Canadys, South Carolina

We are in Canadys, part of Colleton County in South Carolina. Our lodging here has been the absolutely gorgeous Colleton State Park, on the banks of the Edisto River, the largest black water river in the US. A black water river is one that is stained with tannic acid that leaches out of the leaves that fall into the waters below. The included slideshow shows the river itself. The water isn’t muddy… it’s just “tea” colored.

Our park ranger, Larry, is an interesting fellow. He showed me a photo of him holding a LIVE 15 foot rattlesnake. He had apparently been bitten 5 times by rattlesnakes, water moccasins, and copperheads, including the one he was holding in the photo. He was also stricken by lightening twice and shot and stabbed… and he’s still around to tell about it all. He is one lucky ranger~! He was so friendly, and so helpful, and so interesting to talk to.

The park itself is filled with a variety of beautiful flora and fauna. There are tulip poplar trees, loblolly pines, magnolias, sassafras, red bay, willow, flowering dogwoods, wax myrtles, pignut hickory, sweetgum trees, water oak, live oak, and some northern species of oak we are more familiar with. There are red maple and sugar maple trees as well.

Rudy loves the plethora of squirrels. So much so, he had to delay the usual nap schedule to jump back and forth and run from front to back to see what each of them was up to. Some even came close to the rig door and that was a great treat! It was fun to watch Rudy stand up and make circles in place when the squirrels would run under the coach directly below him. He was SURE he’d be able to see them.

He finally just fell down into the “captain’s chair” of the rig and passed out around 3:30 this afternoon. He was probably up all night watching the animals frolic in the dark as it was. [Still, it’s hard for us to say “poor Rudy” because he’s normally tap dancing on us in the wee hours of each day.] Someone is going to sleep well tonight… maybe. Then again, there will be more animals to watch. Lucky for him tomorrow is a travel day and he’ll have plenty of nap time between here and Wilson, North Carolina. As it was, Rudy got us up around 3:45 am. He was excited about something. Not being cats, we didn’t know what it was exactly.

Since Rudy was up so early, so were we. We decided to turn on the TV. There on the screen was our old friend Tim Russert and his show “Meet the Press”. We caught the last 15 minutes of that then watched a show about the Korean conflict on PBS to go to sleep by. [That show made me think about my dad, who was in the army for that conflict and was sent to Japan, getting ready for deploy just before it ended. Hearing about the number of men killed there, and seeing how brutal and hard it was for them, I was so thankful that he didn’t have to be involved in the front line horrors and that he came home safe and became my daddy. Ernie Thompson is the most incredible father in the world, and I’m so glad he’s mine!]

As we fell to sleep, a big thunderstorm rolled by. There is nothing more soothing than to hear the falling raindrops on the roof of the rig and the rolling of thunder in the distance. The clouds filled the sky and kept the sunlight at bay long enough to allow us to sleep until 9:00. It was nice to be able to stay in bed and sleep longer than usual. Even Rudy didn’t mind too much… but when 9:00 rolled by, he was there to demand our presence in the living room, with his wet nose inserted snugly in my ear, purring and breathing. I guess he needed help watching the squirrels.

We took a lovely walk in the woods, along the cypress swamp trail that lasted about .3 of a mile. The lovely smell of pine on the path, along with the odors of bay and sassafras bark, was rich and inviting.

We are hoping to run into cooler weather, because it was HOT outside… about 90 degrees. Lucky for us, our site was not only a pull through (good so we don’t have to unhitch the dolly and car) but thoroughly shaded as well that kept us cool in the hot pre-summer sun. I wish that we could figure a way to travel with our canoe as well, because we have certainly run into some gorgeous rivers on our travels. Exploring them, in a lazy, relaxed way without having to pay for a rental and worrying about return time would be fantastic.

Our next move is to travel 275 miles to North Carolina. There, we will stay at Kamper’s Lodge and color in one more state on our “Where We’ve Been Map”. YAY!