Travel Report – Page 20 – The Hermits' Rest

Sure, There’s Life in These Woods

While I’m pretty sure I’ll go somewhere greener to camp next August, I’ve been trying to find the positive aspects of visiting McKinney Falls in a drought with a heat dome on top of it.

I assure you, it’s hot. Good thing water drips off this RV!

For one thing, it’s very quiet. I only saw one campsite playing loud music on my early walk (and they are serious—they have an outdoor lighted disco ball). I’ve only seen three people walking dogs, and only two groups have f children, all moving slowly. I assume they all went to the swimming area.

I just walked around all the campsites this morning, to determine where to park next time we come, in the spring! Some are very large and shady. I took pictures.

I also looked to see how the plants were doing. I found a couple of areas that must be near the creeks, because they looked better. Mostly all understory plants are shriveled up.

What a surprise it was to see a rain lily! It did rain 5 minutes on Thursday here!

Trees look better, except the cedar elms and hackberry trees. They are dumping leaves to conserve their internal water supply, as I learned in a Master Naturalist class.

Look at the cool texture on this large persimmon tree’s bark.

There were a lot of birds this morning, which cheered me up. This afternoon, though, even the incessant cardinal chatter has died down. I heard typical birds for this area, though I was surprised to find a summer tanager still hanging around. Otherwise here’s what was around (including seen and heard): blue-gray gnatcatcher, blue Jay, cardinal, Carolina chickadee, Carolin wren, crow, dickcissel, goldfinch, house finch, Phoebe, red-winged blackbird, titmouse, turkey vulture, warbling vireo, and the white-eyed vireo. Not bad for summer.

Carolina wren, the only bird I photographed

The best part of today was that my friend Susan, who lives near San Antonio, came up yesterday to camp with us. She was trying out her very cute little Casita camper before taking it on a longer trip. I don’t think I’d seen her since 2016, though we’ve Zoomed since then.

She had enough RV adventures for more than one trip, but got through it! First, the water line broke at her campsite, quite spectacularly. It took a lot of effort, Shop vacs, and extension cords to get things shut off. The park police officer said he missed the day they taught water line maintenance in his training. The park ranger said she missed hers, too. I felt bad for them. It was so hot.

Because they had to turn her water off, Susan just stayed one night. We did get to enjoy a nice chat this morning about horses and mental health, etc.

Sadly, on her way home, the hitch fell off! Luckily the chains held and she safely got off the highway. After getting some help, she made it home and should have time to get repairs done before her next trip. Whew!

She will drive like this guy, just in case. Ha ha.

We relaxed in the heat of the day. I may try to walk a little around sunset. I’ll get up early again to do the hike and bike trail in the morning. I will take water!

I was very excited to find this feather. I pretty quickly realized it’s from a parrot, probably a park visitor. No native bird has giant blue and yellow feathers!

Oh! And good health news! I am feeling less throat pain, so I may be back to happy thyroid time. Yay!

My nail polish is dazzling and unnatural, too.

Hope you enjoy the pictures!

I Was Wrong (about summer camping in Texas)

I thought if I skipped July and didn’t camp until late August, it might be pretty. Well, I’m in one of the prettiest places I’ve ever been (in other years and other seasons), and it’s depressingly hot, crunchy, and dead.

The good news is that there are empty sites, and it’s pretty quiet with hardly anyone outside.

The bad news is all the trees are super stressed, all the small plants are dried up and not blooming, I haven’t seen any butterflies or other insects, and I’ve heard two birds.

This cedar elm looks better than many, which are all brown.

Plus the bedroom won’t slide out for some reason, so I don’t get to try out the office setup I’d planned, which involves an Indian tall ottoman and a “chair pillow.” Hoping we figure it out and can try again next time. I can sleep just fine (especially since I took painkillers for my throat).

I’ll have more blistering hot camping tales tomorrow. I’ll get up early to walk a little.

At least the air conditioning is working!

Back at the Ranch: Amazing Animals

I made it home yesterday, but for some reason the travel completely wore me out. I guess travel is stressful, since my right eye wept all day, while the left eye had a tic. The plane travel was fine, other than the fact that the Charlotte airport was dirtier and dingier than I remembered. Of course, the flight from there to Austin was delayed, so I got to stay there and look at food on the floor and seats quite a while. By the time we boarded, I thought I’d fall asleep standing up.

None of this was heavy except the backpack, which was a carryon. It tried to kill me.

Lee was late exactly the amount my plane was late, which meant for an easy pickup, and I did try to converse with him though I was feeling distinctly zombie-like. By the time I got home I was dizzy and nauseated. What the heck? I’m much better today, with no eye issues and only a bit of fuzzy-headedness. Maybe I have 9-11 PTSD or something (for those of you who don’t know, I was on a plane headed to O’Hare when the events occurred, leading to some traumatic times).

I came home to a lot of love, though. Goldie glued herself to me the second I got into bed and didn’t move for a couple of hours. Today she’s been constantly checking on me, and also trying to inform me that she can’t sit on “her” couch because someone put an immense television on it.

So I got up and moved the immense and very heavy television. It’s the old one from our house in Round Rock, and apparently giant televisions were much heavier then. Glodie is much happier now and I can type (she kept nosing the keyboard away!).

Of course all the dogs were glad to see me, as were the chickens. Some horses seemed more glad than others. Apache was ecstatic, and glued himself to me much like Goldie did. He looks good, other than two sores on his shoulder. The good news is his grass allergy issues are gone, thanks to the Zyrtec, and the rest of him looks wonderful.

Drew was more interested in the water trough I refilled than in me, but after he drank he came and rubbed his wet face on me. He looked really clean, and I wondered why. Here is why:

Apparently, while I was gone, he figured out that the front pond is swimmable. The edges aren’t as quicksand-esque as they were when the water was higher, so he’s taken to swimming around and having a blast. Kathleen said the first time she heard the splashing, she thought we had a gator. Nope, just a sea serpent/horse hybrid.

It doesn’t appear that anyone else has joined Droodles in the horse swimming pool, but I sure was happy to watch him cruising around and having a great time.

There’s really no grass, so I need to get more hay out to them this afternoon. The heat is still miserable, and it hasn’t rained. The high was “only” 99 on Tuesday, but it’s still hard on everyone here. I will be getting out early to work with horses starting in the morning.

It was nice to get back to my office to work, though my house looks like hoarders have moved in. The rest of the furniture from my old house got brought in while we were gone and we’re still working out where to put everything. Much of the stuff is in our newest shipping container, and I owe a HUGE debt of gratitude to the guys who moved everything out of our old church, up and down those stairs.

Yes, we no longer own a church, which I’m not too sad about, because now Cameron gets a new church. I’m told the minister is really nice, so I’m happy for them. It looks like it’s time for our real estate business to find a new investment.

Thanks for reading, and hi to all you new readers! I do have a book report to write, which I hope to get done tomorrow. It takes thought, and I’m too tired to think right now.

Nope, Nada

I have nothing today. The only time I left the room was to get all the condo staff to try to find Lee’s driver’s license. He later found it.

I’ve enjoyed a lot of diabetes drug commercials today.

Other than work, I had a nice phone chat with my dear friend Mike, who is conveniently going out of town when I’ll be camping in his neighborhood. We are like ships passing in the night. Well, only he goes on a lot more ships than I do…back on topic, I also colored another page in my coloring book with questionable grammar.

I did this psychedelic stuff while watching Everything Everywhere All at Once. It was one psychedelic movie. It’s fun when the star is also a martial arts expert. I see why Michelle Yeoh won so many awards.

There was no Barbie movie this evening, since my friend was busy moving a desk. It was heavy. I understand. Oh well.

I’ve done a good job entertaining myself this past week, though I didn’t expect it to be THIS solo. Next time I’ll remember to get a two bedroom place so people can visit. I didn’t do a great job making friends this visit, though of course there was Bill and Steve. I’ll try again!

My flowers stuck with me the entire time I’ve been here.

I’m a good friend to me, though! Way to go, Suna self esteem.

Whee! Crazy fun HGTV watching fun times!

Tomorrow: book review!

Slow News Day, Featuring Creatures of the Sky

I may have done less today than I have any day since visiting my dad and just sitting around with him. I got enough movement in, but barely. Every time I went to go outside, a band of showers passed through, but that’s okay, because the clouds were pretty. I’ll miss beach clouds.

Luckily, I got on a roll with the ole technical writing, so I got a lot done as I looked outside at rain. I enjoy those breaks I take to help with eye strain. I looked up one and there, practically motionless outside my window was a beautiful osprey. I guess it was the same one I saw before, but it was so close I could see its feathers.

Looking east. No osprey picture available since I was working.

I had plans to go see the Barbie movie, but we are now going tomorrow, since tickets are half off. That sounds good to me, so instead I finished last night’s movie and watched two more.

My “cinema” friends like Anita will probably enjoy picking out themes and cinematic techniques in the documentary I watched about two women who fell in love in a concentration camp and found each other afterwards. Nelly and Nadine (also the film’s name) were very interesting women, and the super 8 home movies they made showed glimpses of a 50s gay and lesbian world few knew about. I was proud that I made it through the concentration camp parts.

I promised creatures of the sky. Here’s a 27th floor bird grasshopper.

I then switched gears and saw Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret, which was as good as I’d hoped it would be. The movie was set at very close to the time I was Margaret’s age, so everything was eerily familiar. The sets were 70s fun.

I couldn’t find the other movie I was looking for, so I watched Somewhere in Queens. The New York Italian culture is like visiting a foreign land to me, but I enjoyed glimpsing into Ray Romano’s vision.

These guys enjoyed peanuts again. I had three at once.

I guess I’ve gotten enough out of Amazon Prime on this trip. I wish I could use it more at home. Bandwidth. Ugh.

By the way, I haven’t been eating out. I’ve made myself weird dinners out of the supplies Lee and I bought when we got here. I’d sure be cheap to feed if I lived alone, since in addition to cheese, I could live off Tasty Bite curry packages, rice side dishes with vegetables thrown in, hummus, and Progresso soup. Throw in cans of tuna and I’m set.

More than you wanted to know, but it was a slow Suna news day.

You Don’t Have to Be in Texas to Overheat

Since I’ve been enjoying the solo part of my stay in Myrtle Beach, I’ve been doing my best to stay in shape, no matter how tempting lolling around in my room knitting and watching movies might be.

But if I stayed inside I’d miss all the flowers.

Since Lee left, I’ve been heading to the hotel gym and walking as fast as I can while the treadmill goes up and down. I hate when it goes to 9. But I zip along and burn those calories and log those miles. I’m not letting anyone see me to sit-ups, so I save that for in my room. This should at least keep my aerobic and core stuff in okay shape for trying to get back on the horses. I’ll miss a couple of horse events, but I don’t want to push them, either.

Anyway, today I decided to walk outside. After all, it was “only” 90 degrees outside and there was a breeze. So, I went all the way down the boardwalk, at least as far as I’ve ever been. About when I hit the one-mile mark, I realized I was sweating a lot (I’m still not used to the fact that I sweat now, but it’s better than the alternative). By the time I turned around, I was wishing I hadn’t walked so far or that I’d brought money for a beverage.

But, I had no option but to keep going, after a little rest in the shade. I did enjoy some of the improvements they’ve made to the boardwalk and the landscaping. It’s looking a LOT nicer now. They’ve even installed “photo ops” in the little places where there used to be homeless folks hanging out. I’m hoping they found housing or alternate places for those people to hang out.

It’s a lot less crowded this weekend, too, since school is starting or had already started in much of the areas around here. So, other than feeling overheated, I enjoyed the walk very much.

I did make it back to the Ocean Enclave and quickly downed two glasses of water. The pool bar was very pleasant, since it was shady and the breeze was just great. Well, it was pleasant for people sitting there. Sarah was really hot trying to serve a never-ending stream of people wanting their fruity drinks.You can make good money in the summer doing bartending, but it isn’t easy being perky while never stopping.

I enjoyed my reward beverage, which was lime juice, lemon guide, ice and lime vodka. Let me tell you, that was refreshing! By the time I’d seen enough preseason football, I was feeling fine, other t han being covered by sand that had stuck to my sweaty legs.

I had to fight through this to get to the elevator. Ugh. Lots of arrivals.

The moral to this boring story is that you need to stay hydrated if you are going for walks in the sun and it’s hot, even when it’s just normal heat.

I was happy to find sweet everlasting in the wildflower area.

Back to reading, knitting, and eating cheese. I love eating whatever the heck I want, which seems to end up being cheese.

Myrtle Beach versus Cameron

I promised someone that I’d write a more cheerful blog post today, and since I’ve been having such a nice day today, that won’t be hard. I’ve been mulling over how to share some of my observations about this part of the world versus where I live, and I think I’ve got a plan now. Let’s go, as I’d say in a training video.

What’s the Same in MB and Cameron

This is the easiest comparison. The main best thing about both Myrtle Beach, South Carolina and Cameron, Texas, is that all you have to do is sit around and you’ll meet someone interesting. I’ve made great friends in Cameron by just going to a restaurant, bar, or meeting and chatting with whoever is next to em, and that’s certainly the same at Myrtle Beach. Here at this condo place, you know you have something in common with everyone there, because you all either own or are considering owning a week or two of timeshare, that great business investment (ha ha). Networking skills are useful here and in Cameron for sure.

Just this visit, I’ve met Steve, Bill, and their families, who were so welcoming and hilarious. Plus I’ve chatted with fun people in activities, as I’ve shared, and all I need to do is sit at the bar and nice folks will show up. It’s really fun to have people come up and tell you they enjoyed talking to you the day before, or even better, you find someone you have all sorts of weird things in common with and want to be FFFs forever. That was my afternoon today and the lovely woman I met.

Same picture from yesterday, of a Ferris wheel

Also both places are diverse in many ways. I love how many shades of skin tone and different languages I hear in both places. There are indeed things that are improving in much of the US.

What’s Different in Myrtle and Cameron

And now for my observations about what’s different.

The birds are very different. We have lots more birds in Cameron this time of year than in Myrtle. I’ve seen very few shore birds, just mainly my buddies the fish crows, nighthawks, ospreys, and pelicans. Well, of course there are pigeons and seagulls, but I expected more. No egrets.
Vape shops are the new pancake houses. Last year we were counting pancake restaurants, because there were so many, but this year I was amazed at how many vape/smoking/dispensary places there are. If you need a hookah fix, you’re covered in Myrtle. I guess they must have passed some law that encouraged all these businesses , which have expanded greatly in the past year. (See maps at end of blog.)
Candy shops exist. Wow, there are so many candy shops here. There’s a lot of ice cream, too. I mean, Cameron has places to get ice cream and año cones, but wow, you don’t have to go far for a sugar fix at Myrtle.
There aren’t as many dogs. I don’t see anywhere near as many dogs in Myrtle as I do in Cameron, or even in Hilton Head. Of course, there aren’t any beach dogs here. There aren’t any in Hilton Head this time of year. And no dogs run free in the parts of Myrtle where I’ve been.
Rain happens. It keeps raining here! What’s up with that? Still no rain since June at our house, though some folks I know have seen a shower or two.
There are very different noises. In Cameron you hear the train from most of the town, and from the ranch you hear a lot of loud pickup trucks and gunfire. In Myrtle it’s endless helicopters full of tourists, They pass by at least every minute or so during the day unless it’s storming. You also get sirens when there are beach issues, whistles from lifeguards (especially when a storm is coming), and the fireworks that some tourist place sets off every night. Every night. I’m glad the dogs aren’t here.
There are way more Ferris wheels in Myrtle. Way.
The weather reports are very different. In Cameron you see what counties are under various degrees of drought and where the current wildfires are. In Myrtle, you get the tide reports and fishing outlook. I know the name of certain buoys in the ocean now.

Last night’s storm caused much lifeguard whistling. I saw water spouts.

Yes, now that I’ve gotten a better frame of mind, I’m enjoying my time alone. I’ve enjoyed many movies and a weird television show about Australian flowers. Every day I’ve been going to the gym and making sure I walk really fast for at least two miles. I want to be sure I’m still in good aerobic shape when I get home to the horses. That does involve a lot of sweating, which is how I ended up at the beach bar chatting with various vacationers. I wanted to dry off and have a cold beverage!

This is from last night. Sarah is tired.

And of course I’m knitting, I’ll share my latest progress, which adds many more hot days to the temperature blanket. I ended the previous row on July 13, and we already had two days over 105°. It’s the saddest part of the blanket!

And I’m reading a lot in the book about Florida history I was given. I’ll tell you what, I’m no longer “proud” to be descended from early Florida residents, even though I realize some of them were forced to come there. Those conquistadors were pretty nasty folks.

Thanks for showing up, kind readers. You’re all appreciated.

A Monday’s a Monday, No Matter Where You Are

And today is Tuesday! I didn’t manage to get a blog post up yesterday, because I was just, as my mom used to say, “too pooped to pop” in the evening. It’s not that I did anything all that exciting, but I did the part of my work that takes a lot of mental energy, training.

Now, I’m both a technical writer and a technical trainer, so I have the skills. And I love to do training. It’s so rewarding to get people up and running with software, hardware, or heck, even knitting. I enjoy interacting with people, getting them to relax, and helping them individually. It’s just that it takes a lot out of an introvert to actually DO it. Thus, after two classes and a couple of individual sessions yesterday, I just needed to stare at a wall and go to sleep.

Or I could stare at the ocean, which for much of today looked like a gray curtain.

I feel way better today and have already been writing and getting stuff done while Lee packs up to drive back to Texas. It’s been stormy this morning, so he’s waiting a bit to start driving. He just loves doing this, so I’m wishing him well, while at the same time looking forward to flying home (if planes aren’t as weird on me as they have been for so many folks this year).

It’s been stormy, cloudy, and sunny so far today, and that was all before 10 am.

In between training sessions, Lee and I drove up to the first town in North Carolina, Calabash, where we’ve been before. It is an extra-cute little town that still has a lot of fishing boats, so you get very fresh seafood in its restaurants. The one I like best doesn’t open until 4pm on Mondays, so we ate at the one with the most annoying (but fun, in a way) birds, instead.

Boat-tailed grackles (the one on the right is a female)

We got enough food that I’ll have lots of leftover shrimp that I’ll peel the breading from and add to my highly creative solo meals for the next week or so. We gamely fought off the grackles and seagulls, while sort of enjoying their antics at the same time. At least I got to look at a marsh and some boats, so I was happy. The whole outing only took two hours, which was fine, since I had to teach a class from 5-6 pm anyway (it was scheduled for Central Time). All was well.

Laughing gulls waiting for us to leave so they could inspect our plates.

It’s back to my “normal” working from a condo schedule for a while now. I do my best to fit in working out in the gym (treadmill) and sitting in the sun a little while every day, with a visit to the sports bar to chat with the friendly bartenders and customers in the evening. And oh yeah…I can watch streaming television to my heart’s content. I don’t even know what shows I’ll watch,

One More Nature Day

Today was Lee’s last weekend day here with me, so we took advantage of having the car to head over to Myrtle Beach State Park, which is the only undisturbed beach woods in this county. It’s really lovely and special.

I was amazed at how many different types of hardwood trees were in the woods. Plus some were huge. I know the biggest magnolias I ever saw were there. Plus giant pines, sycamores, hickories, and oaks. That’s nowhere near all. It’s a great woods.

I enjoyed the ferns, mushrooms, fungi, and other understory plants, as well. What was weird, though, was I only heard two birds. There has been a noticeable lack of bird sightings on this trip.

I did get to see something fun other than plants when we went to the little pond. Not only did I get a great butterfly to pose on a pickerel weed flower, but I found a sweet little green tree frog blending in with the reeds. That’s our Master Naturalist chapter mascot. Aww.

At the end of the trail was the Big Oak, where we had to take photos. Of course.

We headed over to the beach area, where at least I found some birds, mostly pigeons and crows…but hey, go ruddy turnstones!

We sat and enjoyed the beach for a while, then went to Michael’s to get me some more pens to do coloring, which had helped me this week. I finished a design (after fixing its typos) using the subtle colors I’d thrown in a bag for journaling, but I needed perkier colors.

One thing we’ve enjoyed this week is walking on the beach after the crowds die down. Well, Lee stands there and listens to the waves, and I walk. Tonight it was really pretty at sunset.

Now it’s time to read my Florida book and get ready for work.

Sculptural Delights Plus Natural Beauty Equals a Good Saturday

Ah, It’s good to have a day off for fun and education. Today we enjoyed sleeping in a bit, then followed through with our plan to go back to scenic Brookgreen Gardens to see the new exhibit that was getting installed this week. We ended up seeing two new exhibits and lots of living wonders as well!

First off, we went to the beautiful butterfly exhibit, which was closed when we were at the Low Country Zoo last week. It’s always fun there, because there are beautiful flowers and water features in addition to all the butterflies.

They have different butterflies at different times of year, too, depending on what they have hatching. I can’t tell you what any of these are, because I don’t want to put them on iNaturalist. They aren’t wild. But they sure are pretty!

After the butterflies, we hopped back over to see the red wolves again, hoping maybe they’d be up to something this time. We lucked out, and while the female was just resting in the sun, the male came out of his giddy hole, walked around, then rolled and stretched for us. I guess that was enough of a show for him, because he went right back into his shady spot. We were lucky to see this!

We drove back to the main part of the gardens to see the first exhibit, which was the 90th National Sculpture Society awards exhibition. There were 42 works of art in the exhibit, which was narrows down from a couple of hundred entries. Only a small subset of these sculptures will be winners and exhibited in the NSS gallery in New York City later in the year.

We really enjoyed looking at the variety of entries and reading the stories the artists shared about their work. There were a lot of COVID themed works, and others with universal themes that really touched my heart.

I listened to a talk about some of the works by the curator of the museum, Robin Salmon. That was quite a privilege.

We went back to the same little restaurant we ate at last week, and had a good time visiting with the birds once again.

We also enjoyed lots of nature. There was a group of plants that was literally dancing with dragonflies. We must have watched them for five minutes, along with another couple. There were blue, orange, and yellow ones. Some of my photos have at least five in them!

We also got to see the resident alligator family (and hear them). First we saw the mother gator, who was hanging out in a small pond, then we saw two of her babies in a larger pond, hanging out with turtles. All the while we could hear other alligators nearby, but I decided not to be a dumb Master Naturalist and go look for them.

We ended up finding the other exhibit I was looking for, which was of Shona art from Zimbabwe. They used interesting stones, and I especially liked one that was completely different looking when it was polished versus unpolished. Many of the artists made people whose faces and body parts were polished, but their clothing was unpolished, and it was quite striking. I completely forgot to take any photos, but here’s a sample from the exhibition web page.

It’s just so lush and green at Brookgreen Gardens. I’m going to hold on to the image of all the green grass and the huge oaks when I go back to my crispy home.

When we got home, we napped, then headed down to the bar, where Kevin the bartender/history professor was kind enough to give me a pre-publication copy of his book on early Florida history, La Florida. I can’t wait to read it. I love an academic book with humor thrown in every so often, and I appreciate his perspective on the Spanish.

I also have the book from the NSS exhibit to enjoy, as well. It has interesting biographies of the sculptors.

Lee and I sure had a good day. And we had smoked salmon for dinner. That’s right. Indulged ourselves.