Duckweed trail

    My favorite-- oh wait. Didn't want to leave anyone who read yesterday's blog post in suspense. Chicken noodle split pea vegetable soup turned out pretty good, or well. Apparently, 17 year old me misinformed 51 year old me about whether or not I like split peas. While it's true that they have a certain grittiness that is something less than ideal, other than that they're really quite superb. So at the age of way too many years old, I've become a split pea fan. Yay!
    Now then, my favorite local trail is at Congaree Creek Heritage Preserve. We have been suffering from a week and more of flooding, though it's the best kind: no casualties and practically no property damage. However, if you like hiking near creeks and rivers (as I do), you've been SOL for a while. Things are returning to normal slowly. Congaree Creek, though, has the gates to its parking area locked, which should have been a tip-off. Things weren't too bad on the trail at first. Having visited briefly a couple of days ago, I knew it was pretty muddy so I took my walking stick, but I didn't have much in the way of trouble. I got to see a barred owl, I think, and some manner of wooly caterpillar, so that was cool.
    I got to the place where I usually see the alligator, but he was either hiding, gone, or stuck up a tree. At this point, I was still less than half way around the loop trail and I hadn't hit any major problems. Common sense would have said that they wouldn't have the gate closed if there wasn't some kind of damage somewhere on the trail and thus I ought to turn around. I am not the King of Common Sense, unfortunately. I carried on.
    The damage turned out to be not all that dramatic. One short wooden bridge had been borne up by the flood and set back down again at a pretty awesome angle. My end was maybe three feet in the air. But I was able to climb up and it didn't teeter-totter or anything, so that was kind of fun. Probably not recommended for the general public, however. The rest of the trail featured something I don't think I've seen before. The flood had raised the ponds so high that the trail was carpeted in many places with duckweed. It looked like moss, but moss doesn't grow that fast. It was pretty cool really. Probably tough on the ducks, though.