Another snow day, or week 2 round 4

It's beautiful, but enough already! I think the schools will either have to give up spring break or run long into summer to make up for all the inclement weather days out of school this February. I know we've just about had too much. Last week wasn't too bad as we caught up on the DVR, but this week we are into old DVDs. I should say now that "Forever" is the best new show of the bunch this TV season. Loved it! Today we found a new episode on the DVR, so that makes 16 episodes so far. Excellent! I don't want to seem like I am complaining, because the good news is that we have never lost power! Fingers crossed that holds true!

Here are some photos. And yes, the bird watching continues... I was photographing my favorite tree of cardinals (they were there for years before the neighbor put her birdfeeders out!) when she came out in the snow to restock the feeders! I hope she won't mind that I photographed her or posted it here, but it was a scene I'd be happy to remember.

It's like Wild Kingdom out there...

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Or an easy-chair adventure.

We had an ice storm here on Monday. State government was closed for more than 3 days, schools were closed for more than 4 days. It only got above freezing for a few hours all week on Thursday. We didn't get any mail until Wednesday even though Clay cleared the ice off the steps and walkways on Monday. Clay worked from home until Friday.

We spent a lot of time in the living room under blankets watching stuff off the DVR. At some point during the week, Clay realized that our neighbor had starting feeding birds this winter. He started watching birds from his recliner in the bay window of the living room when he wasn't doing something else. In his defense, he was listening his way through The Goldfinch, so he had hours to kill bird watching.

 At some point one afternoon, he excitedly told me he had just watched a hawk catch and kill a small dark bird and the hawk was defeathering and eating it in the weeping cherry tree next door. He said it was gruesome, so I stayed put across the room. I could see the feathers wafting across the big bay window on the north wind. I finally got up to have a look and help him with a Google search and bird identification at about the point these photos were taken. He decided it was a Cooper's Hawk. I agreed. Looking it up now, I wonder if it might not be a Sharp-shinned Hawk instead. Either way, am I the only one who thinks large birds are making a huge comeback?

Oh, here in the photos link are the New Orleans cross-stitches that Mom finished up and sent us for Valentine's Day. Thanks, Mom! Love them!

Carolina Tiger Rescue

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I'm still operating in World Cruise cancellation recovery mode somehow. So, we bought tickets for Friday morning's tour at the Carolina Tiger Rescue. This place has been over by Pittsboro for decades with a couple of different names and missions, but we'd never been before. After the birds on Monday, it felt like the right time. Clay had been scheduled to go into work on Friday, but when that got cancelled, he suggested this and went online and bought tickets. The weather was predicted to be sunny and cold, and so it was. It was in the teens overnight. It was 27F when we got there and 30F when we left almost 2 hours later. We were bundled up though and the tour guides tried to keep us in the sun most of the time, so it wasn't uncomfortable. There were only 8 of us on tour with 2 guides and only 1 of us was a miserable child. So, it was assuredly better than a group of 25 on a summer weekend. As Clay said, it wasn't like finding a tiger in the wild in India though. I'm sure it wasn't, but at least we were guaranteed to find a tiger! That's the good news. The bad news was that while I am sure the rescued cats are happier and better off here than where they all were before, it was still a sad place to me. I'm glad we went, but we wouldn't go back.

We saw caracals, a bobcat, servals, tigers, a white tiger, a lioness and some lions, ocelots, black vultures, and a cougar. We did not get a useable photo of caracals. I guess they have small quick paws and a long front leg, so their fences were doubled and small gauge. While all the photos have the chain link, it was hard to even see the caracals, much less photograph them. Sorry.

We did get reminded by Carolina Tiger Rescue's website that there was somewhere else we've known about for decades and need to visit now. We are missing lemurs in Madagascar since the world cruise cancellation. But, we can see them here at the Duke Lemur Center. Stay tuned. I'm sure we'll schedule a visit soon.

After the Carolina Tiger Rescue tour, we drove on into Pittsboro for lunch. We had a few choices and chose wrong. We went to Pittsboro Roadhouse. Another place that we would not return to. It wasn't bad, it just wasn't all that good. We both left wishing we chosen a different restaurant. Clay had a local beer flight and was able to customize it without the IPA. He liked that. He got L to R, Angry Angel Kolsch (OK), White Rabbit Belgian Dubbel Ale (he called it weird), and 2 White Rabbit Red Ales (he really liked). He had a short rib sandwich with fries. I ordered a half grill chicken sandwich with a cup of cheddar broccoli soup. But it turned out the waiter told me the wrong soup and it was cream of mushroom. No! They substituted local bison chili. Clay ate it but neither of us liked it. We passed on dessert without seeing a menu.

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Bonus morning out

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Tuesday, February 3, 2015

This morning we had originally planned to be at a lake, some lake, any lake before sunrise to try to catch a mass fly-off of tundra swans for the fields for the day. Clay unilaterally decided not to do that and I didn't argue. Breakfast was served starting at 6:30am and we were not the first to arrive. It was probably 6:45am though before the biscuits and meats arrived on the buffet, so there was no point in arriving early. I had a pancake and Swiss Miss with coffee along with 3 pieces of bacon and a cup of yogurt. Clay had some cold cereal with a banana and then some hot food and juice.

We were checked out and on the road before the sun was fully above the horizon, but it was light out. We tried to drive straight to Lake Phelps at Pettigrew State Park, but once again we were foiled by no street names on the maps and a lack of signage. Even knowing where to look for roads we where not finding them and finding other unnamed or named roads that were not on the maps or shown on the GPS. We spent a lot of time with the GPS showing us off-roading! Since we did not find the near, or west side, approach to Pettigrew State Park, it was further away that we had thought and if there were ever any birds on Lake Phelps they were long gone when we arrived. Lake Phelps is the 2nd largest natural lake in NC. It is only 9 feet deep at its deepest point. I believe Lake Mattamuskeet was equally shallow. Anyway, the visitor's center was closed when we arrived but we picked up another map by the door. It was 29F and very sunny but we didn't linger outdoors here. We drove around trying to orient ourselves with the new map and drove by Somerset Place. It wasn't open yet either but we didn't come for that. We were still hoping for more birds. Now, we know where to take Judy though for her plantation fix, if she ever comes back up to visit us again.

We set off again to try to get to Pungo Lake. We never made it again. But, we got our first bonus of the day! As we sat at the corner of the barricaded Allen Road and Shore Drive studying maps and trying to figure out what to do without going back to a frozen mud Pat's Road, Clay saw something moving in the canal beside us. I looked and it was an otter! I put down the map and 2 more appeared. Clay was trying to get his camera. As I rolled down my window all 3 river otters popped their heads up and just stared at us. I am afraid I squealed! The otters vanished and swam off down the canal. I know because I chased their bubbles down the canal by running along the road! We hung around some more quietly and hoped their curiosity would bring them back, but no such luck. Neither of us knew before seeing river otters on Lake Mattamuskeet's wildlife list that otters even lived in NC. We can only ever remember seeing wild otters in the Pacific at Moonstone Beach and Clay saw some on the Mississippi River. So, that was very exciting and helped make up for failing to find any birds this morning. Oh, we also saw a big fat raccoon walking down Shore Drive.

So, we decided to just head back to 64 and drive home that way. We stopped off to see Plymouth's Historic riverfront downtown first.

Clay had plans for lunch. He let me choose. I had picked Abrams BBQ from Clay's NC BBQ map. It was in Tarboro. Clay had me Google it on his phone as we sat at that intersection and it started a lunch buffet at 11am. It looked like we could arrive just after that time and we did. I picked it because people reported that they had chicken pastry! I picked a winner!

We stopped on the way at Mackey's Ferry peanuts shop where we bought a tub of rancid dry roasted peanuts. Yeck! I am not sure I can recommend a stop here, maybe we just got unlucky. They had an array of free peanut samples and a wide range of other products so maybe Clay just picked up the wrong thing.

When we got to Abrams at Tarboro a little after 11am, we saw the sign and got our 2nd bonus of the day. Cheese biscuits! I should warn you though that this regional delicacy is evidently considered a breakfast food. Abrams stops serving them at 11am. They were not on the buffet so we asked if we could order one. Not after 11am. We were disappointed, so the waitress offered to see if any were leftover from breakfast. She asked how many we wanted. Just one to share and have a taste. She came back with 2 hot and steamy, cheesy biscuit balls on a plate and told us there was no charge! They were gooey and heavy and different than anything we'd had before. But I'm not sure if either of us loved them. Maybe we were just too stuffed already for anything that heavy! They were good though and we were happy we got to try them. Clay had fried chicken and bbq from the buffet. I had chicken pastry and mashed potatoes and hush puppies. It was my white plate. Speaking of plates, that would be my only complaint. Paper plates! Abrams hush puppies were the best either of us have ever eaten anywhere. They were ethereal! I will never eat another hush puppy without comparing it to these. We both eat too many! Clay thought the bbq had a strange flavor, not bad, just not a normal bbq taste. He asked for vinegar, I never saw any bbq sauce and she brought him 2 different kinds of vinegar. He thought a little vinegar made the bbq better. When I finished my white plate, delicious by the way, I went back and got a bbq plate of brown food. I immediately tasted the difference and could actually see it. You usually see red pepper flakes in que, but not black pepper flecks. This bbq you could see the black pepper in it too. It tasted of black pepper! I didn't dislike it, but was surprised that Clay did. At home, he grinds a crunchy layer of black pepper over every dish I serve him, so I thought he really likes the taste. But, I guess not. I thought the vinegar improved it too, but I also liked it. Dessert was the only weak offering in both our opinions. There was sheet cake, peach cobbler and banana pudding. We both got more than our $8.99 (I believe that was the price!) worth of lunch. We were so stuffed we skipped dinner at home!

So, that's the end of our swan story.

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It's for the birds!

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Monday, February 2, 2015

We drove down Monday morning in a blindingly heavy rain for hours. By the time we got Down East there appeared to even be some flooding! It was looking discouraging. We drove all the way down to Columbia to the Pocosin Lakes Visitor Center first. It was closed and it was raining too hard to take the Scuppernong River Interpretative Board Walk. There was another Visitor's Center with restrooms sharing the same parking lot and it was nice and manned. So, we went in there and though they were focused on the Outer Banks, they did give us some maps we found useful. Though I have to say that even with a half dozen different maps and the GPS that the Pocosin Lakes area has bad signage when any, at least half the roads are dirt and at least half the roads are not on any map and at least half of the roads are closed. So for example, despite our best efforts we never did lay eyes on Pungo Lake. We drove for hours on dirt roads without ever finding an open one that would take us there. Did we just miss the one road? Was it closed because of the rain Monday morning? Was it closed because it was swan season? We'll never know.

Back to the birds! My first sighting was from the car driving 70 mph down Highway 64. On a berm beside what looked to me like a big aquaculture pond of some type stood a big Bald Eagle! Yeah! We started seeing fields covered with big seagulls foraging. We saw lots of other ducks and Canada geese in flooded fields and on or near farm ponds. We had high hopes.

I've described our frustrations, but by mid-afternoon the skies had cleared, the rain was rapidly drying off because the wind was howling as the temperature started dropping. The good news was that it was about 60F when the rain stopped. So, it was a really nice afternoon for the 2nd of February.

We started our bird watching by driving down highway 94 which goes through the center of Lake Mattamuskeet. We turned off at the Mattamuskeet Lodge sign more than half-way across the lake. Money! We could see hundreds of waterfowl. No idea what kinds they were other than American Coots right on the shore. We could see large white swans in the distance though. The rain was beginning to diminish, so I looked at the map and said we should drive to the end of the road past the old Mattamuskeet Lodge building. It was a much longer road than we expected and it was dirt and muddy so we were slow. But that is good because otherwise we might have missed the birds and animals.

Lake Mattamuskeet is the largest natural lake in North Carolina. I suspect this part where we drove around the former world's largest pumping station was a man made peninsula. It was a little odd to be driving on a road built through a large lake. There was a lot of road construction on 94 which took it down to one lane. The lake was calm and smooth on one side with white caps and breakers on the other. It felt treacherous! After the weather cleared, the wind changed directions and the rough and smooth water changed sides of the road. Even stranger! The good news is that we had the place almost all to ourselves and we saw lots of birds and even some white-tailed deer. The tundra swans were magnificent.

After spending a couple of hours back there on the road past the Mattamuskeet Lodge, we exited via Wildlife Drive. In minutes we were on 264 heading East. We hoped to get over to Pungo Lake. As I said earlier though, we never saw it or a way to get to it.

We did finally find Pat's Road in the Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge's Pungo Unit and we headed north. It was paved for a short distance and then turned to dirt, not the gravel the map legend advertised! The dirt road was heavily rutted and potholed in places and almost not wide enough for 2 cars in most places. We drove on and hoped for the best and we found it! We drove through fallow, muddy fields until we could see ahead that they were covered in white. Every once in while a white shape would take flight. We hit paydirt! We had found a huge number of tundra swans! We saw 3 other vehicles while we were out there, so that was good news. We didn't get stuck in the mud or slide off, so the afternoon was a success even without finding a way to Pungo Lake as shown on the map.

We stayed until the sun dipped below the horizon and then drove back out the way we came on Pat's Road. We followed paved roads per GPS instructions back to Plymouth and the Holiday Inn Express. The check-in girl asked us what we were doing here. We told her we came for the birds and she acted relieved. Huh? The next morning at breakfast all we saw were laborers, so maybe that was why the 2 of us looked suspect. We dropped the luggage in the room and then walked over to Bojangles where we had fried chicken for dinner. There was HBO on the TV but we didn't find anything to watch and read until we turned in early.

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How did we not know about this?

Last October at the NC State Fair, we were walking around a seldom used path to get out the back gate of the fairgrounds. We happened to notice a tent that we hadn't noticed at the fair before and we ducked in. As we were exiting, we saw a small corner of the tent displaying a wintering spot in Eastern NC for tundra swans and snow geese. Apparently, since beyond recorded history these birds have come to the same areas at the same time. Yet, we, one native North Carolinian and one long-time resident had never heard anything about it before! Since we had to leave in December and be gone for 7 months with the holidays and then our 180-day Around the World cruise, this was a road trip that would have to be delayed. Then, Oceania cancelled our world cruise.

Now, here we were back at home and sore about it! So, we booked a bunch of replacement trips for that lost world cruise, but we needed something now. When Clay decided last week to take off work this week, we checked the weather and Tuesday was supposed to be a sunny day. So, we decided to set off on Monday morning and we made a HI Express reservation for Monday night in Plymouth. I will say that Clay's first choice was the Brickhouse Inn in Columbia but they never bothered to answer the phone or even reply to an emailed reservation request, so we cannot recommend them. We can however, highly recommend the Plymouth Holiday Inn Express. It is right next door to a Bojangle's. So, dinner is just a short walk across the parking lot! The Holiday Inn Express in Plymouth includes a complimentary coffee maker in the bathroom. There is also a small refrigerator in the room as well as a microwave oven. But, not to worry because there is also an awesome complimentary breakfast buffet from 6:30am to 9am. They have one of those pancake dispensing machines like we had once before at a Red Lion Inn in Oregon. I love that! They also had cereal, yogurt, fruit, pastries, scrambled eggs, gravy and biscuits, turkey sausage patties and bacon. Plus, bagels, English muffins, juices and coffee. So, that was all good. Plus, excellent beds with 4 full size pillows, 2 firm and 2 soft. No complaints. Well, correction because Clay accuses overly soft beds of hurting his back now. Anyway, we were in room 202. It was all the way at the back of the motel at the end of the hall. There was a storage room between us and the end of the building. The 2nd story rooms had balconies. I don't know why we because the view was of the rear parking lot, train tracks and the steam plumes from the nearby pulp mills! Anyway, room 202 had an extra large balcony because it went all the way to the end of the building past the storage room next door.

But, we went for the birds!