I also took a half-dozen short hikes, enjoying places like the Scuppernong Trail near Eagle and the Parnell Observation Tower near Plymouth.

But Steve Mitchell, co-owner of Scuppernong Books in Greensboro, said he would understand if its scheduled authors declined to come to North Carolina.

After the storm-swollen Scuppernong River nearly drowned Columbia, N.C., last year, town leaders were convinced that their waterside hamlet had become dangerously low.