A day in North Carolina

 I have no photos from Sunday and Monday. We frittered away all of Sunday morning at the condo and spent the afternoon driving south to Murrells Inlet to visit Jan’s niece and her two daughters. Monday was cold and dreary. The forecasted rain did not materialize, but it still wasn’t a good day for doing anything outside or, in fact, anything at all. We did laundry. That’s about it.

Tuesday, Feb 6, we drove to North Carolina. We first went to Green Swamp Preserve, a Nature Conservancy site. Like many Nature Conservancy properties, it lacked public access, or at least public access that we could find. There was one plaque with faded pictures of flowers and a story about the restoration of the pine barrens. The forest was quiet, sunlight, and peaceful. I think these are loblolly (or southern yellow) pines. According to Wikipedia, loblolly began its life as a word referring to stew or porridge and over time came to mean swamp. One assumes there were some nasty stews back in the day.

Pine barrens

We puttered along some not-very-good dirt roads through Juniper Creek Game Land. We saw not one other human being. There were several turkey vultures overhead and a few tweets darting around the trees and shrubs. Not a great birding place.

We drove north to Lake Waccamaw State Park. Like our previous two stops, few people were about. The ranger station was open, but empty. We were able to see the much-advertised 3-million-year-old fossilized whale skull, the only one of its kind in North America. Although Lake Waccamaw is 50 miles from the ocean presently, 3 million years ago, all of this land and more was underwater.

3 myo whale skull

Most of the land around Lake Waccamaw is privately owned. A ditch runs along one or both sides of the road and is populated by impressive numbers of chicken turtles. I had never heard of chicken turtles before. I thought they were sliders, but close observation of the pictures shows that their shells are not smooth. When I zoomed in, I saw the characteristic shallow furrows.

Chicken turtles sunning en masse

I thought one of these turtles was a red-eared slider. When compared to the picture in my Golden Guide to Reptiles and Amphibians, however, it was clear that the red was in the wrong spot and was probably just a dead leaf caught under the shell.

Two red patches, both dead leaves

Sometimes the turtles just flopped on the bank to sun. I'm not sure if the one on the bank is a different species or just looks extra yellow because it's in full sun.

Yellower turtle on the bank, left. Too crowded on the log, no doubt.

We also saw a great egret (I think—yellow bill, black legs) in a swamp at one end of Lake Waccamaw.

And more turtles.

So many turtles!

We had a late lunch in Whiteville, which may or may not reflect the demographic, at a charming place called Sophie’s. I was way beyond peckish at that point, and felt much better after eating. We poked our way along backroads to get back to North Myrtle Beach. One notable tiny town was named Bug Hill. I thought they might have a marketing problem.

Meanwhile, Jane’s brother Dave and SIL Mary drove down from Winston-Salem to visit for a few days. We all went out to dinner together and visited at the condo until bedtime. A nice day all around.