Carova

Big D and I built our dream vacation home on the Outer Banks of NC and we rent it out during the summer.  When I say we built it I mean we built it.  Every weekend for months we loaded up the Tahoe and the truck and drove down to the end of the hard road in Corolla, put the trucks into 4WD and drove the last 7 miles in the sand to build the house.  If I never paint a piece of trim it will be too soon.  When we realized it was faster by boat we traveled by boat.   We even took our kitchen cabinets across in the boat as well as various plumbers, electricians, and good friends who wanted in on the fun. I'm talkin' a Carolina Skiff, y'all, not the Queen Mary.  D and I were known to fly across the Knott's Island Sound close to midnight some nights by the light of the moon.  One night the clouds rolled in and D's friend Terrence and I laid on the bow scanning the brackish water for duck blinds and crab buoys with those huge 100 watt flashlights.  Bow spray feels so good hitting you in the face when it's 45 degrees outside. There we were spread across the bow yelling DUCK BLIND ON YOUR LEFT! hoping D would hear us so we wouldn't crash and get knocked into the sound...did I mention it was 45 degrees that night?

All in all it was fun.  We felt like pioneers in that coastal wilderness.  That part of Carolina is still only open to four wheel drive vehicles and that fact keeps it pristine and allows the wild horses to roam the dunes and the back roads.  Those horses are a beautiful site, but there was one thing about that situation that wasn't so beautiful...Raymond Burro the horny little donkey.  Raymond loved him some horses...and I mean he loved him some horses.  Raymond was the baby daddy to several goofy looking mules wandering the dunes.  For some reason I always thought Raymond looked a bit like Sammy Davis jr...I can't help myself my friend Sue got me in the habit of associating people with their animal twin years ago and it just happens when I look at certain people. There is a teacher at school who I swear looks like a lady bug and when I tell people that they agree with me.  It is a gift to have such vision and Sue and I have that gift...lucky us....what was I saying?  Oh yeah, Ray Ray the horn dog.

 Little Raymond was known to mount a mare and "get her done" at a moment's notice.  One day I was watching the herd of horses that hung out near our house as I sat on the deck listening to the waves, drinking my coffee when a group of tourists (y'all know how I feel about tourists) who paid a local (who was laughing all the way to the bank) 50 bucks a head to take them on a "horse watching tour" in Carova. These guys load those poor unsuspecting folks into junked up hoopties with no AC and drive their asses all over my neighborhood to find horses to stare at and take pictures of so that Biff can show the guys at the office how adventurous he is. Well just as Biff, Muffy and the kids were gasping at the beauty of the wild horses,  Raymond arrived.  "Oh look Mommy it's a donkey!  What's that Mommy? He's funny!" Raymond, playing to the crowd, proceeded to grow the longest, biggest, well let's just say that Raymond would win a pissing contest and leave it at that.  Soon after the...emergence... Ray jumped up and mounted a mare.  Biff was so hypnotized by Raymond's...endowments that he froze, but Muffy screamed and attempted to cover the little yuppies eyes as they were dragged back to the truck in wondering why Mommy was so upset.  Biff was still watching the show when Buffy shrieked his name and he snapped back into reality, got back in the hooptie  and was driven back to "civilization."  Hey folks, ya wanted to experience Mother Nature at her finest ya have to expect her at her most...primitive.  I watched them drive away and heard Raymond hee-hawing in delight as I went back inside.  Ya gotta love Carova. Old Raymond died a few years back and everyone misses him.  I bet he died with a big smile on his face.