Monday, March 25, 2024
Well, after two months of domesticity, we succumbed to the road’s siren call and decided to pursue an early spring retreat. We chose to return to one of our favorite nearby campgrounds at Goose Creek State Park. This park is a little over a two-hour drive from home and near a cozy small town that we once resided in and always enjoy revisiting, Washington, NC. This trip will also provide an opportunity for us to de-winterize the RV and clean out its cobwebs. Additionally, it will give us a chance to test two new tech devices we recently purchased, a home security camera system (Aqara Hub G3) and an new super-zoom bridge camera (Canon RX10 Mark IV).
At the end of our harried preparations, we used our time-proven technique of scaring our cat, Zorro, out from under the bed with the vacuum cleaner, quickly nabbing him, and placing him into his carrier, aka the cat TARDIS. Naturally, Jane considered this moment before our launch as the ideal time to vacuum the entire bedroom.
The eastbound trip was relatively uneventful. After arriving at the campground and backing our motorhome into site #17, we discovered that it was perfectly level. Hurray! No need to use the Lego blocks to level. The campground was less than half full and we spent a quiet evening eating in the RV, playing games, and reading. Our security system had detected and recorded movement on our front porch. A dastardly squirrel had approached the front door, investigated the culinary possibility of a debris particle, and then dashed away, presumably disappointed with his dining options.
Tuesday, March 25, 2024
After leisurely enjoying our morning coffee and breakfast, we headed out for a hike. First, we walked a short portion of Long Leaf Trail to the park’s Visitor Center. Inside, we scoped out the educational exhibits and entered a room containing a zoo of taxidermic animals native to the area. Outside, we rambled along a 5.5-mile route that included sections of seven trails: Long Leaf, Palmetto Boardwalk, Tar Kiln, Mallard Creek Loop, Huckleberry, Live Oak, and Goose Creek. On the boardwalk hike behind the visitor’s center, Jane with her keen eye spotted a beaver swimming in the swamp nearly at our feet. The final leg of our trip was on the park’s main paved road where we observed turtles basking on logs. Our journey took us through a freshwater marsh, coastal pine and hardwood forests, and along sandy riverside beaches. On Tar Kiln Trail, we spotted numerous mounds that had in the past been tarkels (tar kilns) where the early settlers slowly burned resin-saturated lightwood and collected the released tar in pits to be used to waterproof boats.
Throughout the park, we noted successional and man-made changes from our previous visit two years ago. The hardwoods growing among the broom sedge in the RV campground had grown considerably but were a long way from providing privacy between the widely space sites. Many large pines around the periphery of the campground and other open areas had been felled. And, controlled burns had been carried out in several large sections of the park.
I took our new camera on this hike to try to get get some experience with it and to attempt overcoming my option shock from all the choices the camera offered. Back in the RV, I downloaded the pictures and was comforted to see that most of them came out nicely. I also learned that I didn’t need to employ the 24 frames/sec burst option on still shots as this led to deleting hundreds of almost identical pictures.
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| Jane and Friends |
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| Approaching the Visitor Center via Long Leaf Trail |
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| Front of the Visitor Center |
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| Inspecting the Holly Berry Crop |
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| Picnic Shed along Palmetto Boardwalk |
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| Palmetto Boardwalk, a comfortable Swamp Trail |
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| Shedding Cattails |
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| Loblolly Pine Witch’s Broom |
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| Along the Pamlico River Shoreline |
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| Lots of Spanish Moss |
Wednesday, March 25, 2024
After breakfast this morning, I pumped up our bike tires and we set off for a short (four-mile) ride that went through the primitive camping area and to a couple of scenic points, one with a large dock overlooking Goose Creek, and the other with a bench overlooking a sandy beach and the wide Pamlico River. While cycling back to our motorhome, we stopped and talked to a couple camping in a Navion (another name Winnebago uses for their View model). We were surprised that they were allowed to set up in the “primitive” camping area.
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| Bikes along the Pamlico |
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| Biker Jane |
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| Lost Biker |
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| Biking Selfie |
After a brief stopover at the RV, we hopped into the toad and Jane drove us to Mattamuskeet National Wildlife Refuge, a little over an hour away. Lake Mattamuskeet is a shallow lake averaging 1.5 feet in depth but covering 40,000 acres, the most of all of North Carolina’s lakes. Due to its position along the Atlantic Flyway, it attracts hundreds of thousands of migratory birds during the winter. We visited two years ago and were too early to observe migratory birds and today, we were too late to see many of them. After using the restrooms and speaking with the official in the Visitor Center, we decided to drive along the lake on Wildlife Drive. At an overlook, we were delighted to see a stray tundra swan that had not yet departed on its journey north; it appeared quite elegant gliding through the marsh plants. I snapped away at close-ups using the zoom on the new camera. At same stop, we also saw a large number of American coots, Canada geese, a blue heron, and cute little pied-billed grebes. After satiating our photography urges, we proceeded on and saw a couple of great egrets in flight. Wildlife Drive intersects NC 94 that crosses the lake. We turned north on it and drove to a lake overlook but rain clouds had started to build to the west so at this point we decided to turn around and head back to Goose Creek State Park.
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| Tundra Swan |
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| Tundra Swan Close-up |
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| Canada Goose |
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| Canada Goose in Flight |
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| Great Blue Heron |
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| Pied-Billed Grebe |
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| ‘Nuther Pied-billed Grebe |
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| Cluster of Coots |
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| American Coot |
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| Great Egret in Flight |
Back at the RV, I downloaded my bird pictures and was pleased with the quality of most of them. After, resting awhile, we got back into the toad and Jane drove us into town again. While leaving the campground, we spotted a pileated woodpecker on a pine near the road. Jane stopped and I took a picture with my phone as I had left the new camera in the RV. In Washington, we headed to Two Rivers Ale House for happy hour. I had a pint of their caramel stout and Mexican lager while Jane had their hazy IPA which was remarkably clear. We spoke with one of the wait staff who took us for a brief tour of their small brewing facility in the back. We decided to order personal pizzas (with pita crusts) and an order of pimento cheese with pita, not gourmet but filling comfort food. We headed back to the RV via our old neighborhood (Washington Park) to feed Zorro and wait for the oncoming evening rain.
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| Pileated Woodpecker |
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| Time for Dinner and a Beer |
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| Inside Two Rivers Alehouse |
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| Refreshments at Last! (again) |
Thursday, March 25, 2024
It rained all night. After showering and breakfasting, we procrastinated awhile but finally started prepping for out departure, unhooking the utilities and hitching the car in the rain and mud. On our drive out of Washington, we stopped at a station that we had scoped out yesterday to diesel-up the RV. The drive home went well and the rain lightened-up and eventually stopped as we progressed westward. Back at home, we were grateful for our refreshing early and bird-full spring getaway, and Zorro was happy to be free to explore outside once again.
