Hywy 31, SC Wildfire : North Myrtle Beach 4 '09

    Other than having dry throats and burning eyes form the acrid smoke we're  okay,  Unfortunately a lot  of our friends are in harms way,

and there are a lot of wildlife  deaths being reported  due someones negligent behavior.

The fire, named the Highway 31 fire, has now burned 19,000 acres and is 40 percent contained; 69 homes have been destroyed in North Myrtle Beach and 100 others have been damaged by the fire.

A spokesman for the South Carolina Forestry Commission said a person was issued a ticket in connection with the fire on Woodlawn Drive that could have led to the large fire.   The person was issued two tickets for failure to notify the Forestry Commission of an active fire and for allowing the fire to spread to the land of another.  The two tickets total $732. The person’s fire was a routine debris burn that began over the weekend and was put out the same day, but rekindled on Wednesday.

More than 2,500 residents have been forced to evacuate.

Columbia Zoo and Botanical Gardens 4 '09

Flamingos at the Columbia Zoo

Our official reason for visiting Columbia on Sunday April 19th was to see the Turner to Cezanne Exhibition at the Columbia Fine Art Museum^.       But the gallery didn’t open until 1pm so we decided to spend the morning exploring the nearby the Columbia Zoo and Botanical Gardens.  What a pleasant discovery.   
 
Compared to zoos like the San Diego Wild Animal Park or botanical gardens like Brookgreen, they are both small.  But what they lack in size is more than made up for in quality.  

Bird of Paradise

 For example, in the Zoo’s aviary we watched a Bird of Paradise going through its courting ritual.   It hangs upside down and rapidly flickers its bright orange tail like a brilliant flower to attract its mate. 

 It was like being up close and personal in National Geographic wildlife special.  Very impressive!

The Botanic Gardens were equally impressive.  

 The main attraction of the gardens is their formal raised flower borders, 

which at this time of year were a mass of bloom. 

  What set this garden apart was the way the park had incorporated fine art craft and whimsical art work into the setting.  

   It was both a lovely

 and joyous place to be.

Turner to Cezanne 4 '09

Turner to Cezanne

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The National Museum Wales is known for having one of the finest Impressionist art collections in Europe. Sent the Columbia Museum of Fine art, and four other US Museums,  an extraordinary group of 19th- and early 20th-century paintings that is renowned for its beauty and quality. The collection is exceptionally strong in Impressionist and Post-Impressionist works and includes masterpieces by, among others, Cézanne, Corot, van Gogh, Monet, Daumier, Manet, Millet, Pissarro, Renoir, Turner and Whistler. The Turner to Cézanne exhibition  features 53 stunning works of art, seen together in the United States for the first time.   We found it  remarkably instructive.

For more information on the Museum see

http://www.columbiamuseum.org/

Congaree April 18 '09

Saturday, April 18th, saw us heading off with Kat in our RV to Congaree Swamp National Park.   The Congaree NP Forest is rated as being one of the top ten “ Old  Growth Forest” in the world.   For those of you who are not familiar with the term, “old growth” refers to a forest which is tall enough that its upper canopy has shaded out the under-story vegetation, leaving the forest floor relatively open to view.

Open Under story

Dogwood in Bloom

In North America, only the conifer forests of the Western U.S. coastal region are substantially taller. (E.g. the California Sequoia forests, and the rain forests of the Olympic Peninsula are taller).  East of the Mississippi, just a few patches of white pine and some cove forests in Great Smoky Mountains NP are taller. When compared to all of the world's forests, Congaree is among the tallest. 

The average canopy height is over 100ft tall.  Congaree has one of the tallest temperate deciduous forests in the world, and is taller than the old-growth forests found in Japan, the Himalayas, Southern South America and all of Eastern Europe. 

That being said, we were still startled by how different this forest is than any other we have ever visited.     

 For one thing it is a true swamp.  The Congaree River snakes its way through much of the Park.  Much of the forest is regularly flooded by the overflow of the Congaree River.  Many of the trees in the flooded wet sections of the forest are bald cypress. 

 

Bald Cypress

  (If you look at the dark moss around the lower trunk of the tree you can tell how high the flooding reaches on the tree.) 

Dark line indicates water level during flood season

This is what the same section  looks like during the rainy season

Bald Cypress trees put up “knees” all around them.   Know one knows quite what the purpose of these knees are, but   the best guess is that they both aerate the tree, and help to stabilize it during floods. 

Cypress knees

 No matter what their function, I appreciated their unusual shapes …. They look like little gnomes squatting at the foot of the bridges. 

Cypress knees

  Because of the flooding, the Elevated Boardwalk at Congaree National Park is raised roughly 8 feet off the ground, 

BJ atop Elevated Board Walk

is 3 miles from the Congaree River, and floods over about every 4 to 5 years.  

Elevated Board Walk

 Here are some forestry service pictures of the board walk through the park during the rainy season (late winter and summer).   

Here is a picture of a ranger standing on the ground beside the board walk during one of the overflows, and another of Bruce standing in the same spot when it is dry.

BJ would be under water during the rainy season

 There are many natural lakes called “Oxbows” within Congaree National Park, which used to be bends in the Congaree River. Some formed thousands of years ago.   

CC by an Oxbow Lake

The reflections in these areas are beautiful

And the moisture supports a wide variety of wildlife like this little skink

Fields a Bloom 4 '09

Fields a Bloom

Not the least of the pleasure of our weekend trip was the drive too and from Columbia.  It feels like all of South Carolina is bursting into spring bloom. 

All of the roads are lined with red clover and yellow buttercup.  The unplowed farmlands are a mass of pink and blue wildflowers.  Dogwood and wild azaleas are everywhere in the woods.  Even the pine trees’ bark is colorful… Yes it really does have a pinkish - purplish maroon tint which is even more striking against the bright yellow green of new spring growth. 

Happy Easter 4 ' 09

Easter Egg Cups

Happy Easter, Everybody

Neighbors come a calling. 4 '12

I was reading in the recreation room when I noticed a branch in the woods behind us shaking violently.  Bruce said it was probably just the incoming storm Hmmm, only one branch close to the ground being stirred by the wind… not likely.  I jumped up to investigate just in time to see our neighborhood raccoon jumping from the branch over onto our bird feeders hanger.  He then stuck his paw in the feeder, threw the seed to the ground, and proceeded to chow down.  All of this in broad daylight….  Cheeky!

Mink at the Huntington Beach SP 4 '09

HBSP Mink

Guess what we spotted while we  were on our morning walk at Hunting Beach SP?

That's right it is a mink. 

I didn't even  know that mink live in the low country before I saw this one.

I showed the park ranger my photo and she said there are two pair of them in Huntington Beach State Park.,  One pair lives along the causeway, and the other near where I saw this one hunting along the breakwater rocks between Murrells Inlet and Litchfield