Apex, NC

Today was a very productive day and it caps an eventful week.

This morning we went out to Eggs Up Grille for breakfast, then we took the truck to Shell to fill the gas tank.

When we returned to the house, I vacuum cleaned the cab of the truck, and I installed the bike carrier on the truck's trailer hitch.  Then I took my bike down and aired the tires up.

Later, Bob and I drove to White Oak Road and the American Tobacco Trailhead there.  Bob stayed in the truck while I took Buddy's cremated remains with me on the bicycle up the Tobacco Trail about a mile and scattered the remains along the side of the path.

I did not want to leave his remains in some isolated and lonely place because Buddy was very social and friendly.  Here, along the greenway, people walk and run and ride their bikes and horses.  Sometimes they go up and down the path with their own dogs.

After doing this I returned to the truck.  We went to a used bookstore in an attempt to donate some paperbacks, but the store did not take donations.  So, I will look for a donation box, or give them to Goodwill.

On our way back home we stopped at Schlotski's Deli and got sandwiches for lunch.

In the afternoon I climbed into the attic with my 35% vinegar and my channel lock pliers.  I hooked up the transfer pump and back flushed the hot water heater.  The water that collected in my 5-gallon bucket was very gray and turbid.  I do this to remove scale deposits from the boiler in the hope that it will prolong the life of the water heater.  Then I drained the pump and put it away for next year.  

These weekends are just too short!  Tomorrow I have to do the grocery shopping, and then it is time for another week of work.

 

Labor Day Drive

This was a nice three-day weekend.  I was able to relax a little.

Because I had the day off, we decided to take the truck out for a drive today.  This morning we drove to Penny Hill, NC.  Penny Hill is the ancestral home of the Thigpen Family in America.  The family farmed 2500 acres and had a big mansion on a low hill near the Tar River that was named "Penny Hill" after the builder's wife, Penelope Hill.

The plantation mansion burned down, for the second time, before the Civil War, and it was not rebuilt.  The land passed out of the family's hands due to debts they could not repay, but many families remain in the area with the name Thigpen.

Going south on NC 33 out of Rocky Mount we came to the area known as Penny Hill.  Right on the highway we found Doctor Thigpen's antebellum medical office (c. 1859).  It is in a terrible state of decay, and the windows are boarded up.  We stopped for pictures and I found the back door open, so I took a peek inside.  It is just one room, but many of the floor boards are missing and the lath in the walls is plainly visible.  I did not dare step inside.

We retraced our steps up NC 33 about half a mile to find Thigpen Road (NC 1608).  I took a picture of the road sign and then we decided to follow the road for its entire length.  About halfway down the road we came to a small well-maintained cemetery with three large marble monuments inside a wrought iron fence.  This is the final resting place of William Ashley Thigpen (b. 10-20-1832 - d. 7-11-1876), his wife Hattie Elizabeth Moore Thigpen (b. 4-24-1842 - d. 4-21-1909), and their daughter Hattie Elizabeth Thigpen (b. 8-4-1869 - d. 7-21-1886).  

Discovering exactly who these people were would make me fall down the Thigpen Family Rabbit Hole and I don't think I have time for that today.

It was a beautiful day for a drive in the country.  Temps were in the 70's and there was a breeze.  Across the soybean fields there were workers harvesting and stirring up dust.

We got back into the truck and drove Thigpen Road to its conclusion - the intersection of  US-64A at Conetoe, NC.  Here we turned left and drove toward Princeville, and ultimately to Wilson where we enjoyed a barbecue lunch at Parker's.

It took another hour of driving to return home where we both laid down for naps.