Friday we pulled out about 9:00 after a hearty breakfast of Rice Crispy and a cold bagel. It seems we missed the part about a continental breakfast. I mean, if you pay the price for a B&B, the �Breakfast� part should be a little more substantial than cereal. Right? We rode off grumbling as we headed for the first obstacle of the day, the feared highway 101.
101 is high speed and narrow but I had a plan. We were going to take paralleling side roads for most of the way. Like most of my plans it was a good one, only the execution was suspect. First we had to ride a few miles and then turn left to take a paralleling road for a few miles. We were talking and just missed that one. I think we were talking about how fast the traffic was or something like that. We found the next one. Missed the next two and finally got lost on the last one. To make things worse we were in the middle of absolutely nowhere and to make things even worser (yeah, like that�s not a word), it started to sprinkle. Fortunately we were able to flag down the only passing motorist we had seen since taking the last short cut. We were looking for the road to the Cherry Branch ferry and that�s when we heard the dreaded �D� word. She told us to go back about a mile and take the second dirt road on the right. I hate dirt roads. We pulled on our rain gear and took off.
The bike angel was smiling on us and the sprinkle stopped before we got to the dirt road, and the road wasn�t too bad. It was a couple of miles long but hard packed, and before we knew it we were on the road to the ferry. We got there just in time to roll on and thirty minutes later we were on our way to Oriental.
It seems every little port town we went through has some claim to Black Beard; �he slept here, he lived here, he murdered and pillaged us, we love him�, that sort of thing. Everywhere there are skulls and cross bones and every high school football field has the �Home of The Fighting Pirates� over the score board. I thought he was a bad guy but it seems these folks have forgiven him.
Pirate�s aside, Oriental was a boater�s town. It is on the Neuse River and everything caters to the boat crowd. They were nice enough folks for boaters and the marina even let us use their laundry to wash our clothes. Of course we had to pay, a lot; I mean, there is still a little pirate blood left in Oriental.
