Oriental, North Carolina
- Jul 26, 2017
- 3 min read
I recently spent a weekend in one of my favorite places, Oriental, North Carolina. This small town on the coast is home to one of my Aunt and Uncles. They retired to this small town to slow down their busy lives, he was in the Navy, and bring them closer to family.
Years ago, when I was much younger, my family first came to Oriental to visit my cousin's grandparents (not related to me, but still as cool) for a family reunion. The area where their house sits is called Janerio, a strip of land between the sound and Dawson's creek. This strip of land consists of mostly small fisherman homes, their home, an elderly gentleman's home, and a plot of land that my Aunt and Uncle will soon buy to build their own home. Recently, another Aunt and Uncle bought and renovated the house in between, when the elderly gentleman decided it was time to move, so now our family populates most of this strip of land.
We started coming to Oriental regularly after my Aunt and Uncle moved their. We started participating in the odd traditions that this small sailing town had, such as the Croaker Festival, and their New Year's Eve tradition of parading a Chinese dragon through the streets while banging pots and pans.
This particular weekend, my family was traveling down to visit as well as receive flying lessons (a Christmas gift from our Aunt and Uncle). When we were rained out, we decided to head to the faithful Cookout in the New Bern area. If you are not familiar with Cookout, its a drive through fast food joint mostly in North Carolina. This particular Cookout in New Bern was special because you could actually go inside and sit down, and those of you that are familiar with Cookout understand how that is such a rare thing.
Upon heading home, we decided that we would now spend the rest of our day helping renovate the house next door. By we, I meant my dad and my brother would help my Uncle renovate while Anna, my little sister, and I would lay out on the dock. That evening, my Aunt showed me how to make the best low- cal dark rum drink.
We have named it the Skinny Pina Colada, here's what's in it:
splash of Dark Rum
Coconut Le Croix
Pineapple Wedges
Super easy and still great without the rum if you just want a nice tropical drink. When the weather turned stormy, Anna and I checked on the progress next door, to find that they were laying down the hardwoods in the home, so, naturally, we decided it was best to write our names under the flooring to forever leave are mark in the house.
The next day, I decided to ask my Uncle to teach me gun safety, since I never held, touched, or seen a gun before. I decided it was in my best interest to at least learn how to disarm and unload a gun. I also learned that shooting a gun is nothing like in the movies, its very loud, and being burned by a shell casing really hurts.
I look forward to spending more time down in Oriental in July, when we return to hopefully complete our flying lessons as well as have the whole Heatherington gang there. All 37 of us.
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