Random Photo No. 2

One of my favorite things about the South is all the water!

This little lake behind our apartment complex is host to turtles, geese, ducks and fish. They make a beeline for the gazebo each time they see a person, hoping for a snack.

Be it ‘ocean’ or ‘sea,’ the emotion is glee

Lately, weekends without travel have been almost unbearable. By midway through day one, I can hardly stand to be inside any longer. I have to get out, do something – even if that means driving around for a few hours, by myself.

Luckily, I love being in the car alone, so when I had an irresistible urge to visit the beach last week, the remedy was simple: a solo day trip to Wilmington on Sunday. I went to Wrightsville Beach – my first real beach trip in almost 10 years. (By real, I mean it was more than a “five-minute step out of the car and have a look-see” kind of visit.)

While the ocean alone is magnificent, that long stretch of time without seeing it made the experience all the more thrilling. I felt like a kid again. As soon as I was across the paved parking lot, I got barefoot and ran, toes sinking with each step through the hot and soft top layer of sand, reaching for the wet grainy stuff underneath. I slowed long enough to deposit my towel and cooler on the sandy incline and cast off my shorts and tank top before rushing into the warm water, grinning like a fool. I’m sure most of the other beach patrons thought I was a total maniac.

There were hardly any children there. Most of the bodies dotting the beach were slim, tan, baby-oiled girls in string bikinis and overly-muscular dudes in sagging trunks and big sunglasses. (I’m guessing many of them were University of North Carolina at Wilmington students, judging by the beach’s proximity to campus.) I think I might have felt less strange about my over-the-top enthusiasm if there had been kids around, or at least an adult or two who were as outwardly happy as I to be there.

Anthropologist and writer Loren Eiseley has this description of that overwhelming and innate human emotion of ‘Oh my gosh – I’m at the beach!’ down pat:

“Every time we walk along a beach some ancient urge disturbs us so that we find ourselves shedding shoes and garments or scavenging among seaweed and whitened timbers like the homesick refugees of a long war.”

I haven’t been to an East Coast beach since I was very young, in fact probably since my parents took my sister and I to the Outer Banks as tots. I was happy to find that the water was every bit as warm as I’ve heard it is. That’s the biggest difference I noticed – the only way to describe it is ‘very temperate.’ The air was not too hot and the water not too cold, unlike the ocean climate of Baja Mexico I am familiar with. There, even when the temperature is more than 100 degrees, one can exit the the water with goosebumps before rapidly becoming overheated again.

After my upon-arrival maniacal episode, requisite water temperature assessment and, of course, seashell collecting expedition, I went on a photo frenzy. Here are some shots of my visit to Wrightsville Beach:

Up a creek without a paddle

I took my car in for an oil change today and, boy – that was an experience.

The place was packed. The phone rang off the hook. The man behind the counter answered it with a booming, “CHA-pahl HEE-ul Tahr,” competing with the chatter of waiting customers, clanging of tools and the crackling TV. The program of choice was a women’s gymnastics meet, for which the announcer droned on about the competitors’ stylistic choices. A rather bizarre program choice for an auto shop, I thought, and several others concurred aloud.

Despite the many employees who were standing post behind the counter, the wait for my service was more than two hours. (I try to remind myself that things move more slowly in the South, so I’ve heard.) After playing numerous rounds of Brick Breaker on my phone I grabbed a newspaper and flipped to the crossword puzzle.

I find that pretending to work a crossword affords an opportunity to people-watch without looking overtly creepy or demented. They think you’re deeply contemplating that six-letter word for an ancient counting device . . . or, whatever.

Brad Pitt in 'A River Runs Through It' (Photo from Google.com)

Anyway, these two men were jabbering on about their kids’ team sports league, the happenings of their Memorial Day weekends and other such mundane blather. Then, they got on the subject of fishing.

Now, I’ve never been fishing in my life. Not that I would count as “real” fishing. I did dangle a fishing line into a tiny trickle of a man-made river at a Phoenix resort as a child, but that’s about as close to fishing as running through sprinklers is to getting caught in a thunderstorm.

These guys, though – they were really into it. They debated rivers and lakes, poles, bait and tackle and lures, time of day, time of year, fresh water versus salt water, and on and on and on. They talked about fishing for like, an hour. And other people chimed in.

Eventually, ill-equipped to contribute to the jargon-filled banter regarding their catch stats, I  inwardly meandered to images of rivers and fishing. I realized there’s hardly a movie I’ve seen that’s set in the South and doesn’t include a scene set down by a river – wading, fishing, swimming, sitting.

Other than that (which a pretty good reason, I guess) I don’t know why I automatically associate fishing with the South. I suppose for those who fish recreationally, the South is the place to be. It’s warm and there’s lots of  lakes, ponds, rivers, coastline and, of course, the Gulf of Mexico.

While I don’t imagine myself taking up fishing as regular hobby, I would like to try it sometime. For now, I’ll leave it to Forrest Gump and the other seasoned pros: