Tarheel country

Big Ed's at the City Market was not exactly my intended lunch time destination. I got off a plane and set off with my daypack full, running shoes poking out of the water bottle carriers. I wore my green safari/fatigue/sport coat and my red cap. The sun south of here was hotter than I expected. The bus ride longer. Then, I didn't factor in the extra loop through the airport. Public transit isn't the answer other places. I arrived downtown, wandered to the city market, and stumbled onto Big Ed's. Corn bread, country ham, food was the way to get acclimated.

I had the afternoon to myself. Completely. No one but me knew where I was. Even I didn't know where I was going. I was carless, bikeless, and now not so keen on the bus. I walked. I walked through historic Oakwood where the porches of my dreams framed house after house. I longed for sweet tea and quiet company, but only kept the latter. I wandered on the outskirts of a cemetery, past the dead of Raleigh, on my way back to the capitol. I had loose plan, but I didn't know the scale of my map or when I'd left it. My watch had broken and so I told time in foot pains and hunger pangs. I toured the history museum, closed according to the information booth lady, where I found a 1920s pharmacy sans soda jerk and the North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame sans Air Jordan. Still thirsty, still curious, I walked on to an avenue speckled with bars not ready to open. Not knowing quite how I would get to my hotel for the night, I continued to walk. On foot, I found my bus route into town and stopped at LocoPop. It was all I could expect from a shop just outside the campus of NC State. Part ice cream shop that served only popsicles and part art gallery that catered only to elementary art school classes, I chewed through a mango-papaya pop and rested.

Renewed by the popsicle, I carried on through campus, but no longer felt quite so at home as I have in years past. As I neared the highway, I began to except that my nomadic, public transit fueled dreams were coming to a close. Stumbling on a pay phone in between the dilapidated Pizza America and the crusty car repair joint, I called for a cab. It took some leafing through an attached phone book, but I was pleased to note that the entire world had not passed me by. After my quiet afternoon as a big city adventurer, I had to wonder if in fact I was actually gaining.