A quick sampling of what’s going on around the state this weekend.
Coast
Sometimes it takes a push from our creative side to jump-start our active side. That’s one incentive for checking out Lake Waccamaw State Park’s monthly Nature Journal Hike. Once a month, participants, with journal and pen in hand, head out with a park ranger to explore this unique park 12 miles east of Whiteville in the coastal plain. Lake Waccamaw State Park is dominated by a 9,000-acre Carolina bay, one of thousands of oval lakes that dot the middle of the eastern seaboard — or once did, for many of the shallow lakes have long-since filled in. The lake (pictured) is the subject of this month’s hike, from 3-4 p.m. on Saturday. It’s free — even the journal is included.read more
The following is a expanded version, with links, of a story I wrote that originally appeared in yesterday’s (Feb. 1) The News & Observer and Charlotte Observer.
You’re a month into your new fitness program and you’re not seeing the results you expected: You are not alone.read more
That’s just one of the services provided in this space by GetGoingNC: sitting through five-hour meetings of city planners, DOT engineers, committee members and elected officials to sift out the nuggets of information useful to you, the recreating public. In this case, the bike riding public.read more
At some point every winter it becomes impossible to keep pretending I like cold weather and I look for the slightest encouragement possible to go in search of spring. Usually, I can hold out to mid- to late February. With this year’s unrelenting cold I only made it until Friday. When the temperature hit a balmy 50 degrees mid afternoon, I closed shop, got out the the day hikers and headed to Umstead.read more
When I write for newspapers I inevitably wind up with far more information than I can fit into a 600-word lead. Such was the case with a story I wrote for the Observers (Charlotte and News &), scheduled to run in both publications Tuesday. The story is about not getting discouraged if, a month into your new fitness program, you aren’t seeing the results you expected. In the course of reporting I ran into Debra Delano of Charlotte, who had a great story, only a smidgen of which made it into the story. More of her story appears here.read more