Back In Charlotte

Saints be praised! I have been delivered from the lowlands of  SC. My project “go-live” date was pushed back to April 2010, so I was going to have a long interval before starting on the next phase. The very day that I completed Phase 1, I contacted a recruiter who just happened to have a possible opportunity in Charlotte. Could I interview the next day? What do you think? Frances and I drove back that night through a raging storm and I had my interview the next day, December 3rd, and started the new job December 10th.

Working long distances from home over the last couple of years has really made me appreciate being back home and having a 20-30 minute drive to work. I'm actually working about 2 blocks from where I first started in Charlotte 11 years ago.  There are a few parks and "natural areas" close by, so look forward to some lunch-break botany and birding.

Today is the Winter Solstice.  Days will be getting longer. Spring is not that far off. The Oconee Bells will be calling in just a couple of months. James and I will be heading once again up the Blue Ridge Escarpment with the same anticipation as twenty years ago, to witness the spring ephemerals as if they had never bloomed before. To watch the "greening of the grade" as though green was a newly invented color. To hear the first Northern Parula as if discovering a new species...

Sunrise

Another sunrise across the mighty Atlantic Ocean. While the ocean can have it's moments of beauty, it is by nature lacking in any degree of complexity. Millions of tourists flock to the shores to see just that --shores. A strip of land bordering the sea altogether just a few hundred yards wide, followed by water stretching to the horizon. For all of the tens of thousands of miles of coastline on our planet, the scene changes but little. And so humanity flocks there to sit or stand slackjawed, hypnotized by the incessant sound of the waves crashing, or just sloshing, on the shore.
A few million years ago our evolutionary ancestors crawled out of just such a scene. Good riddance I say. They crawled out and headed straight for the hills where some real progress could be made.

Myrtle Beach State Park

Today at lunch  I drove to Myrtle Beach State Park which is just 3 miles from my office.  I have been to Huntington  Beach State Park several times and enjoyed the trails and the especially the birds. I saw my first American Eagle there, stealing fish from an Osprey. The perfect bird to be the symbol of our great thieving nation.  But Huntington is a short distance farther down the road, and my goal was to find someplace where I could go and eat my lunch, do some birdwatching or botanical research, fly a kite, etc.. and still have plenty of time to get back to work in close to an hour.  MBSP is actually quite nice, with lots of large old live oaks and a few trails. There is also a pier, but I didn't have time for that today. I went a short distance down the Sculptured Oak Trail, and while I didn't make it to the sculptured oaks, I did see some nice Beautybush, Yaupon, and Partridgeberry to name a few.

Hurl Rocks

Fate has brought me far from God's country, all the way down to sea level, to Myrtle Beach, SC. I am thankful for the job and plan to demonstrate my gratitude by learning to appreciate the natural beauty of the lower reaches of God's country.
I am half a mile from the Atlantic Ocean, so drove down at lunch today to fly my kite. Very light wind but did get a little flying in. Interestingly, I've read in detail all of Bartram's botanical findings in the mountains but paid no attention to any of his other discoveries. Much to my surprise when I pulled over at the public beach access I saw the sign pictured here. I am grateful.



-- Posted from my iPhone

Pisgah and the Rat

I have been visiting and exploring the western North Carolina mountains for over thirty years. I have always been particularly drawn to the Blue Ridge Parkway south of Asheville. In reading about the area, I have once or twice come across a reference to "Pisgah and the Rat". While quite familiar with Mt. Pisgah, "the Rat" remained a mystery. I examined the topographic maps of the area searching for a peak or other geographical reference to the "Rat", but to no avail. I had relegated the matter to the "mystery" category, and put it somewhat out of my mind. Occasionally I would run into a local resident and inquire about "the Rat", but usually just got strange looks.

Then the other day I was reading a Google document, actually an internet scan of Margaret W. Morley's "The Carolina Mountains". In the chapter entitled "Asheville", Ms. Morley explains the following: "That beautiful form with the dome-like top, southwest of Asheville, is Mount Pisgah, and that ridge, a little bit lower and to the left of the summit, is the Rat." I then looked at a photograph I had taken from the Asheville vicinity, and there as clear as day, were Pisgah and the Rat. Mystery solved.

The rat is actually Little Pisgah Mountain, and only looks like a rat if viewed from the east or even from the northeast.