Fort Macon

I have been ambitiously filling the pages of my running log since arriving here.  Yesterday, I ran four miles, down to the picnic area and then out onto the beach.  It was low tide and the beach was flat, wide, and a perfect surface for running.  Of all the beaches I have visited, this is the only one that is perfect for running when the tide is low.  It is simply wonderful to run with the ocean right there at your elbow, sanderlings skittering away, sea gulls reluctantly lifting into the air to get out of the way.

I spent a good deal of time yesterday afternoon doing maintenance here - changing the HVAC filter and cleaning the windows, which take a real beating.  Now it is nice to look outside the crystal clear sliding-glass doors and see the cloudless sky.  In the evening, we read books.  I have nearly finished a Peter Robinson mystery, and Martha is at the same point in a P. D. James called Death at Pemberly, based on the characters in the Jane Austen novel Pride and Prejudice.  It has been so warm that we can have the doors open just a crack and hear the ocean roaring outside while we read.

This morning, I awoke well before sunrise and went down to the beach to watch it rise.  Emily Dickinson might have been referring to sunrise when she said, "It's all a common glory."  First, long horizontal lines in all the purplish shades of the spectrum.

And then the main event!   We never see sunrises from our home in Clear Creek valley, so it is especially appreciated here.  And this time of year we can see both sunrise and sunset on this south-facing wintertime beach.

After lunch, we decided to drive to Fort Macon, our usual stopover when we run, to do some hiking.  On the way, I noticed these two rusty bicycles under the condo.  Have they been here all winter?  Or perhaps just for a week.  The weather is rough on windows and bicycles alike.

It is always a welcome site to see the long, curved fence at Fort Macon.  For the runner, it offers restrooms, drinking fountains, and shelter from wind and storm.

We started out in the parking lot at the Yarrow Loop trail, where there was a huge pile of Christmas trees, which are collected after the holidays and used to stabilize the beach.  You can smell the fragrance of  balsam from a long way off!  I sometimes think these trees may have been cut near Highlands.

In the Beaufort Inlet, we noticed some shipping activity.  First, a tugboat was maneuvering in the channel, and then a huge freighter appeared, which the tug got behind to nudge into port.  And in the opposite direction was coming another ship with a large net stretched over it - Martha thought it might be to prevent birds from landing on deck.

We started around the loop but did not see any birds until Martha spotted this immature ibis high in a tree, not the brilliant white of the mature ibis.  Bird-watching guru Ranger Randy would be proud of her!

From the loop, we entered the Eliot Coues Nature Trail that goes along the sound to the Picnic Area a mile-and-a-half away, crosses the highway, and comes back along high dunes looking down on the ocean and the beach.  I am sure I have posted photos identical to these in this blog in past years, but it is such a beautiful place - the twisted live oaks, and the sound stretching out to the north.

The high dunes on the ocean side, most of them made from Christmas trees placed below, always remind us of the moors of Scotland.  The wind was picking up - a fine day, though a wee bit draughty!

What a great day for a hike this was!  And now we have worked up appetites.  Dinner will be shrimp tacos, made from Carolina shrimp we picked up earlier.  And then we will settle down to finish what will be the first of many books to be read, with the door ajar, and the sound of the ocean outside.

We like to post quotes on the little blackboard in our kitchen back home, and we do the same here.  Martha posted this one a little while ago while I was writing, and it is wonderfully appropriate for the start of a New Year.

If you want this to be your year:  

Don't sit on the couch and wait for it.   

Go out.  Make a change.  Smile more.  Be excited.  

Do new things.  Throw away clutter.
Unfollow negative people on social media.   

Go to bed early.  Wake up early.
Don't gossip.  Show more gratitude.   

Do things that challenge you.   

Be brave.