Little Pee Dee State Park, SC III

Tuesday, 20 March 2018

Little Pee Dee State Park, SC

A sign at the ranger station said the park is named after the Little Pee Dee River which, in turn, is named after the Pee Dee Indians who used to live in this area. Nice park.

petrified wood information

Not many people are staying here this week and the few dogs are mostly geriatric with sedentary owners, so today I’ve decided to risk walking both dogs together each walk. And it’s turned out well. They’re both enjoying being together and now and then do some roughhousing, which is good for them. A little hard for me to hang on to their leashes but still good fun.

We’ve been taking various parts of a nature trail they have here during the walks today. Never mind that the trail is big enough to drive a Mini down in some places, it’s actually been blazed. Sometimes there are arrows painted on tree trunks in blue paint and at others there are small blue metal squares nailed to trees. The squares are quite visible and there are usually 2 in sight ahead of each one we passed. I figured the rangers were tired of people who could still get lost and that’s why they put up the blazing, but then I found a couple of benches with little plaques saying they’re part of a guy’s Eagle Scout project so I figured the blazing probably was part of it too. The trail makes for a nice walk in the woods.

the blazed trail

Good thing I can still get TV reception because I’ve been watching the weather reports. They correctly predicted the rain we got early this morning, so I believed the prediction that we’d right now be starting to get lots of rain and hail and straight-line winds. We’re not getting any of that, but the clouds are moving in so maybe it’s just late.

The news broadcasts said a 4^th nor’easter is moving through and dumping yet more snow in Pennsylvania. Discouraging since I’m intending to be there in a week and a half. But this afternoon when I had the dogs out, we were passed by a couple of college-age girls in a car with PA plates, so I stopped them to ask about the weather. The driver said she lives in the southwest and her mom just texted her that they have 9’ of snow right now. So I explained why that wasn’t such good news for me and she said oh, don’t worry, weather in PA can be really weird. One day there can be a bunch of snow on the ground and the next it warms up to 75° and it all melts. Her friend from California said yes, she’d seen it and it’s really weird how it happens. So maybe in 12 days, I’ll be able to drive at least in the southern half of the state no problem.

The last couple of nights at dusk I’ve been hearing what I thought were birds getting settled to roost – you know how raucous they can be – and then I found it was actually a raucous bunch of frogs. The non-lake must still have water in it somewhere because there are a whole lot of frogs still living here, and they carry on like crazy at dusk and dawn. It’s nice.

I’ve been enjoying watching the Big and Little Dippers climb higher in the sky as I get farther north. In Austin they’re only a little way above the horizon but here they’re much higher. I remember when I lived in Juneau they were nearly overhead, so I’m looking forward to seeing them move up. This park is only a few miles from the border between North and South Carolinas which I wouldn’t have exactly called the far north – it’s just farther north than Austin.

Speaking of Austin, the news is full of those ghastly bombs some maniac is setting up. Today it was the FedEx office in Schertz where the package blew up. How can someone treat random innocent people like this? A specific grudge I can sorta see (though bombs are never necessary), but not this random leave it on someone’s doorstep, set up a trip wire, send it through Fed Ex.

The guy should go for nature walks in parks with blooming dogwood and forsythia and pine needles everywhere. Very calming.