Glad to Be Here

I was glad that we had decided to postpone our long run until today, because it was 53 degrees when I awoke and 62 degrees when we started running.  Conditions were just perfect for shorts and a T-shirt.

We are in a perfect location for running, east of the Atlantic Beach causeway and about two-and-a-half miles from Fort Macon, the second most visited State Park in the country and one with which we are very familiar.  Hiking trails connect the so-called Bath House, about a mile from here, to the main Fort, and when I want a short run or when I’m doing interval training, it makes a good three- or four-mile run to go only that far, perhaps running back on the beach if the tide is out.  There are restrooms there and also at the Fort, and today I ran straight out to the Fort, circling the parking lot for just under three miles, making a nice six-mile run when I returned.

Once you pass the sign, there are bicycle paths on both sides of the road, which makes for good running.  We know where all the landmarks are, too.  Here is the sign marking the place where Union Artillery shelled the Fort in 1862, forcing the few Confederate soldiers defending the Fort to surrender.  It marks the half-way point.

Just before you reach the Fort, there is a Coast Guard station on the sound side, and there are often big cutters anchored there.  We have both noticed when running past here before the aroma of fresh donuts, but I detected nothing this morning.  I took this photo hastily from the car window later; I thought if I were observed, someone might try to seize my phone.

Just a few yards past that there is a sign marking the location of the ruins of Queen Anne’s Revenge, the ship of the pirate Blackbeard which was abandoned about a mile-and-a-half offshore in 1718.  The shipwreck was discovered in 1996, and some of the relics are on display at the N. C. Maritime Museum in Beaufort.

This entire coastline has a fascinating history, and there are often programs at the Fort and at area museums that we have attended over the years.  I will describe the Fort itself on another day; today I was focused solely on my six-mile run, and this fence marks the final bend before reaching my destination, a row of cannons mounted on the hill above.

I noticed as I approached the fort that an SUV was driving by with a Christmas tree tied on its roof, a sight we often see in Highlands before Christmas.  I knew where this man was heading – to deposit his Christmas tree with a couple hundred others by the parking lot at the Fort, where they are collected and distributed out on the dunes to help stabilize the sand.  I stopped in front of the big pile of trees and simply stood there for a minute, inhaling the fragrance.

I discovered when I returned to the condo that Martha had also had a good run, five miles, returning on the beach at just-past low tide.  So we celebrated by eating lunch at a restaurant in Morehead City that had been recommended to us, Off the Hook, and we were able to eat outside (which we prefer these days) in mid-60s sunshine.  Our waitress was Jenna, she was very poised, and she also had a lot of tattoos.  Martha asked her what one of them on her arm said, and she gladly told us – the last part of an Audrey Hepburn quote that I looked up when I returned to the condo:  “For beautiful eyes, look for the good in others; for beautiful lips, speak only words of kindness; and for poise, walk with the knowledge that you are never alone.”

After lunch, we drove out to Harkers Island and visited the Core Sound Waterfowl Museum and Heritage Center, one of our favorite places.  

Out front was a "crab pot Christmas tree," popular in these parts, because those balsam trees piled up at Fort Macon came from a long way off, but crab pots are local.

It was warm enough that some of these little critters were out, basking in sun, on this perhaps warmest day for a few weeks.

And then we walked on some of the paths in the maritime forest near the museum, around to the Willow Pond and back again.

“You know,” I told Martha while we were walking, “Days like this one are the reason we come out here during the winter,” and she agreed.   

Gale warnings are out again for tonight, and later we would move the deck furniture inside for the night.  But this afternoon, now, walking in dappled sunlight on the shady Willow Pond path, we were glad to be here.