Cheraw & Cotton Bales

We spent a lovely long weekend at Cheraw State Park.  As we were driving around the Cheraw area, I was struck with some deep philosophical thoughts.  Or maybe not too deep.  See what you think.

I'm sure many of you have wondered WHY we've decided to head out on the road full-time (many of you have asked).  It is a growing trend for sure, but why did we decide to do it?  I've mentioned to several people our desire to fill our National Park Passport by visiting all of the National Parks in the USA, and of course we have the standard goal of hitting all 50 states (or well...49 anyway...Hawaii's hard to get to in an RV ;-)).  Those are certainly goals but don't explain WHY in a deep philosophical sense.

As I pondered this over the weekend, Captain Kirk's reason to climb El Capitan in Star Trek V suddenly struck me... "Because it's there."  (Granted this was stolen from famous climber George Mallory, but the image of Captain Kirk explaining this to Spock sticks with me).  That does more or less sum it up for us I think...there's a huge country out there with different geology, geography, history, culture, etc., just waiting to be seen.

So now to tie back to the title...  As we were driving around, we passed many cotton fields, some harvested, some not.  I noticed something that looked like a white bale of hay in the middle of some empty fields and no joke just sat there a long time scratching my head.  I grew up and worked in rural enough areas to recognize cotton in the fields and to know what a hay bale looked like, but this 'white hay bale' had me stumped.  Then it hit me...it was a cotton bale!  Unfortunately this realization hit me after we passed the last one so I don't have a personal photo, but they looked just like these I stole from the Agriculture Corner:

So this is what got me thinking.  This is really what I'm hoping to accomplish with our travels - to see and experience things that are commonplace for many people but that I've never seen or experienced before.  I mean, it's really embarrassing how long it took me to realize those were cotton bales.  I want to understand where people I've never met live and what they see and experience in their daily lives.  I want to see the towns where they live, the industries that employ them, the local restaurants they frequent, and the natural beauty that surrounds them.  By extension, I also want to understand the history that formed these areas, and who those long-gone people were that formed these communities and our nation.  So there's your dose of deep philosophy.

As for Cheraw State Park...it was absolutely gorgeous, I think perhaps the nicest spot we've camped so far.  We had a site right on the lake, and enjoyed amazing sunsets every night.

The park had a boardwalk and a nice hiking trail through the woods.  And it was FINALLY 'warm' enough (and Aaron was well enough) to get out and enjoy it!  It was a nice relaxing weekend and certainly a great setting for deep thought.

The only complaint I have...or more accurately, a warning for anyone to follow... it was REALLY hard to find a level spot to park the RV.  Most of the campsites looked like they'd have a similar problem.  You can read someone else's explanation about why RV leveling is important.  It took some very creative parking and a few 2x10s to get the RV level, but we did manage it!