Cape Hatters to Little River, South Carolina

A cold front blew through in the night, brought hours of wind but no rain.  Breezy and cooler, overcast  but still mild in the morning, last day for the Frisco campground, everyone packing up for somewhere else.  I drove south for ten minutes and right onto the free ferry for Okracoke island.  The already shallow channel was rearranged by Hurricane Irene, dredged and dredging going on as we charted a slow and  winding course, watching pelicans diving crazily into the ocean.  Hard to believe those big, lumbering birds really feed themselves like that.

Off the ferry, I drove the ten miles down Okracoke Island  and through the narrow streeted downscale tourist town but just missed the ferry to Cedar Island.  With three hours, I staked out a table at a coffee shop and watched what passes for the world in that place go by.  I did learn that locals call themselves Ocockers (and the island Ocock) so the time wasn't wasted.

The ferry was late and even through small, maybe 75 cars, slow loading, then sailing on a windy sea with the boat rocking so we slowed, turned into a two and a half hour trip.  Boats around also pitching in the heavy seas, left over from the windy night before.  Still, a nice crossing windy but warm from the 70 some degree ocean below.

Off the boat winding south on a long, narrow peninsula, marshy and open water, houses along the road and in small towns, everything a couple of feet above sea level, precious gain from a few courses of cinderblock.  Going to be a lot of climate change denying Republicans headed for higher ground one day soon and probably no wiser for it.

Drove in heavy rain past military Camp Lejune and a long and depressing stretch  of pawnshops, gunshops, stripclubs, liquor stores and way too much rednecky signs and associated stuff.  The price of freedoom, perhaps.  We are lucky the military is here and not in Oregon.

Finally into Wilmington a dark in the rain greeted by three steeples.

  Old brick downtown on the Cape Fear River, I think, seemed alive, shops, pubs, young people and, praise the Lord, a brewpub!  Good beer and Carolina crabcakes at the Front Street brewpub, nice folks to chat with, hard to leave but I needed to find as place to stay.  Drove in the dark rain south, finally into South Carolina – fireworks!  fireworks and more fireworks, what's with that? - to the Lakefront Motel (really, Pondfront would be more accurate) in Little River, welcomed by the Stooges on vacation, a good sign.