This morning was another perfect day at Open Pond Campground, Conecuh National Forest. At 74 degrees and sunny, I took my morning coffee on the dock, casting and sipping.
A father and his young son (7 or 8) were also fishing, the dad spending most of his time setting up his son’s pole after he’d caught a snag or tangled the line. They both had deep southern drawls, and when the dad said “I’m gonna have to restock my tackle box after this trip,” the son responded “Sounds like sumthin’ you oughta do anyway.” They jawed at each other like buddies, and it was adorable. The man said fishing had slowed the past few days when it had cooled down, but he thought that any day now it should pick back up again, which is the kind of optimism I like to hear.
There are a lot of turtles in this lake, and I feel like they have the right idea. As far as I can tell, turtles just lay around all day on logs in the sunshine. I realize it’s just a function of their basic survival, to warm their bodies, but I also like to think at some point in their evolutionary history, they just decided, “Well, I think I’ll take a little break from the grind here on this log.” And the other turtles saw that and pretty soon there were hardly enough logs to go around for all the turtles taking breaks from whatever they had going on under the water. After a while, no one could remember what they were supposed to be doing, so they just kept on doing what they enjoyed—sitting in the sunshine, all day every day.
I drove into Pensacola, FL, today, about 70 miles south of Conecuh. I’d been to Pensacola in about 2004 when I worked for Mesaba Airlines, so flying was free. I don’t recall much from the trip, but it was shortly after Hurricane Ivan, and flying in you could see blue tarps on about every other roof. The hurricane had pushed sand up and through everything—houses, cars. The sand here is a fine-grained, bright-white, and on the roads nearest the shoreline after the hurricane, it looked like it had been plowed like snow, piled high at the curb.
After stopping at a restaurant for blackened shrimp, I headed to a beach on Perdido Key, laid in the sun for an hour-and-a-half and swam in the ocean, which was a much more tolerable temp than in South Carolina. On the beach I read about the “Perdido Key beach mouse,” an endangered little guy who only exists in a small area along the coast. They live about 3 feet under the sand during the day, then come out and find bugs and things at night. They are one of few mammal species that are monogamous, finding a mate and staying together for life. Initially, I thought, awe, that’s really cute that they are so committed, but then I read that their lifespans are about 9 months, which really isn’t that long to keep up a relationship, though most of mine have been shorter.
At sunset I left the beach, hit an Aldi’s for groceries for the week, and headed back to the campground. My trip odometer passed 3,000 miles on the way, which really isn’t much considering the first 1,500 came in the first 3 days of the trip. Unlike actual vacations where I try to cover a lot of ground and end up driving too much, I’m taking my time and in no hurry to get anywhere. I will say that after an afternoon on a Florida beach, it’s really hard to not feel like you’re on vacation, so working tomorrow feels incongruent with the relaxing tone of today, but I heard it snowed back in Minnesota, so I won’t complain.
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