I cannot rely on Helen’s Kitchen to consistently provide good red-eye gravy, but this picture reminds me that this was one of the really good ones.  Everything fixed really well!  More than once, or twice, or even three times, their red-eye gravy has come out “looking good” but having no or very little salty flavor.  At one time I thought that I had just gotten there late and they had “watered down” the gravy to make it last, but I’ve arrived earlier and it still was bland.

[NOTE 06/28/25]: I may have mentioned this elsewhere but I found that adding some salt to the bland red-eye gravy was the answer. Maybe they add water to dilute the salt, and I just have to impose my will and add it back. *And they almost always provide way more country ham that I am going to eat at breakfast so I almost always take one of the flat biscuits (which I love that they don’t have a bunch of white starchy center) and make a country ham biscuit for later. The later normally coming somewhere near the Friends You Know Restaurant, after I’ve just had some onion rings and a Diet Dr. Pepper.

I drove down to Hubert yesterday (Friday) and had lunch with Mary Ann at the El Catrin Kitchen near Swansboro. But there were several things I did or did not do that I usually do or do not do. I didn’t go to Helen’s Kitchen for a country ham breakfast. Highly unusual. I ate a Mexican Scrambled Eggs breakfast at home, and got started for Jacksonville a little later.

So, since I didn’t go to Helen’s Kitchen I drove directly to the Library and bought a couple of books and some magazines ($6 total, I think). And then because of the relative “lateness of the hour” I drove down to Hubert (instead of heading up to cross the Minnesott Beach Ferry to Cherry Branch – a 20 minutes joy of a ride) with the intent of passing by Mary Ann’s in Hubert and driving directly to Beaufort. But as I went past Ray’s, I decided to turn in and try to unload the thick cut pork chops I had bought for them.

I got a great deal on the Thick Cut Pork Chops at Lee’s Fresh Market, near Benson, the day before. They had two chops per package and they were only $1.89 a pound… and, there was a sticker on the package that said, “Buy One, Get One Free.” Wow!!! What a deal. And I had prayed, minorly, just to have some pork chops there to buy, but this was fantastic. I bought four packages, kept one, and tried to take one to Jeff Mitchell’s, but no one was home so I ended up taking 3 packages (6 chops total) down for Ray & Mary Ann.

I also had made a Bean Sprout Kit for Ethan, but didn’t see him. Left that with Ray & explained how it works. Also left several books for the kids. One book was about the Titanic, and I think the book I bought at the library that morning was about Space (from back when the space race was popular… Goddard, the Moon, etc.). These books might have been interesting when I was growing up, especially if I had to do a report on something, but now I would just get the full color photos, and videos from YouTube and let the AI help me write the whole thing. *I was never good at writing long papers. I couldn’t even write a three page report. All the extra words to explain something that could be said in three sentences didn’t seem interesting to me. *The sinking of the “Graf Spee” came from a Reader’s Digest article and I just couldn’t make it flowery enough to fill 3 pages. And I’m pretty sure that the teacher knew exactly where I had gotten the idea from. And this was before the Internet, so I only had one source and it wasn’t the TV. Argentina?

Oh, and I had a jar of Duke’s Mayo that I also gave Ray. Just before I left home, I had looked over and saw the 4 unopened jars of Duke’s and I thought, hey I’m never going to use all these before one goes bad. I’ll see if Ray wants it.

Mary Ann left for the beauty parlor while Ray and I were talking outside. I didn’t see her come out and get in her van, but then Ray pointed out that it was gone.

I told him I was heading down to Morehead City and he said he had to go back inside to “feed the kids.”

I didn’t count on the “summer traffic” milling about the beach, and “the bridge” and Morehead City & Beaufort, but I made it almost to the Beaufort Inn before turning around, and it was about 2:08 pm when I got to the restaurant.

But I also took the back route along Morehead City and never had an accident or other traffic flow problem to deal with. It’s 4th Street where the thru fare ends, and you turn for one block back to the road that will take you over the new bridge to Beaufort. As you come off the new bridge the Beaufort Airport (a small thing) is on the left and you turn right to go down to the Beaufort waterfront. Lots of beachers down there.

The damned GPS on my phone kept telling me that Swansboro was almost an hour away, and it was only when I was almost in Swansboro that the GPS said, “You’re 8 minutes from Swansboro.” I don’t know where it thought I was, but it was obvious, IT DIDN’T HAVE A CLUE! Like when I was in Greensboro, last, and it said it would take a day or more to get to some street in Greensboro, by car, and it kept showing that I was starting somewhere in Missouri, USA. Or, how about several weeks ago, I had an argument with Gemini (AI) that Joe Biden wasn’t our current President in June of 2025. It swore up one side and down another that he had won the election and that was after I had tried to tell the AI, he didn’t even finish the Election. Later that afternoon, the AI finally came to it’s senses and agreed with me that Donald Trump was our current President. I think I even responded to the AI, “Damn, I wish you were right and that Joe Biden had won the Presidency again, but he didn’t.”

Ray never showed up for lunch.

I sat at the table next to the others, but right next to Mary Ann. I had the Chicken Fajitas Lunch Special, a little over $10, and unsweet tea. I ate a bunch of tortilla chips, which I shouldn’t have and the one meal was probably 1,600 calories, just for lunch. But, it was delicious.

I took a detour after El Catrin and went over to Stella and then back on Parkertown Road on my way to Mary Ann’s. Mary Ann and I talked at the round table and I left shortly before 7 pm. Still lite outside, and I stopped at the Friends You Know Restaurant for onion rings and a Diet Dr. Pepper. I ran through a little stormy weather before getting there and the temp had dropped to about 83 degrees F. That’s amazing because just a few days prior the weather people were saying we might have about 7 days of 100 + degrees weather. Now only about 3 in a row, and yesterday, didn’t get to 100 everywhere I went.

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