Atalaya

 

Portable Home Sweet Home

Anna Hyatt Huntington was a famous American sculptor who lived in the early and middle 1900s. She was the wife of a wealthy businessman who built her a winter home on the South Carolina coast when she developed tuberculosis. She was enormously successful at a time when few women were recognized in the arts and her husband established Brookgreen Garden across the road from their home to display her work. Their home and grounds, Atalaya, is now Huntington Beach State Park, just south of Myrtle Beach near Murrells Inlet. 

When the kids were young, I would do a fall craft show held inside the ruins of Atalaya. The kids loved it and have asked to go back. Unfortunately, the time I could reserve a spot, they weren't free to come. And neither Brookgreen nor Atalaya (the house) allow dogs. So I will be back again WITH the dog crate and better bug spray and hopefully, the young'uns. 

Fortunately, Ruthie was free to come and we had a grand time exploring the park and historic Georgetown just to the south. I also need to bring along a real camera with a telephoto lens. The park is a bird sanctuary and full of amazing water birds I'd never seen--all at a distance beyond the range of my phone camera. And neighboring Garden City is also the home of a dear chum from my Pittsboro days. Kathie, a former Scout leader, joined us around the campfire for S'Mores and happy memories. Enjoy the pictures. I'll get the things we missed when I go back.

 

Atalaya--Moorish influence

Atalaya Courtyard entrance

Beach path from the front door

Atalaya from the park

Boardwalk into the salt marsh bird habitat

Automatic dishwasher (I just wish my cooking justified all her hard work...)

Historic Georgetown

South of the Border--where my first husband and I eloped. Sigh.

G'night!

Return to the Stone Mountain

 

The Stone Mountain

We had a birthday party camping at Stone Mountain a couple of years ago and Jessie has been wanting to go back. The campground there is one of the newer North Carolina State Park campgrounds and actually has electricity AND water at each campsite along with nice concrete pads and generous, level platforms for picnic tables and additional tents. I have been camping with Jessie's dog, Franklin, and I've been camping with my dog, Odie, but this was our first trip with both pooches sharing a space. They both, of course, expect to be the center of attention, so there was a little jockeying for space and pats, but in the end, we all managed a good time. 

The Stone mountain itself, according to the state park website, is a 600 foot dome of igneous rock formed from molten lava during an early geologic age. Softer rock on top of it has weathered away, exposing the dome

Top of the waterfall

 and the wet weather springs that continue to erode the surface, which result in a number of dramatic waterfalls. One historic marker noted that there was an attempt to mine the granite, but the miners found the rock so hard, the operation was abandoned. 

Jessie and I hiked to the top of one of the waterfalls (Jessie, having made the mistake of starting the trail from the bottom end on a previous trip, exercised good planning--we left a car at the bottom and drove to the top and hiked DOWN some 300 steps that ran alongside the waterfall) and enjoyed the deep woods and dramatic falls on an extensive staircase running downhill beside the falls. 

We stopped counting at 300  

The days were cooler than the week before but the humidity was epic. The campground existed in a mist and the woods were dank. However, literally thousands of species of mushrooms are found in the North Carolina Mountains and conditions were perfect for them to put on a show. Jessie decided to photograph each different type she saw and it seemed like she was stopping every other step--a walking pace that suited me just fine in the thick air.

So we hiked past the Hutchinson Homeplace with it's sturdy log cabin and generous barn, abandoned in 1945 but preserved by the park. We enjoyed an evening bonfire and S'Mores. We watched the Full Corn Moon rise and slept cozy

Misty campground

in our (air conditioned) bunks. We felt safe and appropriately isolated, and it felt great to be on the road again. In some respects, it's now pretty late in the camping season, but Escapes are designed as a year round camper in Canada. I plan to test their claims with some November and December camping near home this year. Stay tuned.

Hutchinson homeplace

Magical trails

Happy Camper: book & s'mores

Happy Camper: feet up

Full Corn Moonrise

The last embers

Solo Maiden

Awning unfurled

The weather is finally getting a taste cooler and I've settled into my new job with the Tourism Development Authority. I'm now a part time "Tourism Counselor" (read: Greeter) at a highway Welcome Center near Seagrove, NC filling my pockets with travel brochures and my head with destinations. So it was time to finally book some camp trips with children and friends, but first it was time to take the new girl solo and learn the controls. 

My destination was Deep River Campground, not 10 minutes up the road near

View from my campsite

Franklinville, NC. Though not visible from the camp sites, the campground sits within earshot of the Deep River directly across from Sapona Manufacturing in Cedar Falls. There are hiking trails, including along the river, and a fishing pond just outside my camper door. My sense was that about 80% of the trailers there were owned by fisherfolk who make this their summer home and a cozy one it is. The campground is a peaceful place, not overly expensive, mostly shaded, and just what I needed to tackle traveling alone. It was also close enough to town that I was able to invite a couple of girlfriends to dinner and an evening campfire one night and do the same with my children the next. 

Ruthie and Odie at the river

I managed to unfurl the awning several times without incident, something Ruthie and I did not undertake coming back from Washington--we'd heard malfunction horror stories and were not up for equipment failure so far from home. The rest of the operation here went smoothly as well. I have a couple of trips coming up with my daughter in September and I feel ready to go. 

As a little indulgence, I had this tire cover made just to make it all official. If the carport guys ever come so I can keep her clean, I'll give her a bath and a wax job. We are dressed and ready and have places to go...

So you'll know us on the road!