Spring Break and Why I Love Creeks

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The grands are on Spring Break, so this week will be a bit different for me. Luckily, I sent my completed manuscript to my editor and beta readers last week, so I can slide a little bit on the writing side. Not to say I'm not writing, because I am. More on that sometime soon, I promise!

When Spring Break rolls around each school year, I find myself recalling my best break ever. No, it wasn't a wild time at the beach, although I did take a beach trip or two in college. My favorite Spring Break memory occurred the year I was in the sixth grade. Yep. When I was twelve.

Our neighborhood ran along Eighteen Mile Creek, one of the many creeks that flow through the upstate of South Carolina. Someone in the neighborhood had created a bike path that ran from the cul-de-sac at the back of the development into the woods. It came out a few yards away from a sandy beach by the creek. A large tree did us the favor of falling across the creek, providing a bridge to the other side.

The weather that week remained perfect: 70s and clear blue skies. Heaven for a bunch of eleven and twelve year old girls. Each day, we packed a picnic lunch and biked down to the beach. I don't recall what we did there, but it remains a glorious memory of my childhood. I'm sure one of my friends and I pretended we were in Africa. We did that a lot even when playing in her backyard. Yes, even then, Africa inhabited my imagination, although not with giraffes just yet..

I  remember the crisp cool mornings shifting into warmer, but not hot, afternoons. The shallow water of the creek cooled our feet when we kicked off our Keds or Converse tennis shoes, and sandwiches and chips tasted like fine dining by the creek.

What I would give for a day like that today.

This memory gives me joy and draws me to creeks trickling through wooded areas. If they're in the mountains, even better. My perfect place would have a house nestled on a mountain with trees surrounding it and a creek within sight and hearing distance. That's peace to me. Which is probably why I took the photo in this post while on vacation a few years ago. Sadly, it's not Eighteen Mile Creek and the bike path and beach are gone to more development.

Luckily, I can live in the memory every time spring delivers one of those perfect outdoor-weather days.

 Do you have a great Spring Break or childhood memory? I'd love to hear it.


Photo credit Barbara V. Evers, all rights reserved.

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