Today, there were three.
Entering the trail, I chanced upon a geocache, a plastic box filled with cheerful doodads, tchotchkes, little toys, patterned erasers, even a coiled cell phone charger. I took a green plastic bug and left a ball point pen.
Rounding the corner from the woods at the creek, I spotted a Cooper's Hawk fishing from a low branch two feet over the water. For a while, I watched him. Boofa was quiet and still. The hawk leapt into the water and for a time, stood with his yellow talons submerged, head down searching.
Crossing the jetty over the wetlands, three American Goldfinch flitted around the branches of dead bushes in the water.
The day was cool, a harbinger of the fall to come.
There is always a gift. A peek into the natural world. An encounter with another human being. A flash of intuition like a bolt of lightening. A glimpse into the past. A challenge overcome.
Unfortunately, my gift from Santee was poison ivy. A lesson learned.
Tuesday, August 26, 2014
Sunday, August 24, 2014
August 23, 2014 Santee State Park, The Hottest Day of the Year
Such a relief from yesterday. I walk in the light rain. There are purple blossoms on the kudzu. Confederate jasmine is in flower. The crape myrtles full of pink, purple and white blossoms and the cane are bending over with their burden of water.Here and there is a dappling of yellow leaves. In my garden, spider lilies have pushed up and the big red rose bush in is bloom again. The children have gone back to school.
Yesterday I drove up I-26 from Charleston where we had stayed overnight in an old Charleston house on the College of Charleston Campus. I took the exit for the town of Santee and drove up highway 15 past flat fields of dry brown corn and fields of blooming cotton, drooping in the blast of heat. Along the way are a few old houses set back surrounded by live oaks and here and there a church, one a tiny colorful steepled building in a field, the kind you might see in a miniature of a Christmas village. The country town of Santee boasts a large modern convention center, gas stations, pizza joints, tackle and fishing shops and a variety of lounges, sort of an unexpected and bizarre Las Vegas of the sandhills. It is the world class fishing that brings some of the less beautiful establishments to town.
The Santee dam was built in 1938 through 41 to create Lake Marion and Moultrie. Santee State Park is located on Lake Marion (the swamp fox) between the small towns of Santee and Elloree. I take hwy 6 towards Elloree from Santee and in front of the golf course, turn right onto State Park Rd.
After a short drive through the pine forest, Lake Marion, rippled dark blue and deep is before me. Across the water stands a long row of tall dead as well as leafed trees, the remains of the forest that was drowned to create the lake.
Here to the right is the Fisheagle Tours office. In front of me is the park store with fishing tackle, souvenirs and a snack area overlooking the water. To the left is the fishing pier and the park office.
There are four trails; three short ones and a 7.3 mile bike trail. Oak-Pinolly Nature Trail is near the shop. Sinkhole Pond Nature Trail is off Fox Squirrel Drive and the Limestone Nature Trail is off Cleveland Street close by a picnic area.
I take the Limestone Trail through the sandy pine needled woods and shortly come upon a footbridge over an alligator pond the color of green olives. Humans are not the only ones who catch fish. The gators are nowhere to be seen today. Going across the bridge, I startle up Great Blue and a duck. They fly up the pond to the north and I can see the intrusive outline of I-95 in the distance. The trail ends at a road so I turn back and find another trail that ends back where I started.
The park has 25 cabins, 5 of which are on piers out into the lake. It also has camping and a round community building. But fishing is the big thing here.
I get back on hwy 6 through Elloree, then St. Mathews where lovely well kept old homes alternate with crumbling old houses. All the yards have flowers, even those that are abandoned. Cows are standing shoulder deep in the ponds along the way.
Hours later I am near home in the Upstate. Children and their parents, fully clothed, are wading through the Tyger River. A blue-black cloud appears across the heavens before me.
Lightening cracks the sky and in moments, the scorching heat is gone, rain is pouring down on the windshield. It is hard to see the road, but just as quickly the pop-up storm is gone and fresh fragrant washed earth is left behind it.
Yesterday I drove up I-26 from Charleston where we had stayed overnight in an old Charleston house on the College of Charleston Campus. I took the exit for the town of Santee and drove up highway 15 past flat fields of dry brown corn and fields of blooming cotton, drooping in the blast of heat. Along the way are a few old houses set back surrounded by live oaks and here and there a church, one a tiny colorful steepled building in a field, the kind you might see in a miniature of a Christmas village. The country town of Santee boasts a large modern convention center, gas stations, pizza joints, tackle and fishing shops and a variety of lounges, sort of an unexpected and bizarre Las Vegas of the sandhills. It is the world class fishing that brings some of the less beautiful establishments to town.
The Santee dam was built in 1938 through 41 to create Lake Marion and Moultrie. Santee State Park is located on Lake Marion (the swamp fox) between the small towns of Santee and Elloree. I take hwy 6 towards Elloree from Santee and in front of the golf course, turn right onto State Park Rd.
After a short drive through the pine forest, Lake Marion, rippled dark blue and deep is before me. Across the water stands a long row of tall dead as well as leafed trees, the remains of the forest that was drowned to create the lake.
Here to the right is the Fisheagle Tours office. In front of me is the park store with fishing tackle, souvenirs and a snack area overlooking the water. To the left is the fishing pier and the park office.
There are four trails; three short ones and a 7.3 mile bike trail. Oak-Pinolly Nature Trail is near the shop. Sinkhole Pond Nature Trail is off Fox Squirrel Drive and the Limestone Nature Trail is off Cleveland Street close by a picnic area.
I take the Limestone Trail through the sandy pine needled woods and shortly come upon a footbridge over an alligator pond the color of green olives. Humans are not the only ones who catch fish. The gators are nowhere to be seen today. Going across the bridge, I startle up Great Blue and a duck. They fly up the pond to the north and I can see the intrusive outline of I-95 in the distance. The trail ends at a road so I turn back and find another trail that ends back where I started.
The park has 25 cabins, 5 of which are on piers out into the lake. It also has camping and a round community building. But fishing is the big thing here.
I get back on hwy 6 through Elloree, then St. Mathews where lovely well kept old homes alternate with crumbling old houses. All the yards have flowers, even those that are abandoned. Cows are standing shoulder deep in the ponds along the way.
Hours later I am near home in the Upstate. Children and their parents, fully clothed, are wading through the Tyger River. A blue-black cloud appears across the heavens before me.
Lightening cracks the sky and in moments, the scorching heat is gone, rain is pouring down on the windshield. It is hard to see the road, but just as quickly the pop-up storm is gone and fresh fragrant washed earth is left behind it.
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