What a Difference A Day Makes

Monday & Tuesday
November 18 & 19, 2013
Hunting Island State Park
South Carolina

 

MONDAY

 

It was a totally cloudy morning this morning.  The sun rose behind the clouds but it was still beautiful over the  water.

 

 

 

Eventually David comes out and we take  a short walk on the beach.  It’s still cloudy but I have faith it’s going to be a great day coming up.

 

 

 

On our way back I notice that the really nice shell identification sign is quite dirty so I get my cleaner and spiff it up.   Looks much better now.

 

 

 

Over at Edisto we got a huge bunch of fresh Kale from Kings family farm.  Now I love Kale with onions and garlic braised lightly in a pan sprayed with Olive oil.  We’ve had that several times.  But this was a LOT of kale so we decide to make  some kale chips and I pull out my fabulous dryer. Just tear the leaves up into chip sizes and dry them as is or rub them with salt and stick them on the trays in the dryer.  How long depends on how humid it is.  8 hours here I’m betting.

 

 

 

Then it was time to hit the beach.  It has turned  into a gorgeous day on its way to a high of 80.  What could be finer on a day in Carolina???

David is quite engrossed in the slave narrative he bought at the printer’s  in Colonial Williamsburg.  It’s entitled Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs.  Jacobs published it in 1861.  It’s the tale of her escape to freedom at the start of the Civil War.  I plan to read it as soon as he finishes.

I have recently heard that a movie, 12 Years a Slave, has been made from another slave narrative of a free black man from the north on a trip, to Washington DC I think, being stolen into bondage and after some harrowing times making his way home to his family again.  I’d like to read that book too before seeing the movie which apparently has gotten good reviews although not unanimously from the black community.  Have any of you seen it?

 

Great place to be engrossed in a book.

 

 

But right now, I’m interested in trying out the water temperature.  It’s a big beach  and  a bigger ocean.

 

 

 

So fine!!

 

 

Off go the shirt, hat and sunglasses.  Time  for a November swim.  David’s not interested in joining me.

 

 

 

 

For me, there is nothing like being in, on, or by the Atlantic!!  I like all water of every kind.  But the Atlantic is definitely my water of waters. 

 

 

 

That’s my day and as the sun begins to drop and it cools off, I put on my warmer clothes and pick up my book, Thomas Merton’s Seven Story Mountain and stay by the water until dinner time.

 

         

 

After taking the pictures David goes back to the coach to work on the “door problem”.  It seems that lately the entry door to the coach needs to be SLAMMED or it won’t fully close.  He says he has a plan.  We’ll  let  you know tomorrow how it goes.   Has anyone else had and solved this problem??

 

 

 

TUESDAY

 

What a difference a day makes.  The high on Monday was 82 and the low 65.  What a day!  But this morning the winds are howling and it is 46 but it feels like about 36 when I go out to catch the sunrise which is beautiful no matter the weather.

 

 

 

The waves are whipping.  Can you see the spray flying?

 

It actually gets grayer as the day goes on and is way too windy to be on the beach.   So we hang around the coach doing this and that.  I read blogs, post comments and  work on various spring/summer scenarios for getting David to Yosemite and Arches/Canyonlands/Capitol Reef and stopping by to see my father in Brighton Colorado.  Amazing that you have to consider travels and possible reservations over 6 months in advance.   Any advice gratefully received.

 

   

After lunch we want to get out and think perhaps we can hike inland but it just feels too bitter outside.  So we go over to see the visitor center where the resident alligator must have also thought it was too cold as she was no where to be seen.   I forgot to take my camera so these two pictures are from their website.

 

 

It’s a nice compact visitor center with a lot of information on the history and natural history of the park on information boards around the room.   While we are there a ranger comes and asks if we would like to see the film on the establishment of the lighthouse and the park.  Of course we would.  So we spend 20 minutes rehearing all about the creation and move of the light house and this park as one of the first CCC created parks of South Carolina.   Good film – do see  it.

 

 

I’ve been having some trouble with my lower back and what I thought was sciatica except that the pain runs from the middle my right sits bone around and down the front of my leg to my knee.  Sitting at the dinette booth on the computer for too long and in those chairs for 20 minutes is about all I can  handle.  They have an hour film scheduled a bit later on the CCC which we both want to see but I don’t think I can sit any longer so David takes me back to Winnona where I lie flat on my back while he goes to see it.  When he returns, He says it was great and  I was  sorry to have missed it.  

 

First my trigger thumb and now this ‘whatever  it is’.  I seem to be falling apart right before my very eyes lately.  BUT I can still swim and hike.  Not so sure about kayaking and biking right now.  But I think whatever I did will heal itself if I just take it easy.  Life is still good!!