Outdoor Adventures with Gary Lee - Vol. 300

Well, I finally had a big adventure as I traveled to Jocassee Lake in Northwest South Carolina to watch wintering Loons on the lake. These Loons for the past few years have been spending the winter there from their northern lakes rather than going to the ocean. Maybe they do not like saltwater food, and their numbers have remained about the same up to 140 birds and as low as 115 birds. The trip here was more of an adventure than the work we are doing here but I will try and cover both. Today was our first day out on the lake in two pontoon boats just making a count of the birds on the lake so I will get to that later.

I started out on Saturday morning and most of you saw what that was like, it was snowing and quite hard. Well, I got the car packed and fed the birds for the last time. I started south and the snow came down harder, Temperature right at 32 degrees, it was not sticking to the highway as I turned south from Utica on 12 but the wind blowing the snow from the fields along the highway was blinding in a few places. It snowed all the way to the Pennsylvania Welcome Center. I had lunch there and had a short visit with the staff. There were Robins out on the lawn and the snow was starting to stick to the ground. I asked if the snow stopped here or was it snowing south some. They said it stopped there, well they were wrong as it snowed halfway through the state, but the temperature went up one degree to thirty-three, so it still was not sticking to the highway. I got out of Pennsylvania unscathed, went through Maryland, West Virginia and into Virginia and the temperature went up just a couple of degrees to 35. I got to Woodstock about dark where I had a reservation at the Holiday Inn Express. I walked over to the Kentucky Fried Chicken which was just a short stroll across the parking lot. I had the place to myself and got a good meal. Another fellow came in and sat across the room eating his chicken. Since we were the only two there I asked if he was going north or south and he said he was going north to New Hampshire, and he had come from Georgia. I told him he was going to see a substantial difference when he got there as the high temperature was only going to be a high of fifteen the next day. As we got closer, I could see his hat said Fox Sports, so I had to ask what he was doing. We discussed families first and then he told me he was running the coverage for the college basketball championship games at all the venues, and he was starting in New Hampshire and traveling all over the country with his van of trucks and all the equipment to cover these games. Most of the other games were in the south or more south than New Hampshire. We parted with a handshake after I told him I was going south to watch Loons. You never know who you might meet on the road and just what they are doing. Karen always said “you will just talk to anyone”, well if you do not, you never know who they are or what they may be doing, and it might be remarkably interesting, and this was a very interesting visit. 

Well, the next morning I had a nice breakfast at the hotel and got on the road. The temperature was right at freezing and stayed that way most of the day. I think the high got up to thirty-seven in South Carolina at the end of the day. This was an exciting part of the trip. I had written down the directions in my little pad of the internet to get to Devils Fork State Park in South Carolina. So, I started down Route 81 and did not have to turn on another road until I was in Tennessee. I had never been to Tennessee so that was new. My turn was onto I-26 E to US 25-S at Exit 54. Before I got to that I stopped at the welcome station to North Carolina which I thought was South Carolina. The folks were very nice as I had just gone through the damaged area from the hurricane which had killed lots of people and several over forty are still missing. It was a mess and the fella working there lived just beyond the worst of it. I told them where I was going following the directions on my phone. The lady there looked it up on her computer and she said she had been to another park close to that before. Of Course, they had no maps of South Carolina, and I left. Got in the car and my phone was dead. So, I tried to follow my written directions going east on I-26 as it said I would see a sign for the park. Well, that did not happen, and I went too far East before I stopped and picked up a charger and got my phone back in action. I called my contact at the park Brooks Wade, and he got me in contact with one of his helpers, Zack, on the phone who got me going back on Rt 26 to Rt 11 and got me steered right. I had been driving since 8AM and it was now getting dark with a beautiful sunset as I headed back in that direction. I got close and my daughter Erin called and said Dad, you are going in the wrong direction on her map, and she was right as I had turned around just before the turn off at the park. She stayed on the line until I arrived at the villas in the park, home at last for a week now, nearly 8PM. Thanks to all for the directions. 

Now it is a week of watching wintering Loons on Jocassee Lake but that’s another story. See ya.

Photo above: One of the many falls at Jocassee Lake