The Eye of the Storm - South Carolina and Georgia
with Backroads
October 6-11, 1996
OK, I'll admit it. I've read too many Pat Conroy
novels. This winter I completed reading Beach Music and
decided that I definitely had to visit this part of the country.
So, in my never-ending quest to spend travel money and decrease
my backlog of annual leave, I started searching for tours in the
southeast. Backroads has been great at relieving me of both cash
and days-off but had no such tour in their catalog except for
some rides in Virginia. The company also mails out updates to
their active vacations all year long, and were conveniently inaugurating
a multi-sport vacation that started in Charleston, SC, and finished
in Savannah, GA. This was just the ticket, so I was off again
on another yuppie vacation.
Unlike my previous adventures in cycling and yuppiedom,
I didn't go alone on this one. Thanks to some Delta frequent
flyer miles, my friend and travel buddy Gretchen (the person who
started this whole thing by handing me that copy of Beach Music)
and her children were able to come along and help me explore the
South Carolina Lowcountry before the Backroads tour started.
A double adventure!
October 3-6: Playing tourist
The flight from Reno to Charleston was, thankfully,
long and boring, with airplane changes in Salt Lake City and Atlanta.
My travel buddies and I picked-up a rental car, checked into
a cramped room at Days Inn across the harbor from the city, and
spent the next 3 days seeing the sights. We took a harbor cruise
up the Cooper River and out to see Fort Sumpter, kicked back at
the beach on Hilton Head, drove around the Lowcountry (partly
by accident and partly on purpose!), ate lots of wonderful seafood,
walked around historic Charleston, watched the cadets' dress parade
at the Citadel, ate more good seafood, and looked around at some
of the nicer neighborhoods in the area. Did I mention that we
ate a lot of good seafood? By the time we all returned to the
airport on Sunday, October 6, the car was running on fumes and
everyone was frazzled. Too much to do in too little time! Well,
the next trip will have to be longer and more laid-back ....
Sunday, October 6: Meeting Day, Charleston
I said good-bye to my friends and sat myself in
front of baggage claim to wait for the Backroads van. I was also
waiting with some apprehension the arrival of hurricane Josephine,
currently beating-up Florida and the Gulf. The Backroads van
and tour leaders arrived right on time with a big bowl of snacks
and fresh fruit. I got to meet most of my fellow travelers at
this time: Laurie, Susan D., Sue E. Madelon and Roger, Claire
and John, Charlotte and Murph, Fred and Susan O., Renata, Larry
and Naomi, Jane and Randy, Alicia and Bill. Other than the two
leaders, David and Mitzi-Jill, I was the only single person on
the trip. Only Renata had left her husband at home in Berkeley;
the other ladies traveling with Backroads had them following the
trip but staying elsewhere and doing other things while they got
to play.
The next stop after the airport was our historic
inn for the night, the Vendue Inn located along the waterfront
in historic Charleston. The big question was: what happens when
you're the only single guy on a trip and all the rest are married
couples or women? Answer: you get your own private room! This
was very nice. It was also easy to see that the people on this
trip were a bit older and more calm than the folks on last year's
Irish excursion. No late night drinking bouts appeared to be
in anyone's plans. The Vendue Inn was a beautiful and spacious
place with antique furniture, a fireplace, and a bathroom with
a Jacuzzi tub in each room. I didn't take measurements, but I
think that my bathroom was bigger than the entire motel room my
friends and I had packed ourselves into for the previous 3 days.
We barely had time to check into our rooms, unpack
a little, and change into our walking attire when we were off
on our first scheduled activity: a guided walking tour of historic
Charleston. We had brief introductions and were divided into
two groups and were off into the cold and windy streets. Our
guide, Ruth, really knew her local history, and it was nice to
get some explanations and stories to match with the photos I was
taking now and had taken in the previous days. Since there was
no way I would remember all of the information or be able to take
notes, I taped the entire excursion with a borrowed microcassette
recorder. This little device proved to be quite useful throughout
the trip in preserving long and interesting talks for later replay
and digestion.
The real city of Charleston is rather small with
a population of about 27,000, and is located on the peninsula
where the Ashley and Cooper Rivers meet to form the Atlantic Ocean.
(This is according to Ruth ) The surrounding area and towns
gives the region a population of over 750,000, but the old city
is a place apart from the rest. Founded in 1670, Charleston has
always been a very cosmopolitan port city. The peninsula has
been extended slightly over the years by filling-in behind the
sea wall. Charleston consists of the area "South of Broad"
and all the rest. South of Broad Street is an area that has been
designated a residential historic area, and all the houses have
to meet rigid requirements when being restored or worked-on.
There are very few commercial ventures south of Broad; these were
banned by the designation as an historic area and those few left
were grandfathered in. If a business closes, it cannot be reopened
except as a residence. The only acceptable commercial use of
a residence these days appears to be a bed and breakfast.
Our tour began with a walk down cobblestone streets,
made of the ballast from ships, to the Exchange Building on Broad
Street. We noticed that the typical home was the Charleston Single
House - a long an narrow affair built that way both to catch the
sea breezes and because only skinny strips of land were sold by
the wealthier landowners. We stopped at a memorial to the Washington
Light Infantry on the way to a tour of the Rutledge House; John
Rutledge was one of the signers of the Constitution and is buried
in a churchyard in Charleston. Even though the narrow houses
are right next to each other and separated by only a meter or
two, most of them have beautiful "secret" gardens in
the back, and the fall and spring garden tours are a popular event.
One of the more popular houses was the Edmondston-Alston House,
still in the Alston family and a popular movie location. The
tour group wound its way to The Battery, now a city park at the
point of the peninsula and concluded with a stroll along the waterfront
walk. At this point we were blasted by the increasing winds as
hurricane Josephine started to make its arrival felt.
Dinner this evening, the usual Backroads gourmet
fare, was at the Magnolia restaurant. More excellent seafood
and desserts. I was definitely going to gain a few pounds on
this trip!
Monday, October 7: Ashley River cruise
It was raining lightly and quite windy when I stepped-out
for the morning with a warning to be at the City Marina in time
to catch our tour boat for a cruise up the Ashley River. I took
a walk around the Charleston Marketplace and then headed south
of Broad Street and then west to the City Marina. By that time
the rain had begun in earnest as tropical storm Josephine (downgraded
from a hurricane) started crossing the Carolinas.
The excess moisture didn't bother the cruise operator,
who closed the plastic curtains on his boat and was off into the
driving rain and wind. His wife kept up a running narrative about
the river, the plantations that we passed, the several varieties
of reeds and grasses, and much of the history of the area and
its peoples.
We passed Drayton Hall plantation, an immense brick
edifice, built in 1738. It was the only home on the Ashley River
not vandalized or destroyed by Union troops in 1865. It
is considered the finest example of Georgian Palladian architecture
in the U.S. Our first stop of the day was not the hall itself
but the Magnolia Plantation and Gardens right next door. These
300-year old gardens have been in the Drayton family since Thomas
Drayton arrived from Barbados in 1671. The pouring rain forced
a cancellation of the bike ride through the 625-acre waterfowl
refuge adjoining the gardens, but we were able to see much of
the incredible beauty of this plantation. Each garden had a theme:
Barbados Tropical Garden, Biblical Garden (shaped like a cross),
Flowerdale, the Maze, and an 18th century herb garden.
Then there was the Audubon Swamp Garden so we could get an idea
of what this all looked like before Drayton put his slaves to
work on his little gardening project. We saw a lot of wet birds,
native cypress and tupelo, many flowers and ferns, but not a single
alligator - they must have all been hiding out waiting for the
rain to quit. By this time everyone was thoroughly soaked, so
lunch in the sheltered pavilion was a welcome change. Ever resourceful,
our Backroads leaders had whipped-up some hot soup and hot coffee
and chocolate to warm us from the inside out.
After lunch we boarded the Backroads vans for a drive
further upriver to our stop for the night, the Middleton Inn,
located, oddly enough, adjacent to Middleton Place This very
modern inn (opened in 1985) was designed by W. G. Clark, a student
of Frank Lloyd Wright, and the influence shows in the elegant
simplicity of the rooms. They all featured floor to ceiling windows
with a view of the Ashley River, handmade furniture, large bathrooms
(I was thinking of doing laps in the tub but the inn had a pool)
and fireplaces. After the historical Vendue Inn, many people
complained of the "modern" style, but I found the careful
combination of concrete with natural stone and wood to be quite
beautiful. I found myself reminded of Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead.
Off into the driving rain once again, I took a walk
of Middleton Place, another plantation/garden with quite a history
behind it. The 6500-acre plantation of which the 100-acre Middle
Place is the heart of, was settled in the late 1600's by various
Middleton in-laws. It contains the oldest landscaped gardens
in North America. Henry Middleton, president of the First Continental
Congress, developed the gardens starting in 1741 - a project that
took about 100 slaves ten years to complete. The plantation was
the home of Arthur Middleton, a signer of the Declaration of Independence,
his son Henry, Minister to Russia, and his son William, a signer
of the Ordinance of Secession. The place was held by the British
during the Revolutionary War, burned by a Union regiment during
the Civil War in 1865, and badly damaged by an earthquake in 1886.
The remaining buildings and the formal gardens were restored
in the early 1900's. The property still belongs to the Middleton
family. The 65-acre gardens feature ornamental lakes, a rice
mill pond, terracing, camellias, oaks, and azaleas. The Middleton
Oak is an ancient tree that is a National Historic Landmark.
The garden's design is integrated into the natural marshes and
banks of the Ashley River. It is an incredible layout seen through
rain and must be spectacular on a sunny spring day with the azaleas
in bloom. This is a "must see" if you're in the Charleston
area.
Following a period of drying-out and rest, we met
for dinner at the Middleton Place Restaurant, located overlooking
the rice mill pond of the plantation. This was more like the
lowcountry fare that I had gotten used to before the Backroads
tour started but in a fancier setting. By the time we were done
with dinner, the rain and wind were so intense that we shuttled
back to the inn in the vans. The plan called for a river kayak
trip and our first bicycle ride, but the kayak guides called and
canceled due to the bad weather. Things didn't look too promising
for the bike ride either.
Tuesday, October 8: Kayaks, Beaufort
It was hard to sleep well with the wind howling
and the rain coming down in sheets, but by early morning the storm
had started to abate. The wind was now a gentle breeze and the
rain had turned into a drizzle. I started the day with a swim
in the pool overlooking the Ashley River. The water was a bit
below the temperature of Lake Tahoe - invigorating, until it became
numbing! We were notified that the kayak trip was now "on"
again! After breakfast, I donned my Goretex jacket and water
shoes, packed my camera into a Ziploc baggy, and headed down to
the Ashley River launching point. We would be using sea kayaks,
very stable boats with rudders, and more suited to beginners (i.e.
almost impossible to sink or flip over!) than the more maneuverable
whitewater kayaks that you see on the Olympics.
The river was definitely up and running, and the
predictions were that it would get much higher and faster as more
runoff from the tributaries arrived later in the day. Instruction
was brief: how to hold the paddle, where to sit in the kayak,
how to operate the rudder, what to do in the very unlikely event
that you managed to turn the boat over, and how to make sure that
our life jackets were properly secured One by one we dragged
the boats into a calm inlet, had final adjustments made, and began
paddling upriver. By the time I was in the water, the rain had
stopped and the clouds were starting to break up.
I had never been in a kayak of any sort before today
but found that operating a sea kayak was relatively simple. The
only drawback I found was that when I unsealed my camera to take
pictures, I had to stop paddling. If I stopped paddling the swift
current would start moving me backwards down the river. Our guides
caught up with us very quickly and pointed out various types of
trees and grasses that lined the banks of the Ashley River. We
cruised slowly along the marsh banks past the tall grasses and
eventually stopped near the shore where the guides pointed out
cypress and tupelo trees. Far in the distance a Bald Eagle's
nest occupied one of the tallest trees. When we turned around,
the current made the trip back to Middleton Inn a quick one.
It was quite the trick not to overshoot our landing spot!
After the kayak trip, it was back to my room at
the inn to clean up and dry off again and then change into cycling
clothes. Backroads had a nice picnic lunch prepared as we sorted
through the helmet collection to find ones that fit and got adjusted
to our rental bicycles. While waiting for the rest of the group
to show up, I got to see one of the Bald Eagles circling far overhead
in the now-cleared sky.
We all packed into the vans for a short ride to
the start of our first bike ride. Retracing much of the same
path I had driven with Gretchen and her children just a few days
ago, we pulled into a rest stop near the tiny town of Ashepoo.
A few minutes of final bicycle adjustments and tuning and we
were off down a narrow, unmarked road leading to Bear Island and
the ACE Basin. This area is one of the largest undeveloped estuaries
and wetlands on the east coast and is formed by the Ashepoo, Combahee,
and Edisto Rivers. The ride down the first few miles of the almost-deserted
road was through a thick forest of palmetto, pine, oak, and myrtle.
I rode past the gates of the Airy Hall Plantation and the Ashepoo
Plantation. Where the forest had been cleared I could see the
evidence of the vast rice fields planted back in the 1800s, the
dikes planted with cord grass to control and hold the water.
Not far into the ride, I noticed a large black snake
in the middle of the lane. Figuring that it was just more roadkill,
I steered to avoid snake innards only to notice that it was not
a flattened snake, but a very-much-alive one! This was worth
a stop and a picture after which I chased Mr./Ms. Snake back into
the grass by the side of the road. I was amazed that the lead
riders had not seen it. Only after I had finished insuring that
the reptile would not become roadkill did I stop to wonder what
kind of snake it was. Gretchen had told me stories of
deadly cottonmouths and water moccasins …
About 10 miles into the ride, the landscape opened-up
and the road crossed the Ashepoo River. Here I could see a small
part of the vast sea of cattails and needle rushes that cover
much of the natural wetlands. I soon entered the Bear Island
Wildlife Management Area. There was abundant bird life in the
form of swallows, ducks, and the occasional heron. One rider
said that he saw an alligator. Many of the original water control
structures, made of heavy creosoted tree trunks, are still in
use after 150 years.
Shortly after exiting the Bear Island area, the paved
road turned to dirt and a short ride brought me to Bennett's Point
Landing, home of the B & B Seafood Company and one of the
many small commercial seafood docks along the South Carolina Coast.
When the rest of the group arrived, Mitzi-Jill and David loaded
the bikes onto the van's roof rack and we boarded the ACE Basin
tour boat for our third adventure of the day.
Captain Stan Lawson took us down the Ashepoo River,
into Saint Helena Sound, and part way up the Coosaw River, and
followed the Intracoastal Waterway to Port Royal. Along the way
we saw dolphins, herons, and an osprey. We cruised past a government-owned
island that is reputedly the home of top secret biological experiments
on monkeys (can you say "Hot Zone"?). Some ideas began
to form in my head about the feasibility of a kayak trip following
this waterway from its beginnings near New Jersey to its end in
Florida. Equally enjoyable was to hear the tales of how Captain
Lawson's dock was converted into the Bubba Gump Shrimp Company
for the filming of Forrest Gump. We docked in Port Royal,
looked at all the pictures of the movie stars, and took the short
van trip into Beaufort.
Our stop for the night was the Beaufort Inn. The
property was originally constructed as a private residence in
1907 and had fallen on hard times over the years. It's newest
owners took a slightly different track with their restoration
project. Instead of fixing the existing structure, everything
was carefully documented and then the place was gutted, only the
original outside walls and foundation were kept. It was rebuilt
from the inside out with modern materials and mechanical systems,
but following the original design. There is no sense of things
having been added later as they had to be in the other historical
inns we stayed at. The results are beautiful to behold. The
mahogany woodwork and beveled glass are stunning, the rooms are
carefully restored using period furniture, and all the creature
comforts work as you would expect them to in a modern hotel.
The chef is famous for his lowcountry gourmet cuisine and I feasted
once again on crab soup and a bowl of shrimp with an oriental
touch of seasoning. I could easily get used to this kind of life!
Wednesday, October 9: Beaufort to Savannah
After a wonderful breakfast of crab cakes, I had
time to walk around historic Beaufort. This city has so many
historic residences that the entire downtown is a National Historic
Landmark. Strolling down the narrow streets lined with huge oaks
dangling Spanish moss, I could easily imagine myself back in the
early 1900s. Many of the streets dead-ended near the water or
marshes. Even though the tourist guides emphasize the plush resorts
and golf courses on nearby Hilton Head and other sea islands,
I think that tiny Beaufort is the true gem of the area. I put
it above Charleston as a place that I want to return to some day.
The Backroads van hauled everyone out of Beaufort
to the Penn Center, one of the most significant African-American
institutions in the country. Founded in 1862 by Unitarian missionary
Laura M. Towne, it originally functioned as a school for freed
slaves and their descendants and emphasized both vocational and
academic courses. Today the center plays an important role in
promoting and preserving the South Carolina Lowcountry's rich
African-American culture. This bit of history marked the start
of the longest bicycle ride of the tour, a whopping 35 miles of
dead-flat cruising.
The first loop of the ride took me out through tidal
marshes, farms, churches, and inlets. Much like the snake adventure
of yesterday, I came across a tiny turtle sitting in the middle
of the lane. The turtle turned-out to be alive and I once again
moved him (or her - how do you tell????) off the road after taking
some pictures. The loop returned me to the Penn Center where
I then picked-up the basic route for the 15 mile jaunt to Hunting
Island State Park.
The park is a combination of beaches, marshland,
and forest. It is a textbook case of how the wind and water reshape
the shoreline and battle the ecology of the forest and marsh which
are trying to stabilize the soil so that their plants can grow.
After lunch I had time to explore the 140-foot-tall lighthouse
and kick back on the beach on this perfect sunny day. I explored
around for some seashells and kept my eyes peeled for sand dollars.
I found some nice shells but struck-out on the sand dollars.
One of the park rangers explained that they are pretty much cleared
away by beachcombers who in turn sell them to the souvenir shops.
I also had my first experience with biting gnats. These microscopic
bugs bite you on any exposed surface and they are so tiny that
you can't spot them! Hurts, too!
We boarded the vans once again and shuttled into
Savannah over a truly impressive suspension bridge to The Gastonian,
where we would stay for the remainder of the trip. There was
time for cleaning up and a quick walk before dinner. Dinner this
evening was at Elizabeth's, a place rated one of the top 25 restaurants
in the United States. It was indeed quite an experience: there
were more utensils than I knew what to do with, and the waiters
kept changing them depending upon what I was planning to eat.
My main course of seafood was impressive, and desert can best
be described as Death by Chocolate. Everyone tried to order something
different and we traded bites.
My room at the Gastonian was a new experience. No,
there weren't handcuffs on the bedposts or anything like that,
but the bathroom was unique to me. The bathtub was chest-high.
Really! I have pictures! I had to use an attached ladder to
climb into a fixture that I think I could have done laps in, and
if filled with water (which would have taken an hour or more),
I could have gotten the bends diving to the bottom and coming
back up too fast. I was told later that this is a European soaking
tub. I never saw one of these inventions in any of my travels
in Europe.
Thursday, October 10: Savannah history and beaches
After breakfast we had some time this morning to
walk around the neighborhood before meeting at the house of J.
and V. Duncan. John Duncan is a local historian, and after giving
our group a tour of his beautiful old house, he sat us down to
a fascinating lecture and slide show on the history of Savannah.
His amazing capacity to remember all this detail and wonderful
sense of humor transported us from the original founding of the
city by the English and its careful layout in squares, through
the Revolutionary war and occupation by Union forces during the
Civil War, to the present day's battles to keep the history preserved
from parking garages. So far, though a few battles have been
lost, the preservationists are winning the war. Only one of the
original city squares has been covered with a parking garage,
and most of the postbellum construction is still in place. One
of the most interesting snippets of information concerned the
impressive stone gate and oak-lined driveway up to the Wormsloe
Plantation. The trees were planted as seedlings; there was no
way that Wormsloe himself would live to see them grow to provide
a oaken archway over the path. They were put there with the knowledge
that his grandchildren and great-grandchildren would live to enjoy
them.
After J. Duncan's talk, and a visit to his map shop,
we had an hour to walk around and try to look for all the places
he mentioned before reporting to Mrs. Wilkes Dining Room for an
authentic southern lunch of fresh-cooked vegetables, an assortment
of meats, and berry cobbler. The afternoon was a free one, so
three of us elected to have the Backroads van take us and our
bikes to Fort Pulaski where we rode around the old fort and then
continued on out to Tybee Island. We were met there with our
beach clothing and passed the rest of the afternoon catching the
rays on a nearly-deserted beach. I finally found a sand dollar
that hadn't been apprehended for a souvenir shop.
Dinner this evening was at the River House Pecan
Pie and Cookie Company. Not gourmet fare as was the last few
evenings, but excellent. The shrimp was boiled tonight, and our
table was duly impressed with my skill and speed at removing the
shrimp from their shells with their little tails intact.
I have to stop here and give a "thank you" to my personal
shrimp-shucking trainer, Gretchen, for helping me to begin the
mastery of this fine art. For dessert, most of us had pecan pie,
of course. It was the largest and thickest slice of pecan pie
that I've ever attempted to eat in one sitting, and it was (dare
I say it?) as good as my mom's! A few people ordered the special
cheesecake which was equally impressive. The best news was that
they take phone orders and ship their pies anywhere, a service
that I have every intention of using for Thanksgiving.
When we had all arrived back at the Gastonian, we
took room tours. Every room had a different theme and was decorated
with the appropriate antiques of the era. By far the most impressive
was Renata's "China Room." Built into and above the
original carriage house of the inn, it was in two levels and came
complete with huge fans, silk screens, beautiful lacquered furniture,
and samurai swords hanging on the wall. Only the rooms in the
main inn had the bottomless pit bathtubs.
Friday, October 11: Savannah walk and back home?
Our activity for the morning was a guided walking
tour of historical Savannah. Our guide entertained us with ghost
stories as well as the historical significance of the many places
we visited. One of the first things I noticed is that a lot of
the exterior decorations, gates, fences, and stair rails are made
of cast iron. The Kehoe House, now a bed & breakfast inn,
has even the window frames and sills made of iron. We saw numerous
streets still paved with the original "tabby" mixture
of seashells, lime, and sand. Colonial Park Cemetery was used
by colonists from 1750 -1853 and was also used by Union troops
during their occupation of Savannah in 1864; they defaced and
moved many of the tombstones to the point that it is still unknown
who is buried where. The cemetery is surrounded by walkways made
from bricks with voodoo inscriptions to control the spirits of
the dead.
Much of the history of Savannah is in its squares.
To the west of Reynolds Square is the Pink House (yes, it's really
pink), a restaurant well-known for ghost sightings. Wright Square
contains the statue of William Gordon, supposedly built on top
of the grave of Tomochichi. It is currently being rebuilt and
the site carefully excavated to settle the question. It is believed
that the Yamacraw chief is actually buried under a huge rock located
at the southeast corner of the square. The rock was hauled all
the way from Stone Mountain near Atlanta at the expense of Nellie
Gordon who must have been feeling a bit guilty. Washington Square
is surrounded by homes carefully restored to look much like they
did in the 18th and 19th centuries. Johnson
Square was the first of the Savannah plan. Chippewa Square commemorates
the Battle of Chippewa in Canada, 1814. Next to the square is
the Savannah Theater Company, the longest continuously operated
theater in North America. General William T. Sherman headquartered
in the Green Meldrim home adjacent to Madison Square; the monument
in the square honors Sergeant William Jasper who died in the siege
of Savannah in 1779. Pulaski Square is named after the Polish
nobleman Kazimierz Pulaski, mortally wounded in the same siege;
his monument, however, is located southeast in Monterey Square.
I think that one of the only squares which matches its namesake
to a monument is Greene Square, named after General Nathanael
Greene.
Our walk ended right back at the Gastonian Inn.
We met for lunch at Forsyth Park, just a few blocks away, and
then packed up and loaded our luggage onto the vans for the ride
back to the airport at Charleston.
The greatest adventure of the entire trip was the
journey home to Reno. The nightmare was provided by Delta Airlines.
It started with the flight from Charleston to Atlanta being slightly
late, and then a lot late. I thought that I was facing an O.
J. Simpson dash across the Atlanta airport to make my connecting
flight to Salt Lake City, but my worries were wasted. The plane
to Salt Lake City was broken, so Delta began putting people on
other flights in a vain attempt to get them to their destinations.
I was loaded onto a tiny commuter plane headed to New Orleans
where I then flew first class (no other seats were available)
to Las Vegas. A four-hour wait in Vegas and I was finally off
to Reno where I arrived at 4:30 on Saturday morning. In spite
of having to wait a minimum of two hours between each leg
of this roundabout flight, the luggage routing was beyond the
abilities of the Delta crews. My bags were nowhere to be seen.
Another hour was wasted in the Reno airport attempting to get
the service agent found and then get the proper forms filled-out.
It was apparently too early for taxi drivers as well, because
I had to call and wait some more before I could get home as the
sun was starting to rise.
Comments
Backroads' leaders showed their professionalism
and ability to handle just about anything. This was the inaugural
trip for their South Carolina active vacation, and things did
not go exactly as planned. They certainly didn't plan
on hurricane Josephine making an appearance! Through it all,
Mitzi-Jill and David improvised and adapted (hey, just like the
Marines' Recon!) to make the best of the situation.
Once again I found myself in the company of yuppies.
But these were nice yuppies. Although I was the only
single person on the trip, I never felt left out of things nor
that I was odd for traveling alone. I wish that this same group
had done the Ireland trip last summer! Having my own room was
nice, too. These folks were from a completely different economic
stratum than I am; basically they make The Big Bucks. A trip
like this is pocket change. They love to travel and do it a lot.
They have all the toys. Even so, they were amazed that I would
make the investment in a custom built bicycle. Most of them had
heard of Roland Dellasanta and that he made wonderful frames but
had never met anyone who actually rode around on one! When we
got on the subject of backpacking trips, I mentioned an early-spring
trip to Escalante, Utah and how nice it was hiking the canyons
there. One guy wanted to know what outfitter I used. (Outfitter?
Does my friend Carol count as an outfitter? Hey, we just packed-up
and went!) Wealth definitely gives one a different perspective
on things. But, as I said, these were all nice folks and I wouldn't
complain if I ended up with the same group on another trip in
the future.
My previous experiences in the south were many years
ago when I was spending a lot of time at an applications development
and training center in Atlanta. The coastal lowcountry is much
preferred to the metropolitan cities further inland. The lifestyle
is a bit lower-key, the people have a wonderful southern accent,
the cuisine is tastier, and the population isn't as dense. The
beaches and tidal marshes are a different environment than the
desert and mountains that I'm used to. Even though I enjoyed
the water and the ocean, I found myself missing the mountains
after a few days. If some geologic event moved the Sierras a
few miles from the beaches in South Carolina, I'd move there like
a shot!
In spite of the short run of nasty weather I encountered,
October is definitely a nice time to visit this part of the country.
It isn't as hot and humid as during much of the summer, and most
of the tourists have gone back home from their summer vacations.
It hasn't cooled enough for the leaves on the trees to change;
the fall garden tours are just starting in Charleston and the
flowers are beautiful.
I visited three "famous" cities in the
south: Charleston, Beaufort, and Savannah. Except for the historical
district in Charleston, you can have it. Once you leave the confines
of that special area on the peninsula, it's just like any other
big city. Beaufort was very nice, at least in the small part
that I saw, and I regretted not having a bit more time to look
around the area. Beaufort is definitely on the list for places
to visit the next time I'm over that way. Savannah was a big
city but still had the feel of a much smaller town. All of them
are steeped in history, and I could have taken weeks to look at
all the houses, buildings, and monuments. I was sorry to have
missed visiting Daufuskie Island but did get to Hilton Head and
Hunting Island. Hilton Head was too much of a tourist trap for
my taste, but Hunting Island State park was nice.
Overall, this was a nice vacation. It's not one
to go on if you're planning on racking-up the miles on a bicycle
- the rides are short and easy. You will get to see a lot of
history and do a lot of walking. As with previous Backroads trips,
I used it to get a quick look at a part of the world that interests
me. If I get back there again, I'll have a much better idea of
where I want to go and what I want to see.
To crawl on back to Tim's Reviews just
click the mouse button.