Little Pee Dee

If we had to be sick, it was a good place to be.

In an unpretentious little state park, smack in the middle of nowhere, with nothing to do, and nowhere close to go to.

It used to have a lake, before Hurricane Matthew took out the dam last October. Now it just has a series of mudflats for birds and very small fish. It wasn’t even worth taking the canoe off the truck for.

So we didn’t have to feel that we were missing the local sights by vegetating on the couch or having extras naps in bed. It was a sparsely occupied park, with about 90% vacancy rate, so we did not even have to exert ourselves to be social.

We had spent a few days previously with friends, parked in their yard and sharing meals with their family, healthy and happy. It was on the day of our scheduled departure that a respiratory bug hit us, causing coughing and tiredness.

It was a good thing that we hadn’t planned on going far. The original thought was to avoid the winter weather that was coming too far south for comfort, but it turned out for the best that we only had a few hours’ drive when we were struggling with heavy heads and eyes. This empty little state park still inside the South Carolina border was just what we needed. We could hide inside our cozy trailer waiting for the weather to warm up and the coughing to go away.

 On the days we felt mildly energetic, we walked the nature trails. The paths are flat, not too strenuous, and perfect for recuperating old fogies. The dogwoods were just coming into bloom, their white flowers playing peek-a-boo in between the pines.

We couldn’t have found a better place to be.

When it was time to move on again, we at least felt up to the drive, even if we weren’t 100% yet. 

And Virginia Beach, when we arrived mid-March, was pretty deserted. Not at all the bustling party town we had been led to believe.

But it was not quiet.

From 8 in the morning until almost 10 at night, assorted jet fighters (F18s, F-35s, and Harriers) would roar overhead at least once an hour. I would have thought I was in a war zone, if I hadn’t known that Virginia Beach is surrounded by Navy and Air bases.

Good thing we had done lots of sleeping in Little Pee Dee. Afternoon naps were out of the question here.

So we explored. We visited the Nauticus naval museum and the USS Wisconsin in Norfolk.

They also have a huge memorial to General Douglas MacArthur in that city, and we spent several hours there, too. 

We even spent some time at the Virginia Aquarium, which was close enough to the campground that we could walk there.

But who would go to Virginia Beach, and not go to the beaches?

Not us.

We rode the bike trail all along the beach front, from the 1^st Street Jetty to the end of the pavement at 40^th Street, sharing the path with all sorts of contraptions known as bicycles. 

They had singles, doubles, quadripedals, and even one for 6 people, a “family ride”.

The statue of Neptune has pride of place along the beach, but there are lots of little treasures tucked into unusual places: carvings of hermit crabs in the flowerbeds, or a huge concrete snail near the boardwalk.

I’m just glad we were feeling well enough to enjoy them. Virginia Beach is definitely not a place for recuperation.

W