Elizabeth City on Memorial Weekend

Saturday 27th May
We set off early from Chapel Hill as we knew we had a long drive ahead and needed to get to Elizabeth City by evening. We snafooed some rolls, butter, cream cheese and ham from the buffet breakfast for our packed lunch and hit the road, hood down again and wind in our hair – although we did have our hats on! Keeping to the smaller roads and away from the interstate highways we were soon eating up the miles as our Mustang sped along. It’s actually cooler with the hood up and air con on full and after a while we had to do just that as we were roasting. We hadn’t booked any accommodation for the night, like all our other nights although we had been advised to as it was memorial weekend in the States and everywhere would be booked up and very expensive, possibly having to do a minimum 2 night booking. Pete emailed a few places and we narrowed it down to 2 B&B’s that looked good and were not too expensive.

Arriving in Elizabeth City it was deserted and very eerie for a Saturday afternoon. Hardly a soul or a car in sight! Our first choice B&B had no-one at home and despite us emailing again could not give an eta. So we rocked up to our 2nd choice place which we knew had vacancies from earlier emails. Yet again we have lucked out! A fabulous place with a very welcoming couple. She is by her own admission a treats lady consequently there are lidded jars and dishes of cookies, sweets, cakes and chocolates all over the place for guests to help themselves. Wine is available on a help yourself basis and there is a pool – not that I think we will have time to indulge. The décor and furniture is antique style and colonial. Very very nice. We were extremely lucky to find this place. They only had one Queen room and a room with 2 singles left. They recommended a restaurant on the waterfront about 10 minutes’ walk away and booked us a table. It was indeed a great restaurant and we had the best table at the front by the window overlooking the bay. Our place is in the historic part of the town full of colonial clapperboard houses, some are rather dilapidated, some are in the process of being renovated and some are in tip top condition. Ours is the latter.Read more