We headed out to the Research Triangle NC, where we plan to visit friends. So far, from waking up to getting on the road is taking us 3 hours. This includes walking the dog, emptying the fresh water and sewage tanks and packing up (as described earlier). Here we are fully loaded and ready to hop into the cab.
Having enjoyed our morning kayaking at Picture Lake, we had hoped to camp at one of the state parks on Jordan Lake, just a few miles from the Triangle. Unfortunately, in the winter the park gates are locked from 8 p.m. to 8 a.m. with no access to the campsites. Since this would have put a damper on our visits, we instead headed for a private campground, Springhill Park. This has proven to be very nice with large camping spaces and wooded areas between the RVs. It is also only a few minutes from Carrboro, one of our favorite towns in the Triangle region. Naomi took this picture of a hawk from her desk in the RV.
We arrived at the campground in the mid-afternoon, which made it feasible for Naomi to join friend Lucie for a unique cultural activity in the evening – a Yiddish songfest.
Yiddish was the language of the northern European Jews. Although it is written in Hebrew characters, most of the words are Germanic or mixed with local languages such as Polish or Russian. Naomi’s vocabulary is limited to a few phrases of importance to her grandmother (such as “Kom essen” “come and eat”). Lucie’s vocabulary is improving as she is taking classes in the language.
The “songfest” was more an ethnographic review of how the singer has found the lyrics and music for songs from Yiddish cabaret of the early 1900’s. Because the catalogs are transliterated to from Yiddish script to Latin script with no standard spellings, this is a very interesting journey, as is the cultural context of the songs. As well, the lyrics often were not accompanied by the musical score, so she had to dredge up old recordings. The ethnographer, Jane Peppler, has also done some very good translations, preserving the meter and the rhyming scheme. The songs were far from traditional being the pop tunes of the day. Ms. Peppler has a lovely voice and was accompanied by an accomplished pianist, so it was a very nice program (which also benefited a local charity).
The next day we visited our old haunts in Carrboro, particularly the Weaver Street Market.
Walking into Chapel Hill, we ran into current Penn State stat lecturer Kwame Kankam who was here visiting friends. (Oddly, this will not be the only non-local friend we run into accidentally this week.)
We then headed off for dinner with former PSU stat student Jianping Sun and her husband Xianming and their two children who have settled in Chapel Hill. (We are not doing a good job of taking commemorative photos with our friends.)
Having warm lovely weather, the next day we went kayaking on Jordan Lake. Rumple is an old dog who learned a new trick. Although he is afraid of the water, he was coaxed along and became Rumple the Kayak Dog. One advantage of the season is that hardly anyone else was on the lake except for a few 
fishers who were very quiet. We saw a bald eagle and several great blue herons.
To reward Rumple for his good behavior, we also took a walk in the woods.