Little Buddy Missing In Action

I had no Internet last night at the Sand Dollar Motel on Ocracoke Island, NC, or you would have already heard how sad and blue, morose and depressed I was all afternoon yesterday. Little Buddy disappeared sometime Monday morning. He was riding in his usual perch on the back of Zoom Zoom when we left Kilmarnock, VA early in the morning, and he was still there when I stopped to take this shot of sailboats in Deltaville, VA.





But by the time we stopped for lunch in Williamsburg, he was nowhere to be found. I of course accused Jim and Ron of kidnapping him. Ron, in particular, hates Little Buddy. For some reason Little Buddy threatens his manliness. They both swore up and down that they had not touched Little Buddy, and that he had probably jumped off at the earliest opportunity, in response to the spanking he had received the night before. I refused to believe this, since I know how much he likes riding, and I know that he would never run away just because of a spanking. He must have lost his grip while waving at someone and slid off the back. I could only hope that he wasn't badly hurt, or worse yet, run over. I thought about retracing our path in search of him, but it would have taken much too long. So I soldiered on the rest of the day without him, feeling very down and depressed.


We rode to the Outer Banks of NC and made a stop at an independent bike shop in Point Harbor to have a new front tire installed on Ron's ST1300 to quell the severe vibration that had developed over the last day. Around 6 pm we took the free ferry from Hatteras Island to Okracoke Island. On the half hour ferry trip, I was thinking about Little Buddy, and how much he would have enjoyed the boat ride.

After checking in to the Sand Dollar, Ron used some hokey pretext about betting on the color of the bedsheets to whip back the covers from one of the beds, and lo-and-behold there lay Little Buddy. Of course, I was overjoyed to see him, but I will never forgive Ron for such a low-down, snake-in-the-grass trick. All I can say is payback will be hell.

Dinner last night at the Back Porch Restaurant was amazing, easily the best of the trip. Ron and I had the daily catch, Bluefish, and Jim had duck. My Bluefish with Vietnamese lime sauce and julienned vegetables was possibly the best fish dish I have ever eaten. Ron's deep-fried bluefish was also very good, and Jim loved his duck breast.

On Okracoke, we found yet another back road to ride.

We caught the 2 pm ferry to Cedar Island on the mainland, a two and a half hour trip. At least Little Buddy got to enjoy this boat ride out in the open, not locked away in Ron's saddlebag.

After landing on Cedar Island, we boogied up to New Bern for the evening. From here, it should be about an 8 hour ride home tomorrow. This might be the last post for this trip, unless something memorable happens on the last leg tomorrow that is worthy of reporting. It has been a good ride, and even though the southeast has been blanketed with rain for the last eight or nine days, we have managed to avoid getting wet (so far) and boggied up to New Bern for the night.