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A friend told me about a health food cooperative down in Wilmington that she said had a large variety of sprouting seeds. I have a goodly number of seeds in my storage bin, but what I needed was an excuse to get outta town. So, I drove down to Wilmington to find this unheard of health food store.
I took the "old road" (U.S.421), the ancient road from the mountains to the coast that InterState 40 replaced. It crosses the "new bridge" that replaced the aging old bridge, and the only one that crossed the Cape Fear River at Wilmington. The new bridge is further south than the old bridge (now completely refurbished with a second bridge and four lanes), and becomes Oleander Drive on the Wilmington side of the Cape Fear River. Oleander Drive slowly replaced Market Street as the main thoroughfare that runs from historical downtown Wilmington to Wrightsville Beach.
U.S. 421 was extended from the entrance to the old bridge and stays on the other side of the Cape Fear River from historic downtown Wilmington. Using the new extension you will see the Wilmington waterfront, and it passes the entrance to the World War Two battleship, the USS North Carolina, until it reaches the new bridge. When you cross the new bridge it misses downtown Wilmington. If you keep going straight at the bottom of the bridge, it runs into Oleander Drive and the old shopping centers, and Oleander Drive continues toward Wrightsville Beach where it eventually turns in Military Cutoff Road where all the new shopping centers are, and then becomes old U.S. 17, which was replaced by InterState 95.
If you turn to the right at the foot of the new bridge it melds into old U.S. 421 which is the old road to Carolina Beach, then Kure Beach, and ends at one of the North Carolina State Aquariums. Nearby, just before you get to the Aquarium, you can take the State ferry over to Southport, a unique port entry town that received lots of immigrants and settlers from European ships that never got recorded because the United States wasn't the United States yet.
I wanted to avoid all that because the food cooperative was about half a mile west of where Oleander Drive turns into Military Cutoff Road, so I took the new, uncompleted InterState 140 cutoff that runs around the north part of Wilmington through a bunch of swamps. I thought it might put me closer to where I intended to go, but in the end game, it didn't. I know that now, but there's another way I have yet to use yet. Next time.
The reason taking I-140 from U.S. 421 instead of driving straight down Oleander Drive is that it doesn't bring me much closer to my intended goal is that it conjoins U.S. 17 lots further north than I figured. I should have turned south on I-40 over to Market Street and taken the old way toward Wrightsville Beach, and that would lead me to Military Cutoff Road just before it turns into Oleander Drive.
At that crossroad, where Market Street crosses Military Cutoff Road, is the relatively new shopping center where Lovey's Health Food Store is located. I've shopped there once before, but I didn't stop when I drove past it, because I wanted to check out the food cooperative I was told about to see what they offered as far as sprouting seeds are concerned. I finally found it, and it didn't have the variety of sprouting seeds I was told of. They did have the NAC (N-Acetyl-Cysteine) I wanted besides the seeds, and they had it on sale, so I bought two bottles of 30 caps each. Expensive crap. I gotta buy a health food store after I will the lottery. '-)
Then, I drove back to Lovey's, where I bought a bottle of 60 caps of NAC. They gave me a Senior Citizens Discount and a fancy cloth shopping bag for buying there, and then took the new way (I-40) back here to ho-me. I ended up not buying any seeds at all. I have an appointment I'm dreading at the VA Hospital in Durham, and they have three Whole Food Stores in that area where I can get all the sprouting seeds I want at a little better price, and get travel pay for my troubles.
The one geographical fact I learned about by going a different way yesterday was where Wilmington went to. Northeast. That's were the businesses migrated to. Since the federal government completed InterState 40 down to Wilmington from Raleigh it's become a thriving metropolis compared to being probably the oldest town in North Carolina.
Up until that happened it was a wonderful old town with some of the oldest houses in the state. It's been preserved pretty good and is getting mo' bettah/worse in that regard. If you've ever been entangled with the preservation types you'll realize they're a bunch of pedantic assholes nobody wants to be around, but they do... good things... maybe. I'd burn it to the ground and start over myself.
I've often thought that if I came into some sort of windfall and had the money I would buy a house in historical downtown Wilmington, but living in Key West, Florida for seven years has changed my mind about wanting to live in Wilmington or other Southern port towns like Charleston and Savannah. I really find the kind of people who work the preservation gig to be despicable, snotty prigs with no creative talents to speak of. Who wants that? Especially war re-enactment people. When I'm around them I wanna scream, "Get over it! Jesus Fucking Christ! What kind of animals celebrate war?"
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I do not attempt to tell the God's own truth here because I don't know what the truth is or hardly ever. I try to capture the drifting thoughts that randomly appear in my imagination for reasons I may not understand. I don't know if the content I capture with these words is true or false. The Comments settings are turned off to prevent me from having to defend what amounts to little more than fanciful, sometime crude speculation. Great moments in our lives never return.
