My great escape…

Does it make me a bad wife? Probably not.

Does it make me a bad mom? I’m thinking not…

Does it make me a bad person? Absolutely NOT…

I am working on a calendar for Relay for Life – 12 Months of Eastern North Carolina.  I picked the first hottest day of the year to drive to New Bern, NC, to do my shoot.

Normally, I go nowhere by myself. However, I KNEW I needed a break from my whole reality, so I scheduled a day off about 3-4 weeks ago. Thought about Beaufort, but it was kinda far away for a chicken shit such as myself, so I figured New Bern (about an hour away) would be my best bet.

Don’t you know that Friday was the first day of a record breaking heat wave in my neck of the woods?  Well, I got up early, packed the cooler full of GatorAide, Trader Joe’s sparkling mineral water with lime, and Aquafina. Had my batteries all charged, lenses ready to go, and memory cards cleared.

I hit the road about 7:30. Got to New Bern (thanks to the God-awful traffic between Goldsboro & Kinston, where gas was SOOOO cheap) by about nine. I was absolutely ecstatic! I was leaving my habitual wife/mommy/admin behind for an adventure. I so looked forward to getting to know me, both the woman and the photographer.

One legged duckie….

Took me a little while to find downtown and the water front. Once I did, I parked. In front of foul. Ducks, gulls, and PIGEONS! I had to stop and take some pictures of my newly-found feathered friends. It wasn’t hot, yet, and they were all over the place. Never mind the one legged duckie that I saw…He was healthy and fat, so apparently swimming in circles is not a bad thing, huh?

Grabbed my gear, some water, and my new-found best friend (the part of me I didn’t discover until recently), and walked toward downtown.

New Bern has bears. A LOT of them. I know Wayne County has pigs, and they are admittedly cute, but these bears? They took the damned cake…I have an entire gallery of

Courier Bear – He carries a black-bear-y…

the bears. Is it wrong to call them Regal? 🙂

While going about my way, I discovered a lot more about me than what is encompassed int he “mom/wife” box.  I re-discovered that I love an unknown path and adventure. I re-discovered my adoration for Taco Bell and their Encheritos. 🙂 (Extra cheese, sour cream, no onions, only this time I wasn’t too worried about the onions so I ordered one stock, LOL…Gotta LOVE me some Taco Bell.

I also realized that spontaneous is good.  No harm in unscheduled fun, right?  I got to know my inner-self better, thanks to this short road trip.

All I can say is that I wanted this bird, BAD…Solange, I will be back for you, baby!

Now, in my travels, I came across Solange, a big metal rooster that I really wanted to bring home with me, even though she was four feet tall and I drive a cloth top convertible…Any of you that know me. also know that I read The Bloggess, and my first exposure to here was here. (Beyonce, the big metal chicken…) I thought she would look lovely on my studio porch, but getting her home was going to be an issue. (Yes, like Beyonce, this chicken WILL cut you, and your convertible top.)

I also found a garden store with crazy old fashioned implements in the front window – how many of the seven can I identify? A few. I got the sausage making apparatus. 🙂  And the wood plane.

I also saw the most cool sculpture EVER by the civic center on the water front….It was titled, “Spider Lily,” donated after I’d visited in 2007/08, so I’d never seen it before. I about fell on my ass taking a couple of those pictures.  This thing was amazing, and reminded me of the doo-hickies at “Acid Park” in Wilson, NC. But because I LOVE lilies, I had to take a few pictures of this wonderfully beautiful, spinny-thing….

Spider Lily sculpture up close and personal…