The Birds and the Trees

Thought for the day:  ♪♫Let me tell ya 'bout the birds and the bees, and the flowers and the trees, and the moon up above, and a thing called lo-o-o-o-ove...♫♪ [from the song The Birds and the Bees by Jewel Akens]

There's one thing I can tell you most authoritatively about birds. They poop. A lot.

We'll get back to poop in a minute. (I bet you can hardly wait!) In the meantime, it's time to tell you about our awesome 50th anniversary trip. I wanted to go to the water... any water, but preferably, the ocean, somewhere we'd never been before, and someplace with lots of things we'd like to see. Oh, and not too terribly far away.

So we went to... (ta-DA)... Charleston, South Carolina. We actually stayed on Folley Island, and our room looked out over the ocean. It was absolutely perfect!

Except for those... birds.

Now, I love birds. They're beautiful, but as I mentioned before, they poop. A lot.

Some years ago, I wrote a post about how birds had mysteriously selected my poor little red car as their facility of choice for an entire summer. It was ridiculous.

I mean, we had the audacity to drive their potty away for a couple days, and when we got back home, there was a whole bunch of ticked-off birds waiting for us... lined up all across the yard with tiny bird newspapers tucked under their wings, while glaring at us and shifting their weight from foot to foot. Then, as always, they took turns sitting atop the passenger side mirror and bombing away to their heart's content.

But it was just that one summer. I dunno why, but I was very grateful when the birds moved on to some other hapless target. We don't have that little red car anymore, but I thought maybe its bright fire engine red color was the attraction.

But maybe not.

The car we took to Charleston was Smarticus' spiffy silver Challenger. It's definitely not red, but it was most definitely a target. I mean, a targeted target.

The morning after we checked into the hotel, when we went to the parking lot, there were cars, lots of cars, parked out there. But OURS was the only one speckled with copious circles of poop. All over it, like an abstract painting comprised of polka dots. The cars to the left of us? Nothing. To the right of us? Nothing. Just ours.

So either the birds love us... or they hate us. Funny thing was, we did see one another car targeted while we were there. It also happened to be a silver Dodge, and it was parked right next to us. Out of the entire parking lot, as far as we could see, just our TWO cars were bombed. Go figure. (Maybe our feathered friends are Chevy fans...?)

It's kinda hard to tell in this picture, but these are four of the brown pelicans that were pulling security duty for our hotel. Around and around the perimeter they'd fly, ever vigilant, as though checking out the grounds. Their approach would be forewarned by their ominous shadows, and then there they'd be, floating overhead.

To me, they look like distant cousins of the pterodactyls. Very cool. And they reeeeally look cool when they swoop down into the ocean to snatch a fish from the water.

Here's a better picture of them, courtesy of unsplash. Don't they look cool?

One verrrry peculiar thing about shore birds, though. They squawk. All the time, as though they're complaining non-stop. Not a single sweet song to be heard from the bunch. I ask you, living in such a gorgeous area, what in the world are they complaining about???

Enough about the birds. Now I wanta tell you about a tree. An absolutely fantastically gorgeous tree. Before we even went to our hotel to check in, Smarticus indulged me by making a small detour so we could see the Angel Oak, the largest tree east of the Mississippi. It's a live oak, and even though it's only 66.5 feet tall, it spreads out in every direction like no tree I've ever seen. Oh, I'd seen pictures of it, but they're nothing compared to seeing the real thing. Nonetheless, I'm gonna show you... what else?...some pictures of it.

    

                                                                                                                                                                  

There are lots of live oaks in and around the Charleston area, but the Angel Oak is the granddaddy of 'em all. The oldest... nearly 500 years old... and the biggest. Its trunk is 28 feet in circumference, its shade covers 17,200 square feet, and its longest branch is an astonishing 187 feet long. We did lots of fun things while we were in Charleston, but visiting this amazing tree was one of my favorite things. (And not a single bird pooped on our heads while we were there!)

I've got nothing to say about the flowers, but let me tell ya about the moon up above. 

This was the view from our balcony. (One of these days, maybe I'll figure out how to make the darned zoom function on my camera work...) The moon was full or near-full the entire time we were there. On this particular night, it was bright orange. (sigh) Just beautiful. (That string of lights is on the fishing pier.)


And finally...  a thing called love. Well, it was our fiftieth anniversary trip. (duh!) As strange as it may sound, it kinda felt like a honeymoon. So yeah, lots of warm fuzzy feelings. Life is good.

Next time, I'll tell you about some of the places we visited. The Charleston area has lots of stuff for history nerds.

By the way, in case you aren't familiar with the old song The Birds and the Bees, just for you...

                                    Until next time, take care of yourselves. And each other.