The weather was changing. Clouds gathered darker and lower and then began to spit angry raindrops on us. We threw children and fishing equipment into the van and hurried off. We still had one more park to visit today.
The rain clouds were done spitting and taunting. Now they were rapid firing thick sheets of water from on high. Our travel slowed, headlights on, windshiel wipers frantically waving, our vvan crept slowly and steadily on to Sadler's Creek. I couldn't help but think that this journey would be a beautiful one had it not been for the surrouonding monsoon. But you don't get this close to Sadler's Creek and turn bak. On we went braving backroads and newly created rivers. We followed our GPS momentarily out of South Carolina and into Georgia. A couple of truns later, we were back in South Carolina again and then onto the tiny road that led to Sadler's Creek.
The parking area was almost deserted. Few were as ambitious, read stupid, as we were in pursuit of a state park adventure. The short journey between Calhoun Falls and Sadlers Creek had been such an endeaver that we all wanted to get out and celebrate under the large shelter/park office. The rain pelted but we grabbed the children and ran the few steps from the van to the shelter.
One amazing thing the state parks offer is the ability to spend time with family and friends. Yet, some families should never get together - at least not without undergoing a good bit of therrapy and family counsuling first. We ran to the shelter only to find a lage family group already there. I don't know the details, but the family looked stressed. It had been a long day. The weather had turned sour. The group was now confined to too small an area. The shelter is quite large but any confined area would have been too small for this group. Disappointment, frustration and anger ran high. Tempers flared. What had begun as a lovely family get together had devolved into loud and profane challenges as to who was intimately involved with whom and the true parentage of the several small children milling about.
Anchor and I exchanged looks. We are more than just husband and wife. We are best friends and so understand each other. We got the stamp in the small store where just outside the situation was escalating. "Its nice when its not raining so much," another customer said. He was also taking refuge in this tiny store. "There is a huge herd of deer," he continued. I smiled because I'm southern and that's what we do. I got the stamp because that is what we came for and I bought a t shirt because this adventure was worthy of a souvenier.
After our inital journey was complete, we came back to Sadler's Creek in pursit of a geocache. This day was beautiful and this drive was pleasant. Last time, I had concentrated so much on navigating through the sheets of rain that I hadn't given as much attention to the true beauty along the way. We arrived at the small road that led directly into the park. We wondered at how very deep the park was now that we wer able to see it on a beautiful autumn day.
We went back to the parking area which was this time full. There were children playing football in the field, boys flirting with girls and showing them the "proper way to hold and throw a football." Anchor and I exchanged looks and were together grateful that the teen akwardness of dating had passed us in favor of a sweet and sustained marriage. We toppeled out of the van and by instinct walked to the immense shelter. Another family reunion...but this one rang with laughter and loud long tellings of old family stories, the funny and inspirational ones, not the challenging offensive ones. The smell of chicken and desset almost drew even our family in - especially Ben- though we bore no known relation to this group.
It was wonderful and necessary to see this happy family there after our last experience with Sadler's Creek. We had come to love the South Carolina State Parks. We had begun to feel part of it. We loved the natural places and the beautiful scapes. It had felt awful seeing the first bruhaha- as if someone was having an altercation in your family room. This day was so necessary for us. We needed to see families enjoying the beauty of the place and letting that beauty become a part of their own legacy. We stood there for just a brief moment and then left the shelter on our pursuit of another state park story. We left the shelter to redefine Sadler's Creek driving to another section of the park, enterring the woods, scouring the wilderness and finding our geocache.
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