Tag: north carolina

Red Plague Bonuses

Red Plague Bonuses

Click here to discover “My Four Favorite Zombies!

Character Interview with Maya Solomon

Interviewer: This month’s Palmetto High School’s student spotlight is on Maya
Solomon, 17, recent 1st place winner in the thousand meters sprint at the state
track finals. Here are your five questions.

Q1: What is one thing most people don’t know about you?

Maya: I have a twin brother named Mason. But nobody at Palmetto has ever met
him. He doesn’t live with us anymore.


Q2: Who is your favorite teacher?

Maya: Mr. Reynolds the music teacher. He taught me a lot about songwriting and
composing.


Q3: What is one thing you can’t live without?


Maya: My iPad. It has all my recordings on it, my favorite music, and pictures and
videos of my family. I would be really upset if I lost it.

Q4: Who is the one person you can’t live without?


Maya: My dad. He’s a single parent now. Without him, I’d be an orphan.

Q5: What are your plans for after high school?

Maya: I’m going to Meredith College where my mom used to teach (before she
passed away) to study music and creative writing.

Settings and inspiration for the Red Plague series.

Like vampires, shifters, and cheap books? Join my monthly newsletter today. <3 Anna

Remedy (Red Plague Series #4)

Written by Anna Abner

Copyright 2016 by Anna Abner

Enjoy this free peek into the Red Plague series!

Cover Blurb:

The red plague has devastated the human race, turning billions of people into zombies with red eyes and an insatiable hunger for human flesh.

Seventeen-year-old Callie Crawford is used to fighting. She was an all-star wrestler in high school, and since 212R destroyed her world, she hasn’t stopped fighting. When her high school boyfriend Levi caught the virus, Callie saved him by keeping him chained in a rural North Carolina barn, waiting for something to change.

Before 212R, Roman Duran was a computer nerd, but since the virus, he’s become a guard in the survivor enclave in Washington, DC. After volunteering for a rescue mission, Roman has been belittled, robbed, and left for dead. He hasn’t saved a single person.

Until he stumbles across Callie. Because she has a zombie on a short leash, and Roman is carrying a syringe full of zombie cure.

Callie and Roman will face soulless survivors and rabid zombies on their journey to save a single infected. Along the way, Callie will have to choose between her past and a whole new future.

Chapter 1

The sky was gray and hazy when Callie Crawford pushed her skiff into the cold Atlantic, the surf lapping quietly against the hull. She glanced up from her compass, not liking the look of the clouds on the horizon. A warm breeze thick with salt and moisture blew through her ponytail and teased her bare arms.

A storm was the last thing Callie needed. Dad had taught her a few things, but she was no sailor, and the strength of the tides and currents always took her by surprise.

As if things weren’t messed up enough by her oversleeping.

Today was Levi’s day. Every third day since the apocalypse was his, and she’d never missed a visit, never been tardy venturing onto the mainland where packs of slobbering, mindless people infected with the 212R virus ruled. Not once. But she’d overslept, and now she’d be late arriving. Worse, she’d be late returning to her newly acquired private island in North Carolina’s Outer Banks. She may be forced to sail home in the dark.

Water splashed the side of the skiff as she maneuvered it over a mile of ocean. She’d been making the same trip every three days for the past two months, and she still thought she was going to die every time she lost sight of land and nothing but azure water hemmed her in.

She sailed past one of the department of transportation’s huge white ferryboats, immune to the reminder of a lost world. People didn’t use ferries anymore, and it had been left to rot. The vessel had foundered some time ago with all its vehicles still aboard. It jutted half out of the water, quiet and still, its once bright colors slowly being eaten away by rust and barnacles.

She palmed her compass, adjusted the sail for speed, and headed west. By keeping the buoys in sight, she steered her skiff straight into the port at Morris Marina.

Callie secured the ship and then pulled a marble and her slingshot from a pocket, looking for signs of trouble. No birds chirping. No dogs barking at strangers. No squirrels climbing branches. Nothing. She could have been the last creature alive on the earth.

Watching and waiting, she catalogued her survival tactics. Attacked from the front? Side step with a kick to the knee. Let their momentum work in her favor. Attacked from the rear? Head butt to the nose. Swarmed by a pack? Do whatever it took to break free and climb, even if it was into the back of a truck or up a tree. She’d mastered chokes, arm bars, and more than one submission hold.

Humans infected with 212R were lethally fast. Speed and maneuverability were key in her personal survival strategy. And she must survive. Levi needed her.

Wary, Callie perched on the seat in her little boat and let loose a high, piercing whistle. No movement.

Her slingshot zipped securely in her pocket and a pack on her back, Callie ran. The port was clear, and she hurried past the ticket office, the souvenir shop, and a tiny cafe. Her liberated Range Rover sat with the keys in the glove box. It started right up, and Callie chose a CD from her growing collection of pilfered music. It felt like an Elvis Presley sort of day. She pushed in “Blue Suede Shoes” and drove fast down Temple Street.

#

Roman Duran jogged a step behind Jackson Schultz and saw the moment the other man faltered on his wounded leg, careening into a chain link fence. Without missing a step, Roman ducked under Jackson’s arm and forced him forward along the garbage-strewn sidewalk. The pack of infecteds was only two or, at the most, three blocks behind.

“Here,” Pollard Datsik, the third member of their trio, called. He slipped around a block wall and sprinted up a set of exterior stairs to an apartment above a liquor store. Roman dragged Jackson behind him.

While Roman helped Jackson to a sagging sofa, Pollard shut the door with a quiet click and peered through the window, his breath a puff in the silence.

“Are they following?” Roman whispered. “Are they swarming the stairs?”

Pollard stretched his neck to see further, and then soft-stepped to the next window and stared at the street below.

“I’m fine,” Jackson murmured unnecessarily. “I tripped. It won’t happen again.” He shoved Roman away. “I just need a couple minutes.”

Roman didn’t buy it. The injury in question was a jagged slash above Jackson’s knee he’d earned climbing a fence the night before. Though they’d stopped running long enough to wrap it, Jackson wasn’t as energetic as he’d been before the wound.

Separating from Jackson, Roman peered through a broken windowpane, blinking away the exhaustion that had dogged him for the past couple of days. Without enjoyment, he chewed one of their last handfuls of goldfish crackers, the food dry and pasty in his mouth. Water was about to become a serious issue.

“I’m so thirsty,” he complained in a whisper. “And dirty.” What he wouldn’t do for a clean, clear stream of fresh water.

Roman glanced at his companions, noting their equally stained and stinking uniforms. Maybe volunteering to leave Washington, DC had been a crappy decision all around. Maybe the veep should have sent older, more experienced survivors on her search and rescue mission. Maybe his eighteen years on the earth weren’t enough for this kind of assignment.

A pack of infecteds had caught their scent in Raleigh and hadn’t let go. Forty-eight hours without sleep or rest. Two days of running, of hiding, of trying to lose the predators. And now, they were out of food and water.

“What if we climb on the roof?” Roman whispered. “We could wait them out.”

Pollard seized the bag of crackers from him and crammed a handful into his mouth.

“We’re out of water,” Jackson reminded them. “What if they trap us for days? No.” He shook his head at the room’s closed door. “We could end up a lot worse than we are now. I say we keep running.”

“Forever?” Pollard scoffed. “There has to be a point where we say we can’t continue like this. A point where we circle around the pack and head home.”

Roman wouldn’t call Washington, DC home. But then he’d never called anywhere home. An orphan kicked into the system after his mother abandoned him, none of the dozen foster and group homes he’d lived in had ever been his home. And DC was no different. It was a way station to somewhere else, no matter whether he had an apartment or a job or a purpose. It still wasn’t home.

Roman had yet to find his real home.

Swallowing dry crackers, Roman double-checked the number of rounds for his M-16. When they’d left the safety of DC’s walls, they each carried forty rounds for their personal firearms. It had sounded like a lot at the time, but he was down to nineteen rounds. The other two men had less.

For an entire day, Jackson had fired warning shots at their pursuers—a mistake, Roman realized now—but the only result had been bringing even more infecteds into the pack, as nearby stragglers were attracted by the noise.

His ears perking up, Roman rushed to the far window and scanned for movement. Was he crazy, or did he hear a car engine?

Roman had left DC wanting to help people, both infecteds and survivors. After running into people, one worse than the last, his companions were nearly to the point of abandoning the mission. But Roman hadn’t given up. Even though they hadn’t helped a single person.

The sound of the Range Rover’s engine quieted as it drove out of sight.

“Let’s try the distraction method again,” Roman suggested. The last time they’d thrown empty cans near the zombies, they’d been curious enough for Roman and the other two men to escape. “It worked before.”

Their rescue mission to Myrtle Beach could still be salvaged once they shook this pack. Unhindered by the starving horde of infecteds, the three men could scavenge for food and water, sleep safely in shifts, and cover ground at an easy pace. This running for their lives, though, couldn’t go on forever. Without water and more substantial food than goldfish crackers, he wasn’t going to survive much longer.

“I’ll open fire,” Pollard said, as if Roman hadn’t spoken, “and you two run for the cell tower at the end of the street. I’ll meet you there.”

“Good plan,” Jackson said, “except you’re a horrible shot. I’ll do the shooting, thanks.” He stood, trying to hide a wince of pain but failing.

Pollard clenched his jaw at the insult. “Fine.” He grabbed Roman by the sleeve and dragged him toward the door.

“You sure about this?” Roman asked, still thinking his idea would work better than wasting more bullets and hoping to find each other under a tower.

“Just run fast,” Pollard said.

Download the rest of Remedy now.


Enjoy this Free Red Plague Sneak Peek PDF full of excerpts and extras!
Like Cheap Books? Sign Up For My Monthly Newsletter Today.

<3 Anna

Antidote (Red Plague #2) Chapter One

Enjoy this free sneak peek of Antidote’s 1st chapter!

Antidote (Red Plague #2)

Copyright 2014 by Anna Abner

Back Cover Blurb:

The red plague has devastated the human race, turning billions of people into zombies with red eyes and an insatiable hunger for human flesh.

The only known cure to the 212R virus is locked inside of Ben Sawyer. To get it out, seventeen-year-old Maya Solomon and a group of survivors will take him on a journey to what may be the last bastion of human civilization, Camp Carson, Virginia.

Chapter One

“Maya!” Pollard made a hard right, the RV bounced over a median, and I held Ben even tighter. “He’s a zombie. Back off.”

“He injected the cure,” I argued. “He’s not a zombie anymore.”

“You don’t know that!”

“He said my name,” I stated, still rocked by the memory of my name on his lips. I’d never heard a red-eyed infected person speak. No one had.

I felt the pulse at his throat and was rewarded with a strong thrumming against the pads of my fingers. Like plucking a bass guitar. His forehead, gritty beneath my palm, radiated heat. The fever had come on fast.

“Do we have Tylenol?” I called out. I didn’t even possess a proper first-aid kit. And there were so many other things that could go wrong.

“Not that I know of,” Pollard answered.

I wasn’t even sure if a fever was normal in a person infected with 212R, the zombie virus. Maybe he’d had one all along.

“I can do this.”

I had never done this. Over winter break I’d volunteered at St. Joseph’s Hospital to make my dad, the chemist with two medical degrees, happy. I had alternated between stocking supplies my manager re-organized after I went home—which was awful—and trailing actual nurses as they did their work—which was awesome. One LPN used to narrate every single thing she did, from inserting IVs to checking blood pressures.

But none of it had prepared me for this.

“Where are we going?” I asked. If we found a hospital or a clinic I might be able to scrounge medical supplies.

“Away from this nightmare,” Pollard said.

Away from the flaming remains of my dad’s CDC lab. Away from anything he’d made or left behind. All that was left of his work coursed through Ben’s veins and nowhere else.

As gently as possible, I unbuttoned the top two buttons on his shirt and peeled the dark navy fabric away from his skin to inspect the gunshot wound. A dime-sized hole, surrounded by angry swollen flesh, stared back at me.

I replaced his shirt and something like rough paper in his breast pocket, the one over his heart, stalled my fingers.

I pulled out a wallet-sized school photo and immediately dropped it.

“Crap.” Fumbling, I picked it up off the RV’s dirty linoleum floor and stared into my own face.

Mine.

To be certain, I flipped it over and my narrow, jagged signature adorned the back. Last Christmas I’d mailed the photo inside a care package to my brother Mason. It had been addressed to the Dogwood Juvenile Detention Center in Raleigh, North Carolina.

But if I’d mailed it to Mason, how had it ended up in Ben’s shirt?

“Hang on to something,” Pollard called.

I stuffed the pic into my pocket. If Pollard or Hunny asked questions about it, I had no answers, yet.

I tested Ben’s pulse again, this time the one at his wrist, just to be sure it still beat. But my touch jumpstarted a chain reaction. His fingers twitched, and then the tremors spread to his arms and legs.

“Oh, no,” I cried out. His legs spasmed and his head knocked against my belly and thighs. Hard. “Ben? Can you hear me?”

Fear twisted my insides into origami as I held him through full body convulsions. Finally, his muscles quieted. I checked and re-checked his pulse.

“What’s wrong?” Pollard shouted.

“The medicine made him sick.” Understatement. More likely, it had poisoned him and his internal organs were failing.

“You’re not going to die,” I whispered as his seizure faded to a few quivers in his hands. Not with my father’s only remaining elixir in his blood. “I’ll take care of you.” Whatever he needed. A bath. Decent clothes. Soft blankets and a pillow. How long had it been since he’d slept on a pillow? If he needed medicine, I’d find it.

I wanted to take care of him. Because with my father’s antiserum in his veins, he felt a whole lot like family.

And I didn’t have much family left. My gaze wandered across the interior of the RV from Hunny’s blonde ringlets to the back of Pollard’s head.

Pollard cursed loudly, clipping the rear end of a compact car and sending it spinning away. The RV swayed to the left and I knocked into the mini fridge.

“I noticed the neighborhoods are less crowded than the highways,” he said.

On our two-day trip into downtown Raleigh, we’d stuck to major thoroughfares and been slowed down at every turn. Nothing but streets bottlenecked with abandoned vehicles, packs of red zombies, and overzealous snipers. I glanced down at Ben’s dirty face. He’d be a major hindrance if we were forced to change vehicles, or worse, walk part of the way back to the truck stop.

“Get the map out,” Pollard said. “Please?”

He swerved around debris, and it felt like the RV went up on two wheels for a moment, sending my stomach into a tailspin.

“Hunny,” I called. “It’s in my backpack.” I was afraid to move. Afraid to jostle Ben, even a little bit, and maybe hurt him.

I shifted, positioning his head on my lap, and cupped the side of his face. To keep him still. To reassure myself he was still breathing.

The little girl, ringlets bouncing, leapt over the unconscious Red and rifled through my pack.

“Here,” she said, returning to the front of the RV and handing the paper to Pollard.

“Spread it out,” he said. “I’m not stopping this thing. Not for a single minute. It’s too crazy out there.” To prove his point, he waved at something on the other side of the extra-tall windshield. “You see that pack of zombies? Must be twenty-five of them.” As we passed the pack by bouncing onto the sidewalk, Pollard checked the side mirrors. “And now they’re running after us.” He caught my eye over his shoulder. “We’re gonna get out of here,” he said, his usually pretty blue eyes steely with resolve. “I promise you.”

With the map unfolded and laid out on the dash, he pointed at different sites. “We’re about here.” He glanced up and turned the wheel to avoid a decorative brick wall around someone’s front yard. “We’re going west through the suburbs,” he announced, nodding as if convincing himself as well as us. “Then we’ll turn south and come up on the truck stop from the back.”

“It took two days to get here the first time,” I reminded him.

“It’s not going to take that long.” He smiled reassuringly at me in the rearview mirror. “On a good day I can drive there in twenty minutes. So…”

But since 212R had ravaged the human race, changing over ninety-nine percent of us into flesh-eating monsters, time seemed to pass differently. What had once taken a few minutes now took hours when you factored in the loss of electricity and scavenging for gas and hiding from Reds.

“Just hurry,” I added unnecessarily. “We need a safe place to stop and regroup.” To process the sight of my dad’s empty and looted lab. Or the fire. Or Ben’s injecting what I hoped was the antiserum. Or his saying my name.

Pollard was right. As soon as he passed through the heart of the city, there were fewer parked vehicles, less random debris, fewer Reds. He rolled over streets, driveways, access lanes, and sometimes even sidewalks and front lawns to keep us moving in the right direction.

“Maya?” Hunny climbed out of the passenger seat and stepped tentatively down the narrow walkway between the gas range and the dining table. “I saw snacks in your pack. Can I have some?”

I couldn’t remember what was in there. “Of course.” Then I recalled another helpful item I’d collected along the way. “And grab the baby wipes, will you?”

But she crept as far as Ben’s boot and then hesitated. “What’s wrong with him?”

I wiggled a little, changing positions, but kept his head in my lap. He didn’t react, just continued sleeping against me. “He injected the antiserum to 212R.” At least I hoped it was the antiserum. If it wasn’t, he may have ruined everything by injecting himself with poison.

Hunny scrunched her nose. “What?”

“He took the cure,” I said. “But probably the wrong dose. It’s making him sick.”

Her green eyes traveled up his body from his dirt-caked black boots over his stained blue work clothes to his blood-splattered face. “Are you going to be a zombie now? Because you touched him?”

“No,” I said quickly. “If I haven’t been infected yet, I probably won’t be. Besides,” I added, nodding at the back of Pollard’s head, “he thinks we’re immune.”

“It’s just a theory,” he said, proving he was eavesdropping. “It doesn’t mean you should touch him, Maya.”

“I think it’s a good theory.” It made sense to me. No matter how catastrophic a virus was, there was always a fraction of the population naturally immune.

“What are you going to do with him?” Hunny asked. She nudged his boot with the toe of her tennis shoe and Ben’s leg wobbled, but he didn’t wake up.

“Easy,” I warned. He was a human being, not a toy. “I’m not going to do anything with him. He’ll wake up,” I hope, “and we’ll find out if the antiserum worked.”

She bobbed her head, but I sensed she had something else to say. Finally, she whispered low enough Pollard couldn’t hear, “Maya, I took something.”

My guts clenched. “What did you take?” And from where?

“I’m sorry,” she said in a rush. “I know you told me not to, but it was just sitting there, and it was so cute and little.”

“What did you take?” I pressed. We’d been in a lab where hazardous chemicals were stored. “It could be dangerous.”

“No, it’s not.” She pulled a silver rectangle from her pocket and offered it to me. “Here. Look. It was on your dad’s desk.”

The moment it landed in my palm I knew what it was. Immediately, like turning a faucet, I teared up.

“It’s me and my brother when we were little.”

I opened the small, hinged frame and stared at a pair of black and white portraits, cropped to show just the faces and nothing else. At two, when the pictures had been taken, we’d looked so similar. We both had wispy black hair. The same brown eyes. Only our smiles were different. Mine was smaller, more hesitant. Mason grinned whole-heartedly, showing off tiny baby teeth.

“This is me.” I touched the glass over my pale face, and then my twin brother’s. “This is Mason.”

So much had gone wrong since we’d taken the photos, but in the snapshots we were still young and sweet and the future seemed bright. Maybe that’s why Dad kept it on his desk, even after Mason was incarcerated. Maybe he’d liked to remember his kids before the darkness descended.

I thought of the picture tucked into my pocket. Is that why Ben liked it? Did my face somehow remind him of his life before the plague?

“I’m sorry,” Hunny said again.

I closed the frame and returned it to her. “It’s okay. I’m glad you took it.”

“You should have it.” She tried to give it back. “It’s yours.”

“No.” I shook my head. It hurt too much to look at. “Keep it. You can give it back to me later when you’re done with it.”

She wedged it into her pocket and unzipped my backpack. “Here.” She handed me the wipes and then returned to the passenger’s seat with a box of yogurt-covered raisins.

I scrubbed vigorously at my hands with a moist towelette, rubbing between my fingers and up both wrists. I repeated the process with a second cloth, removing layers of blood, dirt, and grime. No matter how hard I washed, though, I couldn’t remove every mark I’d gathered since the red plague exploded out of South America and then the world. Maybe I’d never be completely clean.

There was so much blood caked on Ben’s hands they looked black, but up his left arm was a fine misting of white paint. Evidence it had been him who’d written me a message on asphalt, and no one else. Proof he was different than most Reds. I reached to clean it off when the RV hit something so big I was weightless for an instant.

“Ladies?” Pollard announced, spinning the giant steering wheel. “We’re almost there.”

Buy the full novel on Amazon now.

Like Cheap Books? Sign Up For My Monthly Newsletter Today.
Enjoy this Free Red Plague Sneak Peek PDF full of excerpts and extras!

<3 Anna

Moving Cross-Country Countdown (Moving Day)

Moving Cross-Country Countdown (Moving Day)

Or, I Have Resolved Myself To The Chaos To Come

2015-06-11 10.48.13

Well, here we go…

The truck is packed, the cable is off, and the mail is being held. We’re really doing this.

I think I’m finally ready to leave. Though it’s bittersweet, we’ve said good-bye to all our friends and favorite places (I had to have Bojangles one last time, and I’ll probably swing by Smithfield’s for lunch today), we are headed off on a new adventure in the Pacific Northwest.

Job search update: I haven’t heard back from the school I Skyped with last week, but I have another phone interview with a different school today at noon. Is it a good thing or a bad thing that I’m so physically and emotionally exhausted from preparing to move that I could care less about an interview today? I’ll give it my all, but my heart’s not in this one. My mind is just in too many places.

Today Jacksonville, NC is a balmy 83 degrees with 65% humidity, which means I look like I’ve just stepped out of the shower at all times of the day, but today in Tumwater, WA it’s 60 degrees with 70% humidity. I’m not sure that’s any better, but I’ll take it.

Next time you hear from me I’ll be on the road!

Ghosts, Hauntings, & Cheap Books: Sign Up For My Monthly Newsletter Today.
Enjoy this Free Red Plague Sneak Peek PDF full of excerpts and extras!

<3 Anna

Moving Cross-Country Countdown (T – 3 Days)

Moving Cross-Country Countdown (T – 3 Days)

Or, I’m Starting to Lose My Mind

2015-06-06 15.41.18

We said good-bye to more friends Sunday. My daughter had a birthday party at an ice skating rink, and had to say good-bye to three of her best friends (and three of the most amazing young ladies ever). I only cried twice. No biggie.

Thank goodness for email, texting, and Skype. It’ll almost feel like they’re still in the same city.

On top of planning a big party last weekend, I’m now falling behind on absolutely everything else. I literally haven’t packed a thing, even though we leave in three days. Mostly because I’m spending a lot of time at end-of-year school activities and scrambling to finish a couple projects I don’t want to leave half done.

Tomorrow I have to stop by the dentist for a quick check-up, and then I’ll be trapped in an auto repair shop for a couple hours while my truck gets a new set of brakes. Luckily, I’ll have my Kindle with me.

I did hear a great idea today from my friend Laura. To help deal with boredom on long car rides, she recommends buying a present for every day of the trip, wrap each one, and don’t let my daughter open more than one a day. The best part is, each gift is something crafty and tactile that takes upwards of an hour to complete. Things like modeling clay, a yarn loom, or a design-your-own jewelry box.

I love that idea, though it will take time I don’t have to find fun kits, wrap them, and pack them into suitcases I haven’t even pulled out of the closet yet.

What do you think?

Ghosts, Hauntings, & Cheap Books: Sign Up For My Monthly Newsletter Today.
Enjoy this Free Red Plague Sneak Peek PDF full of excerpts and extras!

<3 Anna

Moving Cross-Country Countdown (T – 15 Days)

Moving Cross-Country Countdown (T – 15 Days)

Or, Relocating From NC to WA

the-united-states-of-america-map

Last night I had to say good-bye to my Wilmington writing buddies, and it was the first time it hit me that I’m leaving my friends and my home and for the last five years. Today, I’m feeling a little melancholy. Leaving didn’t affect me when I packed boxes or searched houses online, not until I had to say good-bye.

In an effort to feel more productive, I’m spending the morning scheduling blog posts and a newsletter for June during the time I’ll be on the road and living out of hotels.

Ghosts, Hauntings, & Cheap Books: Sign Up For My Monthly Newsletter Today.
Enjoy this Free Red Plague Sneak Peek PDF full of excerpts and extras!

<3 Anna

Spring Break Road Trip (Part 2 of 2)

Spring Break Road Trip (Part 2 of 2)

Or, A Photo Journal Of My Explorations Of Eastern Virginia

Our first night in Williamsburg, my daughter and I took a break from touring the Colonial city to find dinner. I had grandiose ideas of eating in a tavern, served by candlelight by actors in period costume. Those of you who have visited the city before could have warned me those reservations sell out days (possibly weeks) in advance. Our next best idea was to dine in a local establishment outside of the historical district. But by the time we found an Italian bistro, we had fifteen minutes to eat in order to make a variety show at the Kimball Theater. We ended up being ten minutes late and frazzled.

So, what did we do for dinner on night two? Rolled up to the Golden Corral. I love the south!

Stop 4: Art Museum, Williamsburg, VA

The folk art exhibit at the DeWitt Wallace Decorative Arts Museum at Colonial Williamsburg was overflowing with beautiful and quirky works of art by untrained everyday artists. This bust is extremely lifelike and once graced the bow of a ship. It’s not exactly a mermaid, but I like it!

blog museum 5
This bust of an unknown man carved by an unknown artist was once attached to the bow of a ship in the Great Lakes region.

I fell in love with this portrait at first sight. Isn’t she creepy? Her name was Martha Payne. How perfect is that?

blog museum 7

blog museum 8

This exhibit of non-traditional carousel animals immediately drew my attention for its whimsical and imaginative design. The cat with a fish in its jaws and a saddle on its back would be my first choice!

blog museum 3
Carved by Salvatore Cernigliaro between 1903 and 1928 in Philadelphia, PA.

blog museum 4

Stop 5: Tavern Ghost Tour, Williamsburg, VA

A night photo of the Brick House Tavern in Colonial Williamsburg. Like almost every original building in town, it’s rumored to be haunted. See any ghostly faces in the windows?

blog ghost tour

Stop 6: Jamestowne, VA

As a last minute stop, we toured Jamestown, the site of the first successful British colony in America. And I’m so glad we did!

blog jamestown 4
My daughter freaked out when she saw this crest inside the church. In her RevQuest there was a story about the lion and the unicorn.

I was jumping up and down to take my picture with this gorgeous statue of Pocahontas.

blog author 4The drive home

We ran into all sorts of traffic on the way home, including back to back accidents.

blog traffic

So, my daughter took the opportunity to write in her journal.

blog driving 2

And I took pics of myself. :p

blog driving

 

<3 Anna

Spring Break Road Trip (Part 1 of 2)

Spring Break Road Trip (Part 1 of 2)

Or, A Photo Journal Of My Explorations Of Eastern Virginia

I love history. There isn’t a historical marker I won’t swerve off the road to investigate. And American history is one of my favorites. The Revolutionary War, the Civil War, Colonies, Explorers, Native Americans… What’s not to love?

The past few years I’ve taken over Spring Break at my house and turned it into an annual history-seeking road trip. Two years ago we visited Roanoke Island (A lifelong dream of mine), Kitty Hawk, and Fort Sumter. Last year we explored the historical districts of Savannah, Georgia. This year we headed north to Virginia to learn more about the Colonial period in American history.

Stop 1: The Creepiest “Haunted” House in North Carolina

I don’t know who owns this house or why it fell into disrepair, but I can’t get enough of it. If I wasn’t afraid some Highway Patrol Officer would cart me away for trespassing I’d explore every dusty, cobwebbed corner. Doesn’t it spark images of antebellum ghosts, pale ladies in long gowns, and supper by candlelight?

 

blog haunted house 5
Beware! 

blog haunted house 2
Stay out!

Stop 2: Harriet’s Church, Kinston, NC

It started to rain as I trekked toward the Harriet’s Chapel historical site. It didn’t bother me. What’s a little rain when you’re standing on a Civil War battleground? But my daughter wasn’t as excited about this church (not the original) and stayed dry in the car with the iPad.

 

blog harriet chapel 3

blog harriet chapel 1

Stop 3: Williamsburg, VA

One of the best parts of visiting Colonial Williamsburg with a kid was finishing their historical scavenger hunt called RevQuest. We followed clues around the village, solved a cipher, met a spy, texted clues to receive more clues, and solved a mystery.

blog rev quest will
My little darlin’ texting RevQuest clues.

blog author
Anna Abner 

blog author 2
Bail me out! I haven’t made my daily word count! 

And because I’m a total dork I took a picture of this house because of its plethora of pleasing vertical lines.

blog vertical lines

Check back next week for part 2!

<3 Anna

Theme: Overlay by Kaira