Goose Creek State Park – Thank you very much Mike and Carol for that extra night. The ranger says it was essentially a gale here last night, very cold with sustained, hard-blowing rain, and I say it is perfectly clear and still and only a little bit cold tonight – perfect John Freeman weather! “Here” is this excellent state park along the creeks, which are really mini-estuaries of the Pamlico River feeding into Pamlico Bay. It is a eleven site campground between Goose Creek and Flatty Creek (whatta name). I finally did the thing I should do every day – stop early enough to enjoy the place I’ve driven to.
In some odd way, the fact of the time change and the knowledge that from now on I’ll be out of daylight before 6pm made me overcompensate and stay on task better than usual. Also, I really didn’t have to drive that far. Anyway, I pulled into my spot about 3:45, which meant about 1.5 hours of daylight. There are nice little trails all over the place, so I got a little baked and walked 2-3 miles through the swamps and boggy forests.
I almost failed to get myself here with time to play. I get so alienated to my real desires that I dawdled around the last outpost of civilization, the quaint and slightly haunted town of Washington NC, where I thought very seriously about killing even more time by visiting a local a bar to drink a beer and watch Sunday football, because I was too early for the campground. Geez, too early for what?? Beer and football afternoons are just fine, but the afternoon I ended up with, soaking up the solitude of the cane-breaks and inlets of coastal Carolina was so much more … the kind of thing for which I am taking the effing trip, so props to me for having the sense to do it!
Also … the fact that I got propane and thus will not chill my ass to its old bones the way I did the night before Ekim’s also helps my feeling of well-being.
Tuesday
The ranger lady pointed me to a restaurant in Bath, NC, that I was really glad I went to. Mostly because Bath turned out to be a delightful little town, full of history (second oldest town in NC!) and very pretty with lawns that go right up to the edge of the bay. But the food was pretty good also. Fried trout for $9. It was the restaurant of choice for all the dudes in overalls and pickup trucks, always a good sign.
After that nice meal my contentment was slowly twisted into a knot by a small run of bad traffic karma. The very last stretch of road on my scenic route was closed to construction, so I had to go about half-way back, changing it from about 5 miles longer to about 25 miles longer. Then when I did get back on track, I was behind a school bus (at 12:45PM?) which was stopping every 200 yards to let another student out on this narrow road. Eventually it turned off, but by then I was in a crabby traffic mood.
Much longer drive than it looked on the map. I realize now that in my crabbitude I zoomed past a couple of wildlife refuges, and those are the hidden treasures I love more than most things on these trips. argh.
I stopped on Roanoke Island for wifi and to get my mind back in harmony with nature … it sorta worked. Ten years ago I went to the park dedicated to the Roanoke colony that just poof! disapeared one year back in the 1680’s – think Virginia Dare. I didn’t do it today, but that’s a very interesting thing if you ever get out this way.
Im am camping tonight in a tiny little lot in back of Rodanthe Surf Sports, in the windswept town of Rodanthe, about a third of the way down the Outer Banks, It is a real campground, right up against Pamlico Sound, which would be much more excellent if it weren’t for the constant wind. Bad for me, great for the windsurfers. I started to take some pictures of the sunset and discovered that my camera is suddenly fucked up. When I turn it on the lens extends like it should, but the shutter does not open. Yuck.
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