Physical State of Matt #23: NORTH CAROLINA
- 50statesofmatt
- Jun 9
- 12 min read
Little did I know when I set out that a dangerous walk along a breakwater, a Civil War cannon, and a naked sunrise awaited me in North Carolina.
I left Annapolis on a sunny Saturday morning. It had crept back up into the mid 40’s and all the snow had started to melt. There was another cold front and potentially more snow on the way, so I didn’t want to dawdle.
I had a flight booked from New York to Costa Rica in February which gave me enough time to complete five states beforehand, including Pennsylvania and Maryland. My plan was to head south so I wasn’t stuck doing the rest of New England in the frozen gray of winter. I decided to hopscotch down the East Coast states, thereby leaving myself a path when I returned this way that didn’t require crazy long drives.
I skirted Washington DC and crossed over into Virginia. The Mason-Dixon line may be what most people recognize as the dividing line between The North and The South, but I noticed a hard cultural shift about 30 minutes into Virginia. Southern accents became pronounced. Displays of Christian books began popping up at truck stops along the highway. And anti-abortion billboards, as well as those advertising barbecue restaurants and Cracker Barrels, became more prevalent.
There are four major recognized styles of barbecue - Kansas City, Texas, Memphis, and Carolina. Carolina’s signature dish is pulled pork with a unique sauce. Unlike the deep sticky red-brown sauce that is normally associated with barbecue, Carolina barbecue sauce is bright yellow and sharply tangy, made with a vinegar and mustard base. Whenever I have BBQ I like to mix and match Carolina sauce and traditional sauce for a nice contrast.
NORTH CAROLINA
The original Province of Carolina was huge. It was established in 1632 by King Charles I of England and included the known land between latitudes 31 and 36. It included all or some of the current states Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee. The name Carolina is a derivation of Carolus, the Latin form of Charles.
In 1649, during the English Civil War, King Charles I was tried and executed. Following the defeat of The Royalists, his son King Charles II fled to France and remained in exile until 1660, when the monarchy was restored.
In 1663, King Charles II issued a charter granting Carolina to eight English noblemen who had remained loyal to him throughout his exile. These were the Lord Proprietors of Carolina. The Province of Carolina proved too large and complex for the Proprietors to manage as a single entity, so in 1691 they added a deputy governor for the northern region. The territory was officially split into North Carolina and South Carolina in 1712.
North Carolina had several auspicious firsts. The first English colony established in the New World was on Roanoke Island, in what is today North Carolina. It was first established in 1585, abandoned in 1586, then reestablished in 1587. This second iteration became known as The Lost Colony after a ship arrived in 1590 to find it completely deserted, the fate of the more than 100 colonists unknown.
North Carolina was the first colony to declare independence from England with the Mecklenberg Declaration in 1775. On the flip side, they were the last state to secede from The Union prior to the Civil War, in May of 1861.
North Carolina also played in important part in pirate history. In 1718, after holding a weeklong blockade of Charleston Harbor, Edward Teach, better known as the infamous Blackbeard, surrendered to the governor of North Carolina.
He was forgiven all of his crimes of piracy in exchange for a promise that he would stop committing them. He married and briefly settled in Bath, North Carolina before breaking his promise and returning to his pirate ways in the Outer Banks later that same year. Never trust a pirate.
He was not initially pursued because he provided kickbacks from everything he captured to the North Carolina governor. Eventually the Virginia governor got sick of the shipping & trade disruption he was causing and sent Lieutenant Robert Maynard after him. Maynard defeated Blackbeard in Ocracoke Inlet, NC in November, 1718. Teach’s head was cut off and hung from Maynard’s ship as a warning to other pirates.
1903 in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, Orville and Wilbur Wright performed the first successful manned flight. They chose the site because of its consistent winds and soft sand. That first flight lasted 12 seconds and covered 120 feet.
North Carolina has latched onto this and claims the brothers as their own, despite the fact that they lived in Dayton, Ohio and built their plane the Wright Flyer there. North Carolina’s unofficial slogan is “First in Flight, First in Freedom” and the Wright Brothers’ plane adorns the state's official license plate.
WILMINGTON
My reservation at the Airbnb in Kure Beach (pronounce Cue-ree) didn’t start until Sunday, so I stopped for the night in Wilmington, a half-hour from my destination. I had been to Wilmington once before almost 20 years prior. I had just finished working on the film “Dreamer” in Louisiana, and I took a roadtrip to Ithaca. I wanted to see the cities on the East Coast that were starting to host a lot of film production. Having just been on a project that shot on location, I was hoping to do more of it.
In the late 90’s, several states and other countries started offering tax credits to American film and TV productions to lure projects away from California. In fact, “Dreamer” was set in Kentucky, but most of it was filmed in Louisiana because of the state's tax credits.
Today, despite Hollywood still being the nerve center of the American entertainment industry, film production infrastructure has become well established in many other places and less than 20% of films and TV shows still shoot in California. It’s more cost effective to go to places such as Louisiana, New Mexico, North Carolina, Canada, Ireland, or Hungary - even though it's necessary to fly out dozens of people and house them.
In 2006, when I was taking the road trip, Wilmington had established itself as “Hollywood East” or “Wilmywood”. Hit shows from the time, “Dawson’s Creek” and “One Tree Hill”, had been shooting there.
The University of North Carolina, Wilmington classes were starting on Monday, so the town was abuzz with returning students. UNC’s mascot is the Tar Heels, which is a reference to the state’s early industry making tar, pitch, and turpentine from local pine trees. Workers regularly had tar on the bottom of their shoes, and the derogatory term “tar heel” was coined for them. The name was later reclaimed and became a badge of honor for the state. What their strutting ram has to do with tar heels, I have no idea - hooves don't even have heels.
My time in Wilmington started on a sour note. My iPhone case had been falling apart, so I had recently replaced it. The off-brand case I bought turned out to not be compatible with the charging function of my magnetic car mount. I had been meaning to replace it, but for the time being I used the mount to hold the phone where I could read the map, but plugged the phone into the car's USB port to charge it.
I still hadn’t gotten used to this setup. When I parked in Wilmington at a gas station to refuel, I stepped out of my car and casually grabbed the phone off of its mount like I usually did. It jerked out of my hand when the cable reached full length and the phone fell to the ground, landing awkwardly on the screen. It wasn’t a huge crack, but it went across the phone’s front camera. Photos are a crucial part of this trip, so I wanted to fix it ASAP.
When I checked into my hotel I asked for dinner recommendations. I was told to go to Fish Bites in an area called Monkey Junction. The food was delicious, but I was more curious about how the area got its name.
Dina and Jack Spindle ran a service station from the 1930s to the 70’s at the intersection of College Road (NC 132) and Carolina Beach Road (NC 421). At the service station they kept live monkeys to bring in customers and entertain them. Truckers who stopped there started calling it Monkey Junction and the name stuck. The nearby Tregembo Animal Park is still in operation, but was closed for the season.
KURE BEACH
I had chosen Kure Beach as my destination a few weeks earlier. I chose it because I found a great deal on a beachfront condo on Airbnb. It had a balcony that looked out directly over a narrow sand beach to the ocean beyond.
I checked in and discovered that, although the balcony did in fact provide a stunning view of the ocean, I could only stand on it for a short time without being bundled up in my coat. Instead, I lay down on the couch and listened to the soothing sound of the waves. I woke up two hours later, drool dribbling into my beard.
I filled myself a glass of water from the tap to re-hydrate. I swallowed the first mouthful before I tasted it, then gagged. It was awful - the nastiest tasting municipal water I ever had. A Google search discovered that in 2024 the county filed lawsuits against local manufacturers who make products that use or produce polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). The lawsuits alleged that groundwater had been contaminated. I don’t know if that’s what gave the water its awful taste, but I bought a big jug of bottled water to be safe and used it for everything that week.
When I booked the Airbnb, I figured North Carolina was far enough south that the beach community would still be somewhat warm, even in January. I was wrong. The Arctic Blast was pushing further and further south. Although it never got below freezing, it was close for much of the time I was there.
I had never stayed in a tourist town during the off-season before. Kure Beach was eerily deserted and more than a little sad. Many businesses were closed. Scattered year-round locals hunched over their drinks at bars like The Spot Bar & Kitchen, grumbling about the weather. Restaurants were sparsely populated, but still had great food. I found a fantastic diner, the Ocean View Restaurant, and ate breakfast there three times that week.
Kure Beach’s most recognizable feature is the pier located in its small downtown. The fishing pier was originally constructed by L.C. Kure in 1923 as part of a larger planned entertainment complex which never came to full fruition. The pier was damaged by hurricanes in 1954, 1984, and 1996, and repaired each time by L.C.’s descendents.
The morning I explored downtown, I found it nearly deserted. The pier was closed, a chain link fence blocking access. A small construction crew was building a structure behind the silent Sea Dragon ride.
A couple of people wandered along the boardwalk. A shuttered arcade and corn dog stand were two of the businesses that lined a small alley which was completely closed. I could picture it thronged with people on a warm summer night.
The beach was similarly deserted, but it made for a nice, if chilly, morning stroll.
I stopped for lunch a little north in Carolina Beach. I had been told to visit Island Burgers & Bites, which was voted by Yelp users in 2022 as the home of the best burger in North Carolina.
Island Burgers looks from the outside like the least likely place to have a good burger. It is located inside of the Islander Kwik Mart and has no signage on the outside. I was skeptical, but more than one local had raved to me about them, so I got one. I have to say, it was a tasty burger.
That afternoon, I found a phone repair shop in the local Walmart. I didn't have phone insurance so I had to pay out of pocket. The cost was over $400, but the guy working there was able to take care of it while I shopped. That much money for a small piece of glass - crazy. When I picked the phone up, it looked great, but the screen was dimmer than it had been. I could turn up the brightness to compensate, but that would drain the battery faster.
The reason for this, he explained was because he used a screen that wasn't an official Apple screen. Official ones were more expensive and he didn't have any in stock. I refused the fix and had him put the broken screen back on. Strike one.
Later that week I scheduled a Geek Squad appointment at the local Best Buy. When they showed up, they told me that they were backed up and would have to keep the phone for 4 hours. I had a work meeting coming up, so I couldn't leave it. Ugh, strike two.
The next morning I did something I rarely do, I woke up at dawn. I am a night owl. My natural sleep rhythm is roughly 3am to 10am. This worked great when I was working in restaurants, but hasn't been super compatible with my film and corporate jobs. I like to say I'm a night owl by nature and a morning person by necessity. Though, being on Eastern Time and working for a company that’s based in California has worked well.
Although my alarm wasn’t due to go off for a while, my eyes cracked at 6:45. Intense orange light streamed through the open bedroom door. Anticipating a gorgeous photo op, I grabbed my phone and rushed out to the balcony wearing only the suit I was born in.
I was not disappointed. The colors of the sunrise were at least as vivid as any sunset I’ve ever seen. Pelicans cruised just above the water looking for fish. Thankfully, there was no one on the beach. After snapping a few shots, I retreated back to my warm bed.
Kure Beach is located on an island called Pleasure Island, which sounds like a trashy reality show. Later that morning I decided to head to the park at the southernmost point of the island to take a walk. Although the southernmost point of the whole headland is Cape Fear and Bald Head Island, the last area accessible by car is the Fort Fisher State Recreation Area.
The park is named after the military installation that used to occupy the land. The Port of Wilmington played a strategic role for the Confederacy during the Civil War, receiving supplies for the troops in the area. Fort Fisher was responsible for watching the ocean and Cape Fear River and protecting the port against a naval assault.
During the last few months of the Civil War, Wilmington became the last remaining supply line to Robert E. Lee’s forces fighting in Northern Virginia. A massive amphibious assault against Fort Fisher finally brought it down on January 15th, 1865, effectively ensuring the Confederacy's defeat.
The day was sunny and the temperature had made it up into the high 40s. Dry grass and shrubs sprouted up from the sandy beach. A small ferry sailed back and forth, taking passengers to the mainland. Concrete paved walking trails wound their way through the park.
Along the beach, I discovered a long breakwater, curving around in a huge loop. It was made of gray-black stone with patchy bright green algae. There was no one else on it, but that didn't feel odd because there was hardly anyone in the park. What a fun excursion, I thought, to walk along it all the way counterclockwise around the full loop back to the park.
As I started down the path, three tilt-rotor helicopters buzzed overhead, likely on a training mission run out of Camp Lejeune to the north.
The further along the breakwater I walked, the jankier it became. Large sections were crumbling. The rough area that had been exposed was thick with sharp barnacles. I had to watch my footing very carefully so I didn’t twist an ankle or slice myself open. It made for an exciting exploration.
After a while, I made it far enough along to see that the breakwater actually connected to another grassy beach, then curved off to the right. Aha, I realized, the grassy land was what completed the full loop back to the park, not the breakwater. I turned off, tromping along the beach through the grass and pushing my way through tall brush.
I finally rounded the corner and realized that, despite what it had looked like, the land didn’t in fact connect. I pulled out my phone and opened the map.
I had followed the path all the way to an island, and there was no way to complete a loop without swimming. Laughing at myself, I turned around and returned on the breakwater, stepping carefully.
Part of the way back, I crossed paths with three guys who’d had the same idea I’d had. They were locals and informed me that the water was abnormally low and the structure we were walking on was usually submerged. I shared my story of ending up on an island, but they continued on anyway. Thankfully, I made it back to the park free from injury.
Saturday morning, as I loaded out of the condo, a stream of people walked along the road heading south. I asked one of them what was going on. He informed me that they were going to the annual recreation of the battle at Fort Fisher. It's a good thing he told me this because just a few minutes later, a filling-rattling concussion from a massive cannon rolled over the neighborhood.
Although I was tempted to check out the re-enactment, it was a longish walk away and I had a major drive ahead of me. The Arctic Blast was shaping up to be even worst than expected. To avoid the extreme cold, I had decided that the following week I would escape to the southernmost point in the contiguous US: Key West, Florida.
Yes, and…
Matt
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