Lifestyles in the Swamp

I knew it would be a long day of riding as I left New Bern before daylight.  The forecast mentioned strong headwind the whole way, in fine print below the things most travelers care about.  I stopped at this little café just out of town, where a wide man sat across from me at the community table.  Shoulder-to-shoulder he’s twice my width, hip-to-hip about the same.  He’s one of the mill workers who coffee here before the morning shift.  He’s never seen a touring cyclist up close, and come to think of it, I’ve not seen another on this entire trip either.  But he’s a gentle giant; they all have been so here in the South, here in the swamp where the bugs are just starting to arouse from winter slumber.

I pass the Weyerhaeuser Timberlands Pulp Mill on the way to Pinetown, where workers turn trees into fibrous products like diapers, paper towels, and the like. The Southern yellow pine and various imported pine species seem suited to wipe our hands on.  There are sawmills here too, but the pulp mills outnumber them.  

The native swamp is mostly impassable on foot, but some high ground allows a person to walk if she watches out for water moccasins and cotton mouths.  I didn’t rise more than a few feet above sea level today; always there was a pond or mushy ground just off the road, or a stagnant river to cross on a bridge, unless people had modified the lowland, which I’ll get to later.  I could not imagine having to camp here, so I kept moving against the wind.  

I rode through small communities where most of the people seem poor.  Most of them have dogs that bark at bicycles, and some dogs come out and yap at my heels as I try to outrun them.  

Around every bend it seems I see another church.  Most of them are small, old, and Baptist.  It seems in keeping with these country folks’ common greetings—“Have a blessed day,” “Ride safe, and God be with you.”  I found it odd that an obsolete gas station has been converted into a church.  

The bugs are starting to come out and they get in my eyes, tiny flying bugs that, when I squash them, my eyes sting. 

Interspersed with the poor communities, are some nice little places in the country.  Many of them keep a dozen or more purple martins houses on poles in their yards.  Attract martins and martins will eat your mosquitoes. 

After passing Aurora, I came to a large potash mine, where you can still find fossil shark teeth and a lot of truck traffic.  I rode the ferry across Pamlico Sound.  

So it was that I arrived in the historic town of Bath on the Pamlico Sound.  Usually I get a modest motel, but in Bath there is only one accommodation.  I indulged in its luxury on this quiet evening on the sound.

If you live on the edge of the Albemarle or Pamlico Sound, it’s nice to have a boat dock and a fine house with a view. 

A pile of oyster shells is a common sight behind houses and a water tower adorns every community of any size.  Water pressure will be forty-three pounds per square inch if your water tank in one hundred feet high.  This I know from those many AutoCad drawings that require such cryptic knowledge.

If I have convinced you to come and stay, here’s a fixer you canget cheap and a cypress swamp nearby in which to enjoy your evenings.