North Carolina down into South Carolina

Driving south from Chesapeake VA, I quickly found myself without much fanfare in North Carolina. There I saw my first field of cotton.  The other crops I saw were probably soybeans, and corn.  Many fields were cleaned right down to the dirt, so no way of knowing what they raised there.  Most of the fields I saw were small, family farm sized fields, but further south, there were huge tracts of land with one crop crossing many fields -- industrial farming.  The trees began changing, too:  more pines, with oaks, holly trees (who knew holly could grow to 20-30' tall?) and the first palm trees (which were planted in front of people's houses).  A cotton field:

I knew right away it was cotton -- snowy puffs all across the field.

The other crop that began to appear in North Carolina is pine trees.  You can tell it's a pine plantation because there is nothing else growing there -- just rows and rows of one type of pine.  On the left of the road the trees are only 3-5 feet tall, on the right they are maybe 30 feet tall, with no understory.  Occasionally I saw a field which had been harvested and nothing was left but the slash, chaotically strewn across the ground.  I had read that the Carolinas are exporting enormous amounts of wood pellets for pellet stoves in Europe, and here were the fields.  These are not forests and this practice is not sequestering carbon, and is not sustainable, though the pellets may be sold in Europe as a sustainable fuel.

On the plus side, I did see a huge wind farm in North Carolina, as well as maybe 7 or 8 huge solar farms.  Did not see any of these in South Carolina.

I wanted to visit the Croatan National Forest near New Bern NC.  Called the KOA in New Bern because I really needed wifi.  I was going to stay in a campground at the National Forest, but they usually don't have wifi, so the extra cost was worth it.  They had run out of regular RV sites, but had a few tent sites with electricity and water hook ups at the far end of the campground.  Turns out, I was in sight of the Neuse River from my camper!  Sadly, the wifi wasn't that great this far from the center of their campground.

You can see the river over the swamp grass.  The roof on the right is over my picnic table.  

The next day I went on the Tidal Lands Trail at Croatan National Forest.  A completely different landscape than I've ever seen.  

Looking out over the White Oak River.

You can tell I loved this place.  Our tax dollars doing good work.

And then I drove on down to Myrtle Beach SC.  Now I've heard the name Myrtle Beach all my life and thought of it as a place for overweight Americans to go get sunburned on an over-commercialized beach, kind of like Atlantic City.  However, while I was at Croatan, I learned that there are a couple kinds of myrtle growing everywhere down here -- real, lovely bushes with small shiny green leaves.  The wax myrtle trees give off a mild bay aroma if you rub their leaves.  And that's why it's called Myrtle Beach -- because it's where the myrtle grows!  

I was having trouble with the remote access to my office and had to have wifi on Sunday night to work with the IT guy, Roy.  So I called the KOA in Myrtle Beach and asked for a site with really good wifi.  They gave me a site right behind the office where the wifi was good, but it wasn't very pretty or private.  However, I did need good wifi on Monday and Tuesday, and I was too tired to go anywhere else, so signed up for two more nights.  Didn't want to spend all my time in the campground, and headed down the road to Myrtle Beach State Park.  I didn't know what to expect, parked in the lot, walked up some stairs over the dunes, and Voila, the beach!!!

It really is a lovely beach -- pristine, white sand stretching for miles.  The day was in the 60's but still too chilly for swimming.  I took off my sneakers and walked along the surf for a long ways, listening to the waves washing up on the beach.  

Three pink roses, washed up on the beach.  We'll never know . . .

And yes, Myrtle Beach, the city, is probably alot like Atlantic City, only more spread out.  Miles of chain stores and at least four huge miniature golf places with pirate themes.  There are huge stores there selling beach wear -- "Nothing over $5.99".  One chain is called Whales, and one of their stores was advertising "50% off on 1X and 2X".  Careful there, those ladies may not like being associated with Whales!  And lots of high rise hotels overlooking the ocean.  But Myrtle Beach State Park is lovely and has a woodsy campground.  I'll stay there next time I'm in this area.