Recently Mary and I visited with our son Jeremiah and his family, Jennifer and Cameron. Their home is in North Carolina. During Memorial Day weekend Jeremiah purchase tickets for the three-day event at Charlotte Motor Speedway. Big time racing on the mile and a half track. A lot of good racing, and a long time sitting.

This time of year, in the Carolinas, the summer vegetable stands along the road begin to appear. Strawberry and spring peaches are the main items people are seeking to buy. Corn and field vegetables will shortly be available for sale.

These days, those fruit markets almost seem to be a thing of the past for those heading south to the beaches. Why? In the past couple of decades new four lane roads have replaced the old two-lane routes once taken by vacationers. A trip to Myrtle Beach that once took fourteen hours, today may take only ten or eleven. Seventy miles an hour versus fifty-five makes a difference.

It had been so long since we traveled the two lanes south, I had almost forgotten the adventures that traveling the old roads provided along the way. Going south for families also meant making yearly stops at roadside attractions.

One in particular was a stop on LookOut Mountain. After traveling up the curvy mountain, you saw a wide spot in the road. A famous southern mountain tourist shop contained every kind of souvenir you could think of to buy. Some of the items had been for sale for so long, they had become antique souvenirs covered in dust.

Out back was an observation tower. I don’t remember how tall, but it offered those with $2.00 and strong legs a view of the Blue Ridges of Virginia. One trip to the top was enough for most vacationers.

Once you passed the mountains you began seeing advertisements for roadside pottery works. Red clay pots of every size and configuration. Of course, each year my parents stop to see what they had to offer for sale. Some of the pots had sat outside so long grass had grown inside of the pot. But as with the tower, we stopped each year to visit the shops along the way south.

There is one more thing our trip sometimes reminded us, DON’T SPEED IN SMALL SOUTHERN TOWNS. Each year going or coming, we would see the red lights of a police car in those days with an out of state car pulled over. If I remember, my dad once was the recipient of a small-town ticket. After that, my mom reminded him to slow down and run five miles under the limit. Still to the day my dad last spoke about it, he swore he was under the limit when that southern Smokey stopped him.

There was one more place we stopped along the two-lane roads that has been lost to modernization of highways, southern family markets. Once you crossed into North Carolina, roadside stands began to appear. Depending whether you were in early summer, middle summer or late, the kind of fruits and vegetables that were for sale.

Beside each stand was a stack of fifty-pound watermelons. To help people decide if they wanted to buy a melon, the proprietor of the stand had a melon cut to offer visitors a sample. The ground was covered in black seeds and small pieces of rine. The buzzing flies made little difference to us kids wanting to

sample the green and red treat. Our parents warned us to not eat the fly covered melon, but somehow we managed to sneak a slice. We swore it was the best melon we ever had, flies and all.

Why am I telling you of those days long ago? When we visited Jeremiah we asked if he knew of any stands that were open and had they begun to sell peaches yet? By chance, he had just traveled to an area where stands had opened and were selling peaches and other early season fruits and vegetables.

But I would need to travel a couple back roads to find the orchards and stands. Early the next morning with our GPS fired up, we set off in search of roadside stands offering peaches. After about an hour the first stand came into view. Jeremiah had told us the second stand had peaches and peach ice cream. Our mouths watered as we made our way to the stand the had a big sign out front advertising, “PEACH ICE CREAM.”

My first stop was to check out the prices of the seasons’ first peaches. Red, ripe and $35.00 a half bushel of small peaches. I wanted to take some time to think about the $35.00 peaches, so since we had our hearts set on peach ice cream, we decided to think about the peaches while we enjoyed a waffle cone, $5.95 each. Now I am not cheap when it comes to reliving a moment from the past. But I could have gotten a ride in a Delorean Time Machine and saved money by traveling back in time to when they were 59¢. I may not have minded the price as much if the peach ice cream tasted like it had touched a peach. It was good for vanilla ice cream, but not worth a darn for peaches.

We finished our cone and decided to check out another stand just back down the road, good thing we did. The stand’s owner had just pulled in with a fresh load of peaches from his orchard. A half bushel of freshly picked peaches was $29.00. A basket picked yesterday, $28.00. And they smelled like fresh peaches.

WE purchased two baskets, one picked today and one yesterday. We will take them home and vacuum seal them and freeze them. This winter when the snow is two feet deep and Mary asks, “would you like a pie?” I will remember the smell of fresh peaches along the road in North Carolina. Kind of like I was still a kid heading to the beach as I look back Through the Lens.