Our bikes were crammed in the back of the Element when we found a parking spot on the corner of Latta and Lighthouse, right in front of Holy Child elementary school, a short block from the river and the lake. It was a gorgeous day, pure blue sky, very low humidity and maybe seventy-five degrees. We sprang the bikes, put on our helmets and followed the boardwalk up river.
We stopped in that first block to marvel at the big boats docked along the shore. The seedy part of town looked like it was getting a facelift. Was it Scuttlebutt’s or the Charlotte Social Club that just got busted for running a gambling ring? Maybe it was the place that had a great big Hemingway mural on the side of it’s building. The restaurants and yacht clubs on the east side of the river were in full summer bloom and a group of young girls was headed up river, each in a small sailboat of their own. It was all very dreamy.
We headed down a gravel path that ran right along the river but turned around where the path narrowed. We interrupted a couple there, on the ground near some bushes, that were already rounding the bend of third base and they didn’t look like they were gonna stop for us. We turned around and took the paved path down to Turning Point Park where the boardwalk runs out over the wetlands in that wide water portion of the river where they used to turn around big freight ships. Ducks, turtles and herons all call this place home. Yellow and white flowers were blooming on the Lilly pads and fisher-people with the funkiest equipment imaginable are throwing lines in the water.
The path on south side of the park took us up to Lake Avenue near Riverside Cemetery so rode just a little further to the Catholic section, Holy Sepulchre Cemetery, where we hunted down my parent’s newly carved stones.
Leave a comment