21 May: Cedar Creek Campground, Sealevel, NC

 Left Topsail on Saturday morning and did a big bend around Camp Lejeune - THE BIG marine base in North Carolina.  It is unbelievably big!

Stopped in the middle of nowhere to do my laundry as the was not laundromat within striking distance of where I was going to be for the next week or 2. Laundromats are really sad places...  but at least I also stocked up at a Lowes (supermarket in these parts, not hardware), as I was heading out into nowhere land.

Got to Cedar Creek campground and it was exactly the same as the campground I just left - been in the family for zillions of years, no computer, basic - but great.  The 9? year old father stilled lived in a house on the grounds, all the children were in houses around the campground, and so were the cousins and 2nd cousins, and so on.

Definitely not a family RV campground - only for hardcore fishermen and their families.  Lots of fish around though - drum, blue fish, flounder as well as crabs, oysters and clams.  There are a few commercial oyster farms out it the bay.

 

The big talk was about the pig sticking on Memorial Saturday and everyone was invited.

 

 

The town is called Sealevel (probably because it is at or below sea level).

During the past week with the big moon eclipse and king tide, the whole campsite was under a foot of water.  The place is/was pretty much a swamp.  Funny part is the next town over is called Atlantic.  Not thinking very much away from the water here...  Also saw my first muskrat.  Weird little rat-like black mouse.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Really sad area.  The only grocery store is a Dollar General.  The next closest is 35 miles away.  The number of abandoned houses/properties are crazy.  I asked people why there were so many, and everyone seemed perplexed - as if they had not noticed before.  Some said it was due to hurricanes and people just leaving their properties, others said  parents dying off and no one wanted the properties - just weird, but a very poor county. However, down one street just around the corner, there were these mansions on 1 acre plots that just did not fit.

The bird life was amazing - every morning I would walk out to the point at the campground with my coffee and see muskrats, and birds and more birds - and dead quiet except for the birds.  The thought that came into my head was this is like the bosveld except it is at sea level... 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 So Memorial weekend arrived... first we had a tornado watch (not a warning - which is the next level up), but the skies looked angry.  In any case, that dissipated without any major issues.  That evening I was about to get into the whale and I heard a 'Yo, come over and get a beer', so I went over.

They definitely win the prize for the most decorated RV site.  Very nice people - Dick and Terri (I think), but what a wild night.  Terri had been in a major accident a number of years ago, and had a head injury so needed weed to stay 'on the level'.   That was naturally the excuse for Dick to also partake in the ganja.  Dick had been flying a Trump flag from his flagpole the previous week, but was asked to take it down, so for half the night he ran around the campground with a white flag which he wanted to put up. His boat is called 'White Boy'.  At one stage the 2 of them and another person that joined started talking as if we were in a revivalist church blabbered some serious religious stuff.  I just kept quiet and observed.

Quote of the week was 'The mosquito is the state bird of North Carolina'.  Someone took it to heart.

Very nicely decorated house - the only one in the area.

 

 

 

Trip to Portsmouth Island. Saturday 5/28

Straight east of the campsite is a series of barrier island - from Cape Lookout to Portsmouth.  There is a ferry that takes 4 cars/truck campers over every 2 hours. On the island there is nothing.  You can camp where you like on the beach, you need a 4x4 and you need to bring ice - lots of it.  The last hurricane wrecked all the huts on the island - park board rentals that are apparently going to be demolished and rebuilt - just to be wrecked again...

In any case, cycled the 5 miles to Morris Marina to get the 11am ferry.  Went over and walked along the beach for about 90 minutes one way.  The whole experience was a bit 'Into the Wild' - there was no one in sight and unbelievably desolate.

Then the clouds started building (the forecast was for a sunny, simple weather day).  In any case, got hit by a squall - huge rain drops hitting me at at least 40 mph does hurt.  Luckily I had changed into my swimming gear, so getting soaked was not that big a deal.  However, it was an experience - the bottom of my backpack got soaked - I eventually got back to the cabins, and changed under one of them and then waited patiently for the ferry to take me back.  In the meantime there was another squall and everyone was worried that the ferry would not get here to take us back - and we would spend the night in the abandoned cabins.

See the brown necked pelican... not seen them before.

Anyhow, we made it back in one piece, and the bike survived all the water, so I wized back to the campsite so as not to be late for the pig roast.

The pig turned out to be excellent - and the whole setup a real feast.  Everyone brought something - except me as I was totally out of provisions.  Funny part of the whole setup was that everyone would go and get their plate of food, and then go sit in their golf cart - so there was concept of a social gathering and sitting around a table and chatting.  Definitely different.

What I did learn there was that most people that were in their early 50s - younger than me - were already grandparents - the one couple had 3 grandchildren and the grandma was not even 50... Made me think of religion, marrying early, losing those prime years between 20 and 30 looking after kids...etc

On Sunday 5/29 I had to drive 35 miles back the way I had come to provision up again as the next stop was Cedar Island and then Ocracoke - which did not have much in the way of groceries either.