Carolina Coast and Butterfly Love

  Georgetown, South Carolina, United States
Friday, November 9, 2007

Last night, after about 13 hours of traveling and feeling like I was a character in "Planes, Trains, and Automobiles," I finally made it to my hotel in Georgetown, SC.  (Via the Charleston airport, where I dropped off the Cruiser, picked up the black Sonata (which rides smooth as a gravy sandwich), and jumped for joy when my luggage was ACTUALLY WAITING FOR ME at the AirTran counter.  Hooray!! Yet one more reason to believe in miracles.)

I awoke this morning to another gorgeous day,

Harborwalk

and took a stroll along Front Street on the Georgetown Harbor.  Georgetown, which sits on a peninsula, is South Carolina's third oldest city and is rumored to be the probable site of the first European settlement in North America in 1526. There's a 1,500 foot long "Harborwalk" along the Sampit  River, which made me think about more gentle, people-friendly possibilities for riverfront revitalization in the Hudson Valley (i.e., no shoreline gated communities!). 

Waterfront Fountain and Steel Mill

It was tres quaint, even with a view of the large steel factory across the harbor. 

Back in the car to return south, but first a stop along the way at the Sewee Visitor & Environmental Education Center, a joint USFWS and Forest Service endeavor.  Took a quick walk on their 1-mile loop, which included a stop at the red wolf enclosure.  (The red wolf is an endangered species, and was reintroduced into North Carolina in 1987, and elsewhere in the Southeast since then.  The two in the enclosure appeared pretty down about the whole situation.) 

Buckeye Susie, Buckeye Sam

 The rest of the walk was quiet, under the tall pines and oaks.  I saw a lone pied-billed grebe on a pond, and then an unusual pair of buckeyes on the path. They remained together the entire time I photographed, even when the bottom butterfly would take short flights. I was baffled.  Buckeye Susie, Buckeye Sam, doing the jitterbug in Buckeye land...

There was no time to search for muskrats before heading back in the car, with Georgia on my mind.