Oct 23, 2012  Today was a day to take advantage of a beautiful beach day, so we got a late October sunburn and took off in the jeep to investigate a beach area called Pawleys Island, and then spent the evening in Murrells Inlet at a small boardwalk, which went out over marshland and connected six restaurants and bars.  We ate at a place called Creekratz, and I discovered a dish called shrimp and grits. I don't know how i've lived all this time without it. Awesome. This area is known as the fishing capital of S Carolina
     Oct 24  I rode 92 miles in 6 hrs today. The trip to Charleston S C was all U S Route 17 again, with no shoulder, so I did all I could do to stay off the major road. I went back toward the ocean in Surfside Beach and Murrels Inlet, and had to backtrack because of dead ends two times. I also checked out another cool little boardwalk area in Georgetown S C, which got me off the main road.  Georgetown also seems to be a manufacuring town for International Paper, and there were a ton of logging trucks on the road. The huge pine forests along US 17 also had tall fire towers to watch for fires, so I knew I had to stop and climb one.  It was about 9 stories tall and got very narrow towards the top.  I climbed into the hut on top, and was greeted by hundreds of wasps.  They were a friendly sort, even up that high, I snapped a few pictures, saw that the forest was not in danger, and got outa there!  I took another detour into a town called McClellandsville, that was filled with large oak trees with Spanish moss hanging down everywhere. That would become a familiar sight in the Charleston area.  Whe I came back out on to 17, I ran into a guy who had been on the road biking since April 1st, had ridden 15,000 miles, and was on his way to San Fransisco by way of Florida. Wow! I might be jealous. The last cool thing of the day was when rte. 17 turned into Sweetgrass Basket Weavers Highway! Locals, probably desendants of the slaves, called Gullahs, were selling their wares, out of little shacks on the side of the road .  At the end of the day, Matthew, the bicyclist I met, pulled into the campground, and joined us for dinner and a beer.  I grilled him with all kinds of questions and heard many stories about his travels all over the U S and Canada.



Georgetown, SC

My fire tower

"Chicken City"  Look closely and you can see the stores in the town!

"Very dry docked"

Sweet grass basket sellers.

My friend Matthew who is cycling around the country. 

     Oct 25 Today we walked all over downtown Charleston, did a boat tour out around Charleston Harbor and the island that Fort Sumpter is on. We had dinner at a sidewalk Cafe and drinks at a rooftop bar .
                                                     Views from our "cruise"


Fort Sumter

Bridge into Charleston



Add caption

Cruise ship that was in port.

Dock in front of USS Yorktown

 

USS Yorktown

Of course we do the cemetary tour......

Checking out the cannons at The Battery.

Flags in Charleston

 

      Oct 26  Today was spent at the Boone Hall Plantation, a beautiful place with a lot of history, including origional slave quarters.


     Oct 27 Saturday.  We sat tight today and rode out what is tropical storm Sandy.  We had a lot of rain all day and some wind, but the issue of concern is what it is going to do over the next 2 days on the Outer Banks, specifically, our trailer.