A Common Glory

I had not intended for this to be a daily blog, but as I look back at previous posts I realize I have not missed a single day since we arrived.  This is surprising because our circumstances this year are so circumscribed due to Covid-19.  We have not been to New Bern, Beaufort, Harkers Island, or any of our other usual haunts, as long-time readers have probably noticed.  I don't know if we will ever return to those carefree days, but in the meantime we are making the best of things, staying active and taking advantage of these beautiful, warm days of November to enjoy the beach.

Saturday morning has traditionally been my day for a long run, and I have missed running with friends in Highlands.  But there is plenty to see here and we have an almost perfect route, as I have mentioned before, from the condo to Fort Macon State Park.  It was a nice, cool morning in the mid-50s and not much traffic when I started out.  In less than a mile, the sidewalk and buildings end and the Park begins.  The one-mile mark is just beyond this sign, and shortly after that is the entrance to the Picnic Area on the right.

The Elliott Coues Natural Trail starts at the Fort, runs along the salt marsh to the left, all the way to the Picnic Area, then picks up on the right in sand dunes with views of the ocean.  There were a lot of walkers and some runners out on the trail this morning, and you can sometimes overhear their conversation because although screened by thick live oak and myrtle it is not far from the road.  Cyclists going by will also be often talking.  I heard a snatch of conversation from one of them today - "It's called a crow's nest!" - and wondered what that meant.

The next landmark comes at about 1.70 miles, the Union Artillery Placement historical marker on the right, at the top of what I suppose they might call a "hill" out here, high enough in any case to see the fort and start lobbing artillery shells at those defending it.

The Fort is a history buff's dream, filled with exhibits and artifacts, and we have often explored it in some detail.  One year we attended a live musket firing demonstration and heard a description of the horribly deadly kind of warfare that took place during the Civil War, where soldiers stood so close to one another that killing must have seemed more personal than today's slaughter.  The siege was part of Union Army General Ambrose Burnside's campaign in North Carolina, and the Fort was a strategic target because it had been designed to defend Beaufort Harbor.  Commanded by Colonel Moses J. White, the Fort was poorly equipped and not designed to sustain a siege against artillery.  It surrendered fairly quickly after the thick walls began to crumble and prompted by fears that the magazine would be breached.

A little farther, on the left, is the U. S. Coast Guard Station, a big facility that often has big cutters docked behind it in the harbor, visible from the Fort's parking lot.  We have both noticed that on Saturday mornings we invariably smell the aroma of doughnuts being fried as we run by.

The two-mile mark is just before the Station, and a little past that is another historical marker indicating where the wreck of Blackbeard the Pirate's ship, the Queen Anne's Revenge, was found in 1996, sunk in 25 feet of water a mile off-shore.

Artifacts from the ship are on display at the N. C. Maritime Museum in Beaufort, a very fine little museum that we have often visited and where we have attended "bag gams," where visitors can bring a bag lunch and hear a talk, or "gam."  That may sound pretty boring, but we have actually watched some fascinating slide shows about everything from whales (there is a fine skeleton on display) to fishing nets to nautical love stories.  

Entering the gates of the Fort itself, the road curves to the left and cannons can be seen on top of the walls.  That white fence is often a welcome sight, heralding the approach to the Fort with its water fountain (which we do not use these days) and restrooms.

Along the sidewalk to the Visitor's Center, I spotted something dark hopping along in the grass.  It did not look like the cottontail rabbit I know from Highlands; this one had no tail to speak of, short round ears, and a dark brown color.  I asked a man and woman walking by if they knew what it was.  "Looks like a rabbit to me," he declared.  I rolled my eyes inwardly.  "Doesn't look like any I've ever seen," I said.  "It has no tail."  In retrospect, they were probably wondering why a grown man had never seen a rabbit before.  The creature continued to nibble grass and penny wort, not at all frightened.  When I returned to the condo I looked it up on my computer and found it was a marsh rabbit, which I had indeed never seen before.

We compared notes when we completed out runs, and I told Martha that I felt 100% better than last Saturday after completing six miles.  She, too, said she had what she called a Rave Run - two miles out to the Coast Guard Station, and two miles back, at a pace faster than she has run in  months; one of her miles was an extraordinary 10:45.

After lunch - shrimp quesadillas made by Martha - we went out to Lowes Foods to pick up a few things.  Mask compliance there and in the other stores we have visited is nearly 100%, and today there was a sweet-looking lady sitting in the lobby, tallying up the number of customers entering and exiting, and also I presume enforcing the mask mandate.  I thought she looked a little like Francis Bavier, who played Aunt Bee on the Andy Griffin Show years ago.  It was a good decision by management to place her there.  A zealous anti-masker would have been humbled by this sweet woman, and would no more have entered without a mask than walk in Aunt Bee's back door without wiping his feet on the welcome mat.

Now, as I am writing this post at the dining room table, I can look out the parted balcony doors and see that sunset will be coming within the half-hour, lighting up the horizon with the daily light show on clear days like this.  People staying here (we included) will sometimes walk down the walkway to the dune-top deck in a kind of enchantment, cameras in hand, drawn to yet another sunset.  As Emily Dickinson would have said, "It's all a common glory."