River Moods

Last night's Neuse was brown and turbid, its chop ridden hard by wind and slapping against the rocks.

The sky matched the river's mood.

Every ray of sun glanced off her and spun in midair.

This morning's cool air convinced me that I could pull on clothes, mount my bike, and go riding. A thin skin of mist hung over the tired bean fields.

The previous day's angry rainstorm still lay in the ditches.

And yesterday's brown, roiling waters were smooth as silk. Or crepe, perhaps.

Tonight, riding again, the sky grew so ominous, so large and deep blue, if I were a small child, I would have been afraid. Our coastal winds (I guess?) keep our cloud formations very curled and twisting.

See that distant rain pocket along the orange horizon?
Here it is, close-up:

We never did get rain here. But on such a river, one can see other people's rain, far away. And knowing our own ignorance of weather's movement, and the unpredictability of it here, we don't know if that's our evening, or just someone else's now.
Tomorrow, we're all taking two ferries in early morning and traveling to Ocracoke Island for the day.

Zoom in on the map to see things closer. See the skinny island on the right? Ocracoke is on the bottom of that island. Oriental is along that body of water that is labeled "Adams Creek," but is actually the Neuse. You can click to look closer, and find it, on the north side of the river. And to get to Ocracoke, of course we cannot go straight across the water. Oh no! We have to drive over to highway 306, and take a ferry across the river (where the dotted line is), and then drive along highways 101 and 70, wiggling our way out to the tip end of that crinkly peninsula, out to Cedar Island. The long ferry leaves there at 10:30, and we will be aboard!  I'll be sure to have lots to show and tell you about Ocracoke! Stay tuned.