We've had a thread about going for a ride in the midlands of South Carolina going for a week or so...
Today we went... I had to take off about sunrise to make there and back in daylight... the little camera
can't really take a picture of the sun ball, even though it was just an orange globe and not bright at all..
After the sun went up a little more and got brighter the camera decided ah-the-heck-with-it and
started rendering it as a blue dot...
First stop: Grits and Groceries... the little camera's not much for centering the interesting stuff
in the picture either
Anyone need one of these?
Just down the street from the Frazer there was a fork in the road... I took the wrong fork and didn't
realize it for about 10 minutes... I doubled back, lost about 20 minutes all total... I was
20 minutes late to Chappells (the meeting place) so I guess google's estimates are pretty
good, except google doesn't calculate in your errors
When I got to Chappells, Mike (Lakehunter) was there waiting for me... we looked at each other's bikes
for a couple of minutes and took off... is this thing Cobra? Mike wasn't sure where it came from, it
was on the bike when he got it...
So you know that it's not just me - it's a South Carolina thing... right off the bat Mike took me
on a short cut...
It went dirt
Mike does know all the good roads in that part of the State, though, and I was glad he
lead after we met up... he knew how to lead us to the 4 miles of Interstate 77 we had to travel
without getting us tangled up in the sprawl of Columbia, and we got to the swamp about 1:30...
We only stayed back in the swamp about an hour, there's 22,000 acres in the swamp, I
hope to spend a day hiking back into the really wild part sometime soon... mostly a swamp
in these parts is filled with two kinds of trees... tupelo gums...
And Cypress trees...
As we were walking along, I discovered that if you touch the top of a cypress knee, you'll often
get a big shock... an audible CRACK kind of shock... I guess it comes from shuffling down the
boardwalk and not being grounded or something... same as when people leave their gas cans
in the pickup truck bed and end up getting immolated...
We left the swamp hungry, so we took off (again, on roads that Mike knew that kept us
out of the quagmire of Columbia's sprawl) to Leesville for some BBQ...
Left there and headed back to the meetup point...
You can sort of tell from the picture... when we got to Chappells we could tell that we were headed
into a GIANT storm... but that's where we split up, Mike went one way, and I went the other... I
went down the road you can see in the picture... so there's this giant storm and it looks like
I'm going in a general direction that's going to allow me to skirt it... and I did, but boy howdy...
I got in a little rain around Ninty-six (in South Carolina we name our towns after numbers) but
the wind... I've never ridden in wind like this... cars are pulling off in the ditch... one blast tries
to knock me off the left side of the road, the next blast tries to knock me off the right side
of the road, the next blast hits me in the face and tries to lift me off the bike... I didn't know if
I could keep going, but I knew if I stopped I wouldn't be skirting the storm, I'd be sitting in it...
So I kept going... while it was raging on me I wished Daniel Meyer was with me - he'd be able
to put the sensations into words... and then before long, it was behind me and I made it all the
way back to Oconee (the county I live in) before the thunder and lighting and rain started again,
but I didn't get wet any to speak of... I made it home right at dark... when I was in Anderson I
came to a four-way stop, and there was a license check going on... I wasn't sure at first
what was happening, these cops had military green bullet proof equipment on and were in black cars and
there was a bunch of them... I guess it is kind of a tough neighborhood I use to sneak
around Anderson without going through town, I've seen a lot of people going way too
fast through there... but they were polite and sent me on my way... I only went way too fast
when I was way out in the country
Thanks for showing up Mike - we had a great ride today!
Anywho... here's the "and more"... when I downloaded the pictures from today, I found the pictures
I took last weekend... Smokin Joe made a post last week about how Spring Has Arrived... check
out these peaches! These orchards go for miles...
This summer's Peach Run will be to this area of South Carolina (near Ridge Spring)...
Me and Carolyn went to Charleston last weekend for the Low Country Open Land Trust (lolt.org)
Oyster Roast and picnic... I spent about a half hour at these oyster tables while it was crowded
shoulder to shoulder and the oyster cookers kept the tables filled with awesome clusters of hot
oysters... these two folks were either late, or they're
hard core...
This year's picnic was at Lavington Plantation... I'd been to Lavington once before, it used to
be my friend Patricia's job to come here about four times a week and keep the horses rode...
what a job... here's Patricia, she's a ham...
Here's some more Lavington pictures... the dots in the sky are Bald Eagles...
Me and Joe and Wimp and Punisher rode out to Hilton Head last fall... it was a horrible trafficky
paved over mess... because of the Low Country Open Land Trust, thousands and thousands of
acres of South Carolina will be forever protected from becoming HiltonHeadized...
Finally... these guys were playing bluegrass, they were good... there was some chairs near
them, and I sat down for a few tunes... they asked if I had a request, and I asked for a
hymn (lots of hymns make for good bluegrass)... they said they didn't expect that, then they
huddled, and played I'll Fly Away and got all the melody right and the words right and sang in
harmony...
What a good ride today...
-Mike
