Covid Captivity: Week 7, Day 1

  I don’t know how people in cities and those who can’t leave their homes are keeping their sanity through the pandemic.  I really can’t complain because we have had quiet and scenic and safe places to frequent nearly every day this spring.  Even the weather has cooperated with surprisingly cool, sunny spring days. 

  

  Remember Lulu my folding bike, named after my hiking/biking friend from childhood who died way too young?  

  Lulu has been getting a workout lately.  

  Last weekend we loaded up our bikes for a ride down on the harbor.

One of the marinas in town had some very large fishing boats present, much larger than the ones we usually see docked here.  The blue double-masted one is the biggest I’ve ever seen and would fish well out from the Gulf Stream.  There were some swanky yachts, too, that we don’t normally see.  

  

  We pedaled on to the public boat landing on East Bay, just reopened by the governor after being closed for a couple weeks because of the virus.

  To the right you can see the town and the same fishing boat with the blue masts.  In the foreground are two men from North Carolina who have just paddled their small kayaks 140 miles to Georgetown on the Waccamaw River Trail.  

  I wanted so much to talk to them about their trip, but there was a group of people fishing at the beginning of the ramp the kayaks were on and no way to get by them and maintain the proper distance.  Shortly after I took this picture both kayakers were on their backs, napping in the sun!  

  “The 140-mile Waccamaw River Blue Trail extends the entire length of the river in North and South Carolina. Beginning near Lake Waccamaw,  the river meanders through the Waccamaw River Heritage Preserve and Waccamaw National Wildlife Refuge before merging with the Intracoastal Waterway where it passes historic rice fields and ends at Winyah Bay near Georgetown. Its black waters, cypress swamps and tidal marshes are home to many rare species of plants and animals. The river is also steeped in history with Native American settlements, Civil War sites, rice and indigo plantations.”

  

  We would love to do this trip someday!  

  The public boat landing has some pretty landscaping in bloom right now.  I’m not sure what either of these large bushes are.  

  Last summer anti-littering groups got together and built creatures from the sea at landings throughout the county.  They invited children to help clean the litter from the area and fill the sculptures with trash they picked up.  The East Bay landing got a shrimp because so many shrimp boats are based here.  

School-at-Home: Middle grandson Aiden and his dog Nettie 

I hope you are keeping your spirits up, enjoying some new pursuits,

 and staying in touch with friends and family. 

Don’t forget ...

😉

Life in the Time of Covid

   One of my favorite poems by the American poet Langston Hughes starts out, “

Well, son, I’ll tell you:

Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.

It’s had tacks in it,

And splinters,

And boards torn up,

And places with no carpet on the floor—

Bare.

But all the time

I’se been a-climbin’ on...”

    That’s how I’ve been feeling these days of the Covid-19 Shelter-In, or whatever it will come to be called in the history books someday.  I’m finding it hard to sit down and write a blog or even read a book.  On the other hand, the freezer has been cleaned and organized, the oven excavated and shined, the windows polished.  I have mended and ironed and washed, weeded and trimmed everything in sight.  It seems it’s my feet and hands that need to be always moving. My brain is on vacation.    

    For excitement, besides Rosie unexpectedly dying we had tornadoes one morning this week, with one touching down just miles from our house.  I’ve never experienced a tornado warning without a basement shelter to retreat to. 

  Apparently, the place to be is the bathroom so you toss in all you can, including pillows to put over your head (see right), and squeeze in with it all.  

    The safest place of all is the bathtub (??) which Bob seems to instinctively know because it’s where you can find her any time there is a thunderstorm.

    Nine people died in this line of three or four tornadoes (they’re still counting) 160 miles long along the coast of South Carolina. The nearest touchdown was only a few miles away.   We are thankful we were spared.

     Until this week we have been able to continue hiking but those days are coming to a close with heat, alligators, and bugs. This week we have stuck to exploring the historic district of our town which is fun, too.  

  Last week a little 4 inch amphibian posed for a picture on a trail through the Santee Delta Preserve.  

     

    

Just a short walk farther on we spotted a 10 foot reptile in the water a few feet off the trail! 

    Nearby, between water on either side of the trail, we were on the newly trampled path of a large alligator crossing from one side to the other.

Standing (very briefly!) on the hiking path, looking to the right 

   And to the left, the alligator trail ...

“Frequent use make the runs appear well trampled.”

  This one appears well trampled, no doubt about it!  We had to cross it to get back to the car, which we did right smart!  So, we will probably wisely be leaving the paths at Santee Delta to the gators until next winter.  

  

   I will leave you with one more photo, sent to me by my daughter with the caption,

“Me: Trying to work.

Mason: LOOK!  HI MOM!  LOOK AT ME!!!”

Goodbye, Sweet Girl

Rosie

      April 7, 2006 - April 6, 2020