W. Curt Vincent
Editor
Wilson is about two hours away, but it’s a trip you really need to make.
My daughter and her family visited last week from Upstate New York and had previously given me a challenge: find something unusual to do or someplace unusual to visit.
I think I nailed it.
Ashley and the gang have visited a few times before, and our day trips have typically been aimed at the beach — or “the shore,” as many northerners refer to it. We’ve hit Wrightsville Beach, Carolina Beach, Oak Island and Myrtle Beach so regularly, I think Ashley has made friends at each location.
So when I was given the challenge, I began thinking about all the things North Carolina has to offer and what might interest not only Ashley and James, her significant other, but also 14-year-old Tarrah and 7-year-old Landon.
Things to the east were out from the start, because … well, it’s all beach.
Looking south from my home in Lumberton, there was only South of the Border. No good. Plenty of things to look at and spots for photos, but I knew the trinkets wouldn’t interest the gang and, the biggest draw of all — climbing the big sombrero — wasn’t even open.
Looking west, and knowing they had already been to Scotland County, I went further and landed in Charlotte. Loads to see and do there, but felt that with temperatures expected in the 90s, a steel and asphalt jungle wouldn’t do.
So that left me with north. I actually started with northwest and considered areas like Asheville, Boone and Cherokee, but the distance quickly erased those options. That’s when I looked hard along the Interstate 95 corridor.
Smithfield was first. It has the outlets and some history with Ava Gardner, but not much that would keep the young’uns off their cellphones.
My travels quickly took me past Dunn, Benson, Kenly and Roanoke Rapids. All strikeouts.
Then I settled on Wilson, home of the North Carolina Baseball Museum. Sounded good to me … but only FOR me. My daughter, for some inexplicable reason, is a Red Sox fan, so avoiding all things baseball for this Yankees fan was a good idea.
But Wilson had something else that would interest and amaze us all: the 2-acre Vollis Simpson Whirligig Park. I was sold.
We made that trip to Wilson last weekend, and it proved to be more than we had hoped for. The Whirligig Park is simply incredible, and the story behind it — and it’s creator — will evoke a simple “wow.”
If you’ve seen photos of Simpson’s creations, they cannot compare to seeing them in person. Stretching up to 60 feet tall, these colorful whirligigs that seem to be in constant motion, thanks to Mother Nature’s wind, will keep you staring in awe.
A bit about Simpson: He served in the Army Air Corps during World War II and was a rigger and farm machine repairman after the war. It wasn’t until he retired in his 60s that he began tinkering with creating the whirligigs. At first, his creations were installed around the pond on his property in Lucama before word got out and they were eventually brought to downtown Wilson.
Before his passing at the age of 91, Simpson was commissioned to create whirligigs for the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, and now has his whirligigs in several other countries.
But don’t think the Whirligig Park is all you’ll have to see. On Saturday mornings, the park features a farmers market and food trucks, as well as the Casita Brewing Company. And nearby, there is the Vollis Simpson Whirligig Museum and a plethora of shops in a vibrant art district.
So thankfully, the New York gang went home with numerous photos and a cool story from our day in Wilson — and they already want to know how I will top it next year. Ugh.
If you want to really get the full effect of the Whirligig Park in action, consider visiting during the two-day North Carolina Whirligig Festival on Nov. 6-7.
W. Curt Vincent can be reached at 910-506-3023 or cvincent@laurinburgexch.wpenginepowered.com.