THE GREEN SWAMP AND THE WATERMELON QUEEN

 

 

Christy’s first triathlon of 2012 was last weekend in Wilmington.  I hadn’t been to the beach in awhile, so I decided to take a weekend off from searching for obscure waterfalls to join her.  I booked us a room at the Holiday Inn at Wrightsville Beach and we made reservations with our dog sitter for the weekend.

 

The first challenge with going to Wilmington on a Friday afternoon is beating traffic out of Charlotte.  Christy came straight home after school.  We loaded the car, dropped the dogs off, and got through Pineville before traffic backed up.  We were in a hurry since Christy had to pick up her race packet in Wilmington before 7:30.  If we were late we’d have to get up an hour earlier on Saturday morning.

 

Since we were pressed for time, I took the “Polkton Bypass” around Monroe.  The “bypass” is just a 2-lane country road, but it has the advantage of avoiding Monroe, which is a town that appears to have no redeeming qualities whatsoever (unless you like shopping and traffic jams).  A further benefit of the back way is that it skips the Senator Jesse Helms Freeway through Wingate, Marshville, and Peachland.  This is beneficial for a couple of reasons.  First, the Senator Jesse Helms Freeway isn’t a freeway, as it features lots of traffic lights, numerous stretches with 35mph speed limits, and typically at least one or two speed traps.  It also passes the Jesse Helms Center (not a library), where book burnings are scheduled on a regular basis.

 

Despite those flaws, the road wasn’t too bad until about a year ago.  At that time, the North Carolina State Legislature took a break from appropriating funds towards roads that go around in circles to make a special designation.  From that point forward, drivers on the Senator Jesse Helms Freeway were required to turn around and drive backwards in honor of the late Senator.  Although fitting, this completely failed to improve traffic flow.

 

The rest of the drive was smooth, and we made it to Wilmington before 7pm.  Christy picked up her packet, and we went downtown for dinner.  It had been a few years since our last visit to Wilmington, and I was surprised at how lively downtown has become.  We lucked into a parking spot a block from the main drag, and had a pretty good dinner at Fat Tony’s.  Then we picked up some groceries and headed for Wrightsville Beach.

 

When we checked into the hotel we discovered that our visit coincided with the North Carolina Watermelon Association’s 31st annual convention.  I was surprised that the North Carolina Watermelon Association has an annual convention.  Actually, to be accurate, I was surprised that North Carolina has a Watermelon Association.  I’ve lived here for 30 years, and somehow that little factoid had eluded me.

 

A bit of research on the interwebs revealed that the North Carolina Watermelon Association is actually just a chapter of the National Watermelon Association.  Their mission is growing, grading, handling, and the transportation, sale, and distribution of watermelons.  For years they’ve offered a bounty on Gallagher – alive or dead.  We could only hope that the Holiday Inn was prepared for this convention, because obviously things were going to get wild and crazy.

 

We joined a large group on the elevator that included a young woman in a sparkly dress.  Apparently she was a contestant in a beauty pageant that was part of the convention.  The disturbing (or most disturbing) part of this to me was that she had a number attached to her dress.  There wasn’t a name tag, or a sash proclaiming that she was from Gaston County, or anything else.  Just the number.  Was this a beauty pageant or some sort of 4-H competition?  I suppose you could argue that there isn’t really any fundamental difference between any beauty pageant and a 4-H competition, but that’s a discussion for another time.

 

We got off the elevator and immediately began speculating about this pageant.  What was the title they were competing for?  Miss Melons?  I Googled that (not recommended at work) and discovered that “Miss Melons” was already being used by the annual “beauty” pageant in Sturgis.  Eventually I found the website for the North Carolina Watermelon Association (yes, they have one).  There I found that the pageant winner would be crowned North Carolina Watermelon Queen.  I suppose that’s better than Miss Melons.  Barely.

 

Apparently the North Carolina Watermelon Queen’s duties include an extensive promotional tour that includes assorted festivals and other events.  The North Carolina Watermelon Queen also gets to compete in the National Watermelon Pageant.  I wonder if Donald Trump is involved with it?  Or Gallagher??

 

We went to bed early that night and got up early on Saturday.  I dropped Christy off at the race site and headed out for my own adventure.  My plan for the day was a visit to the Green Swamp.  A few days earlier I’d contacted Skip, who is a local expert on the area.  Skip was already planning a visit to the swamp, and after I changed my plans a few times, our schedules coincided.  I followed Skip’s directions to the trailhead north of Supply, NC, and arrived at 8am.  Skip had arrived a few minutes earlier.  We got to know each other briefly, having only “met” previously on the Carolina Adventures Yahoo group site. 

 

The Green Swamp is not a swamp.  In reality it is a series of longleaf pine savannahs broken periodically by pocosins.  Over 17,000 acres in the area are now owned by the Nature Conservancy, and the land is open to the public:

 

http://www.nature.org/ourinitiatives/regions/northamerica/unitedstates/northcarolina/placesweprotect/green-swamp-preserve.xml

 

Skip gave me a wonderful tour of the Green Swamp.  While I could’ve found my way around the area without any difficulty, I never would’ve seen the swamp’s most interesting features.  Skip led me to numerous insectivorous plants, including Venus Flytraps, Pitcher Plants and Sundew.  It was early in the season for all of them.  The Venus Flytraps had just emerged from the ground and were quite small.  The Sundews were even smaller, and most of the Pitcher Plants we found were left over from the previous year.  However, some searching did turn up four varieties of Pitcher Plants that had just emerged from the ground.  The orchids the area is famous for hadn’t begun to bloom.  The peak time for the insectivorous plants and flowers is late spring.

 

We wandered through the savannahs, enjoying the brilliant sunshine and a pleasant breeze.  Along the way we passed several old tar kilns, which I wouldn’t have noticed if Skip hadn’t mentioned them.  They aren’t particularly obvious, as they consist of a raised area in the earth surrounded by a man-made moat that was used to drain the tar.

 

We walked a mile or two to the end of the official trail.  From there we bushwhacked to the edge of another savannah deeper in the swamp.  This one felt more remote, and featured larger, more impressive trees.

 

On the hike out we were startled by a large group on their way in.  The group was a class from Forsyth Tech in Winston-Salem on a field trip.  They’d come a long way for their field trip, but were only planning on a brief visit.  Later that day they intended to catch the ferry out to Fort Fisher.

 

We returned to the trailhead, and Skip and I parted ways.  My first visit to the Green Swamp was fascinating, and I’ll definitely return.  Christy is talking about doing another race near Wilmington in early June, so maybe I’ll make another visit then.

 

I drove back to Wilmington and picked Christy up.  She’d had a decent race despite a couple of training injuries that had occurred a few weeks earlier.  We spent that afternoon relaxing back at the hotel and enjoyed a nice seafood dinner that night.  The next day it warmed up just enough to spend some time sunbathing by the pool.  An uneventful drive home on Sunday ended an enjoyable weekend.




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