Blue Goose ~ Day 250

February 1, 2015 ~ Cheraw, SC to Gaffney, SC

Years and years ago, one of my sisters and I drove to Sneads Ferry, NC. On the way we passed through Pee Dee Country, seeing signs for Pee Dee everywhere, eating at a Pee Dee restaurant, crossing the Pee Dee river, passing businesses with Pee Dee in their names...so I had to visit the Pee Dee NWR this time around. It is in North Carolina, but just across the border and not far from Cheraw where I had stayed in a nice motel and lingered in the morning, working a couple of hours.

The white steepled country churches had cars in the parking lots, today being Sunday. Many of the parishioners were African American, the women wearing dresses and hats and the men in dark suits.  The roads were quiet and wound up and down hills, through woods and fields.

Pee Dee NWR - NC

Pee Dee was quiet and grey. It felt exactly like fall up North. The Great Pee Dee River runs along the northern border of the refuge. There is also a Little Pee Dee River, and the two eventually merge and flow south into the Intracoastal Waterway in SC as do many of the rivers in these states.

The varied habitat includes bottomland and upland forests, pine and hardwoods, fields and impoundments thus supporting waterfowl, bobwhite, quail, turkey and nesting or migratory birds, none of which I saw. My impression was of a silent grey-brown place but which, with the coming warmth of spring and summer, would soon be lushly verdant and filled with the songs of migrating and nesting birds. 

I could have been in northern Michigan, except that the creeks and rivers barely moved. 

As the weather deteriorated to wind and rain, I opted for a motel again, after eating at an Applebees that didn't serve alcohol on Sundays, but did have a smoking section. 

I turned on TV and watched parts of the Super Bowl, using the Mute button and reading until the halftime show, oddly boring as the senses were assaulted in the efforts to live up to Super Bowl hype.

But then the final incredible couple of minutes that did live up to the hopes for a show!