A Brit in the US

I was invited by my good friend Glendoria to visit Hampton with her and the famous Watermalon Parade. Each little town in South Carolina appears to have a special parade day. This was the watermelon parade. On this occasion I took only an elderly zoom compact that suffers from some appalling shutter lag but the photos turned out quite well. Sometimes, these old camera can be just what the doctor ordered. Given that this was in the sweltering heat of summer - a time when sunglasses and hats are really needed - the least weight one carries the better. The other issue is that taking photographs necessitates the removal of both hat and sunglasses. I am certainly glad I was not one of the early settlers to the United States, from a time before they realized they couldn't just go around in heavy woolen tunics. Watermelon Parade, Hampton Watermelon Parade, Hampton Watermelon Parade, Hampton Watermelon Parade, Hampton Watermelon Parade, Hampton Watermelo...

Together with my good friend Dorathy and armed solely with our trusty cameras, we went for a wander. Lexington, Columbia and Irmo are in a very much land-locked area, 120 miles inland with no sea or ocean to dip so much as a toe into. There is, however a beach. The local parks service decided to install a beach on the shore of Lake Murray. Now Lake Murray isn't really a lake in its own right. It is in fact a huge dam that was built in the 1930s to provide water and hydro-electric power to the emerging city of Columbia.  The dam comprises a huge wall about a mile long that snakes between what were originally two hills. The valley that became the dam used to be populated and apparently those that dive beneath the surface of the waters can find buildings and roads still in existence.  More recently there was a successful attempt to remove "The Lake Murray Bomber" which was a 2nd world war bomber that crashed into the water on a practice low-level bombing run over wa...