Life on Paws and Wheels

Simba and I visited the grave of Robert E. Harrill, better known as the Fort Fisher Hermit , in Carolina Beach, North Carolina. His simple grave marker bears an epitaph consisting of only four words — “He Made People Think.” It's a fitting tribute to a man who rejected conventional society, moved into an abandoned World War II-era bunker, developed his own philosophy about life, attracted thousands of curious visitors, and became one of the most unusual personalities in coastal North Carolina history. Harrill spent roughly the final 17 years of his life living near Fort Fisher, surviving largely from what he could catch, gather, grow, or receive from visitors. Calling him a hermit was somewhat ironic because he eventually became so famous that people deliberately traveled to his bunker just to meet him. By the time he died there in 1972 at the age of 79, he had become a genuine local celebrity whose story was inseparable from Fort Fisher. His death added another layer to the legen...

Simba and I visited Historic Brunswick Town and Fort Anderson in Winnabow, North Carolina , one of the most fascinating historic sites we've explored along the Cape Fear River. What makes this place especially unusual is that two dramatically different periods of American history occupy the same ground. The archaeological remains of an important 18th-century colonial port lie beneath and alongside enormous earthen fortifications constructed almost a century later during the Civil War. Walking through the site is therefore like exploring two historic places simultaneously. Brick foundations reveal where colonial homes and businesses once stood, the towering walls of St. Philip's Church survive from the 1700s, and massive Confederate earthworks cut directly across portions of the abandoned town. Beyond them flows the Cape Fear River, the same waterway that made Brunswick commercially important during the colonial era and strategically important during the Civil War. For Simba an...

Simba and I visited the Stanley Rehder Carnivorous Plant Garden in Wilmington, North Carolina , a small but extraordinary preserve filled with Venus flytraps, pitcher plants, sundews, and other carnivorous plants. What makes this place especially fascinating isn't simply the number of unusual plants growing here. Wilmington sits within the remarkably tiny region of the world where the famous Venus flytrap naturally occurs in the wild, making a visit here completely different from seeing one growing in a greenhouse or sitting on a store shelf. The garden occupies less than an acre within Piney Ridge Nature Preserve , yet an impressive variety of carnivorous plants grows within its wet, sandy habitat. Wooden viewing areas and paths allow visitors to look across the protected bog and search for individual plants without trampling the sensitive environment. Some of the plants are large and immediately obvious, while others are tiny enough that you really have to slow down and look care...