for dinner. There are people sitting on the deck out back, I've had enough heat and sun for the day. A burger and a beer.
Dusk, tucked away in the sleeping bag. I think about gifts I have received from this little wooden yawl. The wonderful sailing is a gift, I had hoped for and expected that. The unexpected gifts, though, are the people I meet along the way. Sometimes it is a simple, fleeting exchange across the water. Sometimes it is meeting someone who becomes a life-long friend. And sometimes it is a pleasant walk through history with a friendly, gentle woman with whom I have absolutely nothing in common.
