Evenin' Campers! It's Silver Cliche' here with you again. Tonight from Lake Marion, South Carolina and specifically at Santee State Park on the south shore of the lake.
There is something special about traveling through the southland in July. It's as sultry as a Kathleen Turner movie and as steamy as a romance novel. Not the type of romance novel that has the work "Bronte" on the leather spine. The type that's in a rack at the supermarket checkout. You know, the paperback with a picture of a shirtless guy on horseback on it. I'm not sure why those guys either look like Antonio Banderas or Yanni. I take that back... actually, I do know why. If they ever want a model with the Yule Brenner look, I'm ready to step in. Not the "King and I" Yule Brenner with the open vest. The older, pear-shaped Yule. Anyhow... the south today was that kind of steamy.
We survived our night in the presence of ICBMs without incident. In fact, it was a reminder of some of the rarely seen aspects of America's safety shield. In 1995 our family had the chance to board the USS Nebraska for a tour when she was at Port Canaveral for a test launch of one of her Trident missiles. Our son, youngest daughter and I were shown around the ship from the forward torpedo room to the engine room door (a classified space). It was amazing to see an Ohio class boat from the inside. Nebraska is still in service, although she transferred from being based at Kings Bay, Georgia to Bangor, Washington. With some of the craziness in the world there is comfort in knowing she and her sister ships are always at the ready.
The trip from St. Mary's to Santee was uneventful, if not cool and refreshing. The thermometer in the truck read 90 when we hit the road at 10:30. It moved up steadily until topping out at 99. We have yet to see 100 as measured by the truck on this trip, but there were 100+ temps reported from near our route including in Columbia, South Carolina where they topped 100 for the fourth day in a row with a forecast for four more to tie a record. It's hot here.
Any of you who have traveled I-95 from the north to south or back know Lake Marion. It's the largest lake in the state of South Carolina and I-95 passes directly across it about half way between the North Carolina and Georgia borders. Like so many lakes we visit this is a man made. A bit older than many, this was a New Deal project. Strangely, you can see stands of trees in the middle of the lake. The lake level looks normal as judged by the docks, beaches and such along the shore. We've seen flooding around the country and this place doesn't show current signs. If we had not been hit with severe storms at my usual time to wander around and take pictures I could show you the floating forest that sits about a half mile from the shore where we are camped. Maybe the morning will offer better opportunity.
So tomorrow we continue north. The next stop is a state park in North Carolina near the Virginia border on Kerr Lake. That's about 4 hours drive and will position us to reach Maryland on Friday.
Stay tuned.
Later!
SC'
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