Now it is fall. I caught SC highway 9 at Jonesville and drove through Lockhart, Chester, Lancaster, Buford, Pageland, Mt Croghan, and Ruby to the outskirts of Chesterifeld and in Cheraw turned rt at the CVS onto Hwy 52 for 3 to 4 miles and the park is on the right.
The roadside is full of showy, sweet goldenrod. The still green fields are dotted with fat round bales of straw and hay. The corn has been mowed down and lies tattered on the ground. There is a deep high cobalt sky with puffy gray clouds turning as white as cotton. I drove a long way, almost 150 miles. There were three dead deer, three run over raccoons, a white cat, a spotted black and white cat, a possum and a live beaver on the side of the road. There, I spotted a bunch of rabbit tobacco, whose dried gray leaves we would roll into a piece of newspaper and go out to the gully behind our grandparents house and smoke.
And their farm was just here nearby in the place called Pleasant Plain.
This is an area of great beauty, forested with hard wood and pine, crossed by Lynches River. It is Sunday morning and in this Bible Belt community, the Mt Croghan Flea Market is going full steam under the sheltering oaks. In Ruby, there is another flea market and a sign for "Frog Legs". "Polecat BBQ" is here too.
Cheraw is an Indian word, or a corruption of an Indian word. These native people were called Xuala, Suali and Saraw by European explorers. It is thought the tribe originated in the place in the mountains east of Asheville called Sualy Mountain and that they were once called Sualy. Cheraw probably comes from the Suoian language. The word is now lost to time as are the Cheraw peoples themselves. Their survivors were probably incorporated into the Catawba. Watching the kayaks and canoes floating, dipping and gently shoshing on Lake Juniper, I thought of them in this the land they believed belonged only to God. There is a 1.9 mile boardwalk circling the end of the lake. Along side it, water lilies are blooming. Someone has written in chalk on the first boards of the walk:
"Our Happy Ever After"
Foofa and I walked the 4.5 mile Turkey Oak Trail, accessed by driving past the golf course, and modern golf club certified by the Internat'l Audubon Society as a Wildlife Sanctuary. There are fox squirrels there.
They love the cleared pine needled floor of the White Pine and Loblolly Pine Forest, especially the golf course. There is a 2 mile short loop of the trail but then you would miss the stand of hollow trees where the endangered Red Cockaded Woodpeckers live (I heard them but I did not see them). You would miss the lookout over the Cypress Wetlands of Lake Juniper. But you might see deer, a timber rattler, or you might see Blue Flag irises in the Spring or rose pogonia orchids in the summer.
The longer trail is well marked with white blazes, but somehow I got off the white sandy path and wandered around until I could see the manicured green grass of the golf course. Then I found my way up the road to my car.
I would like to come back and spend the night in one of the cabins and go on a moonlight canoe float which they hold year round when the moon is full, departing before dark and traveling to the headwaters, then returning by moonlight.
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