More exploring

Here are some pics I took around J. Strom Thurmond Lake at the Georgia/South Carolina border. I found a boat ramp and had lunch there.

crazy flower

There were all kinds of caterpillars there…

spiky caterpillar

It was a really beautiful place to eat lunch, even if I did get swarmed by ants.

Exploring

As I’ve mentioned, my new job is in Lincolnton, which is “40 minutes from Augusta” if the job ad is to be believed (but it’s really 40 minutes from Martinez). I can get to work faster from Cheryl and Reid’s house than I could from our apartment, which is nice, sort of. Either way, leaving at 8 am gets me here on time, usually with a little time to spare to get settled in.

Since I’m so far from “home”, I can’t just go back to the house for lunch. I’ve been packing a sandwich and some yogurt, but today I decided that was boring, so I didn’t pack anything and instead went to Hardee’s. (They got my order totally wrong–I ordered the 1/2 pound sourdough burger, and I came out with a small patty on a regular bun with no condiments except a huge amount of ketchup. They also gave me the large size drink and fries. They did get the type of drink and fries correct, so I didn’t really mind. I’m not extraordinarily picky, in general.)

After picking up my food at the drive-thru, I decided to drive “the other way” down Washington Street here in Lincolnton. Is that confusing, or what? You take Washington Road out of Augusta and it ends up stopping at Washington Street in Lincolnton. If you turn right at that point (the Hardee’s is on the corner there), you head towards my workplace. I’d never tried going left, so today I did that.

Apparently that’s the way you go if you want to go to Washington, Georgia (the street names make sense!). There was a BBQ place and a hair salon out that way, but not much else. I finally found a place to stop at a church across the street from a graveyard. The graveyard had a nice gazebo, so after I’d eaten most of my food I crossed the street and took some pictures (which I would have uploaded if I’d thought to bring the USB cable with me).

Oh, that’s right, I didn’t mention–the camera Mom bought for me arrived yesterday. It’s like new. I think it must have been washed up with industrial cleaner, but even so it’s in impeccable condition. It also came with a telephoto lens(!) and one of those cover thingies you can use to block light (someday I’ll know all these terms). Pretty sweet all in all. The lens cap is a little different from the one I had–it doesn’t have a hole for looping a string into, so the previous owner attached it to the camera with a string ending in a sticky circle thing. That will take getting used to, especially since the plastic part with the string on it keeps pulling off of the sticky part. I may just look to replace the lens cap with one that has that convenient hole.

In any case, I took some pictures, and it worked great. It’s almost exactly like having my old camera back. It was a wonderful feeling to be able to take pictures again. First priority: getting some 128 meg memory cards!

After I satisfied my photography craving, I finished eating and headed back. My phone doesn’t get service out in Lincolnton (d’oh), and for some reason this phone doesn’t keep track of what time it is for me when it’s out of its service area (double d’oh) so I never know how much time I have left when I head back to the office. It turned out that I had 25 minutes to spare (wh00t), so that’s why I’m writing a long post this time.

There isn’t much to Lincolnton. So far I’ve found a state park (that you have to pay to enter, so I didn’t), a local park with a playground, swimming pool, and various sports pitches, and a historical area with old houses. Now that I finally have a camera again I’ll be able to take pictures of all the neat stuff here! I’m hoping that I haven’t found everything yet. I’m also looking forward to trying out the various mom and pop restaurants in town :)

Speaking of exploring, I’m told that “the dam” is very impressive. I’m not exactly sure where it is, but I’m eager to check it out! (It looks like I can just take Fury’s Ferry Road out of Martinez to get there.) Some general info:

Thurmond Dam is a concrete-gravity structure flanked on both sides by embankments of compacted earth some 5,680 feet (over 1 mile), crossing the Savannah River. The concrete section is 2,282 feet long and rises 200′ above the riverbed at its highest point. Highway 221 crosses over the top of the dam connecting Georgia and South Carolina. The spillway contains 23 large gates, each 40 feet wide by 35 feet high, for the quick release of water from the lake.

Pretty neat.