50 pounds of shrimp?

Not in my wildest dreams would I think of buying 50 pounds of shrimp.  Yes, at the present time I’m living on the Atlantic coast where shrimping is the way many people make their living, but I sure wouldn’t buy that much shrimp at one time.  Of course I live full time in my motorhome, and that would pretty much fill up my entire freezer in the fridge. 

This is what 50 pounds of fresh large shrimp look like (after they’ve been beheaded).  My fellow volunteers here at the compound did buy that much shrimp.  They’ll be leaving here around the same time I am, and they wanted to have a winter’s supply of shrimp to take home to their house, with three freezers, in the North Carolina mountains.  I found George and Peggy both decked out in rubber gloves last Friday evening, sitting outside with two large coolers.  In one was the shrimp with the heads on, and this cooler contained the results of their cleaning the ‘catch’.

All of the shrimp were large, but this was the biggest.  You don’t need very many that size to make a nice meal.  I sure wish I had known they were going to town to barter for shrimp because I would have asked them to pick up several (2-5) pounds for me.  They were able to get a price of only $4/lb. because of the quantity they were buying.  You sure can’t beat that price.  They say they may be doing this again before they leave, so I hope they remember to let me know.  After drooling over all that luscious shrimp, they did gift me with a very nice portion that I had for dinner last night. 

Today was my day to restock the pamphlet boxes, and I started out at the end of Buffalo City Road.  This is where the refuge’s Sandy Ridge hiking trail is located.

It’s a nice 1 mile round trip hike through the hardwood forest located along a river and Milltail Creek.  I walked a little ways down the trail, but the mosquitoes were of such intensity to make me turn around pretty darn quickly.

The Sandy Ridge trail begins at the spot where all the canoe and kayak tours put in the water.  They head under the bridge and out into the river.

The last time I volunteered here, this is where the canoe tours I led began.  We paddled the river, the canals that were used when Buffalo City was in the lumber and moonshine business, and reached Sawyer Lake before turning around and making our way back.  I really enjoyed those canoe trips, and just regret that my hip has prevented me from doing the same this year.

The business of filling the pamphlet boxes was pretty uneventful today.  When I got back to the rig, a male Pearly Crescentspot butterfly was flitting about my ankles.  These little dudes are only about an inch across, but they sure are colorful.  Tomorrow I’m off to man the Pea Island VC once again, and then I’ve got three days off.  I don’t have any places left on my list that I want to visit before I move on, but perhaps I can think of some kind of adventure to go on.

Thanks for stopping by… talk to you later,  Judy