Mission Post #4 (April)

On April 24, Maren and Andrew brought the kids out to Mt. Olive for the Pickle Festival. Although the camp where we live is technically in Dudley, we have to go to Mt. Olive to shop. (They have a WalMart and two other grocery stores there.) So far all I have found in Dudley is one tiny Italian restaurant that has a few tables for eating in, or you can call ahead for take-out. The food actually is quite good, and it's incredibly clean inside (although you wouldn't guess that by looking at it from the outside). Imagine my surprise the first time I went there to pick up pizza and found that it is owned and operated by some very nice Vietnamese people? Who knew they could do Italian?

So, back to Mt. Olive, which is where we do our shopping, go to the dentist, and to church. It is famous for the Mt. Olive Pickle Company which is located on Cucumber & Vine Streets. The sign as you come in to town welcomes you to Mt. Olive, the Pickle Capital of North Carolina. I wondered about the origin of the name Mt. Olive, so I looked it up on the Pickle Co. website, and this is what I found . . .

"The Mt. Olive Pickle Company is named for its hometown, Mount Olive, NC. Tradition has it the town was named for the biblical Mount of Olives. We realize it's a bit confusing. Mt. Olive is located on the Coastal Plain of Eastern North Carolina. There's nary a hill in sight.

No mounts in Mount Olive, or olives, either. Just pickles."

Well, there you have it, and so once a year, they celebrate with the pickle festival. We thought it only fitting that we go this year, so we invited Maren and Andrew to bring the kids, since I was told that they would love it. They did! Here they are with none other than the Mt. Olive Pickle himself. Hyde, "Ollie" the Pickle, Will, Ivy & Nate. (I'm not sure about that guy in the background.)
Wouldn't you know, the first thing we saw when we got there was a camel. What are the chances of that? The boys just had to have a ride. I wanted one, too, but didn't see any other adults who were like-minded, so I settled for being a spectator.

After we'd seen everything and had lunch, we went to the "fun zone" and let the kids go on some of the rides. Here's Will and Hyde, and would you believe that the Mt. Olive newspaper that came out a few days later had this picture on the front page (above the fold). Who would have guessed that the first time those boys came to town, they'd end up in the news. Well they sure are cute, and were obviously having a great time!
Back at the camp, with all the fun behind us, Stan went back to working on the siding of the lodge (that's him way up on top of the scaffolding on the right). You can really appreciate the difference it all made, when you see the part that hadn't been done yet. This is the back of the same building with the deck around it that was in my last post.
I just had to throw in a random picture taken along one of the paths here at the camp. By April the trees had leafed out, and it was really beautiful.
Last, but not least, here I am driving the bobcat. What fun. I actually did a little cleaning up with it, just to see if I could. My dad would have been proud. Why is it that only guys get to do this fun stuff?