… um, yah, not exactly.
I grew up in the “suburbs of LA” (if you count 60 miles out as a suburb … but considering our local airport is now LA-Ontario International, I’m guessing THEY do). All of my family lived in urban and suburban areas. I went to school is a densely populated area, and now live in a city center. Spending time in rural areas is not exactly something I’m familiar with.
Enter Enfield, North Carolina.
With the anniversary a few weeks off, I’d begun looking around for a place we could escape for a weekend. I found Bellamy Manor & Gardens.
A bed and breakfast in the small town of Enfield, offering a package including wine, chocolate, a yoga lesson (something the boy and I both enjoy), and a canoe or kayak rental? I was sold.
A couple of days before we left, I began looking up food in the area … to, you know, eat more than just breakfast. A quick google search revealed a Subway, Hardee’s, Vito’s Italian, and a chinese take out place. Surely that couldn’t be it. I assumed there were places that the search didn’t find, and moved on.
On the way down, we looked up the town. Turns out … it’s all of 1 mile square. A farming community. Awesome. Their crops are cotton, peanuts, and tobacco. Uh oh. (The boy works for a tobacco control organization, hence the uh oh.) Getting there required driving several miles without seeing so much as a barn, the fields were so plentiful.
Pulling up, we were greeted by Suzann, the owner of the B&B and her cousin Celia. They were pleasant, engaging, and oh-so-southern. =) While Suzann and the boy chatted about where we were from, I checked out the “bible” (as she called it) … the binder giving us the low-down of the area. There really were only 4 restaurants. The recommended restaurants were all “a few towns over” … generally starting at 15 miles out.
Alright then, food may be difficult.* But let’s do this.
The house itself was GORGEOUS. You can really tell the owners have taken a huge amount of pride in restoring a house that, while it looks like a plantation home, was actually built after the depression by a local doctor who’d stored away his money. You can tell he wasn’t a popular man. Imagine the audacity of having enough money to build a 3 story home at the END of the depression!
Other than the other couples staying at the B&B (another anniversary couple, and a super young boyfriend-girlfriend pair) and the owners, I think I saw 10 people all weekend. The yoga instructor (we got a private lesson, as no one else showed up), the coffee shop owner, her patron, the two men helping with the kayaks, and the little girls doing a car wash.
It was surreal. And serene. And perfect.
The atmosphere was something I’ve never experienced before. And while I don’t think I could ever live there, it was wonderful to unplug and decompress. We walked the town after our yoga class … it took all of 30 minutes. It was lovely.
Oh, and did I mention on Saturday we got caught in the “worst storm these parts have seen in years”? Or, so said the locals.** More on that tomorrow.
* Yah, we broke down Saturday night and drove 18 miles to Logan’s Roadhouse. Two words: YEAST. ROLLS. Don’t judge me, you’d do it, too.
** So said the locals. Verbatim.
Little Pieces Everywhere 