Day 25: Positively South Carolina
Distance: 92 miles (!)
Song of the Day: Bob Dylan — Positively 4th Street
8AM: Wake to streaked sunbeams on motel room’s windowblinds. Overslept; time to get moving. Position microwave ‘just so’ on bathroom floor to reach the only lonely outlet. Heat water in silicon cup, make oatmeal and mixed nuts breakfast with plain black coffee — last of our stash. Pack and leave the key on the bed with the door open, as instructed. U-turn on Carolina Drive to intercept US-220 South via Airport thru-way.
15 miles on plain North Carolina roads, I listen to Cracker. David Lowery is an inspiration to me, and apparently Blake Schwarzenbach as well who I suspect borrowed a few melodies for Jets to Brazil albums. David Lowery is playing Pensacola on approximate day we ride through; I hope to see it and scratch the alt-country itch I’ve developed and encourage during slow, tiresome stretches.
Hit South Carolina border and oblige Lizzie for a photo. My demented mind parodies Kanye West, ‘South Carolina Does. Not. Care about Road Pavement.’ It’s all scrap-gravel down here, loose under tires and endlessly bumpy. Cuts our speed by a third, leads Lizzie to revisit soliloquies about “ass jackhammer roads”, an unsavory term I tried to banish from the tour’s allowable vocabulary. (You can’t tread on freedom)
11:30AM: Only 25 miles down, the slower clip ratiocinated at 80% chopped up roads, 20% leg soreness. ‘Seven-Seven-Seventy-Five Miles to go… I wanna be sedated…’
1PM: Riverside pit stop for 2 clif bars, and the last of the trail mix. Stretch and keep pedaling, hit Route 912 with much better pavement but large logging trucks that rattle Lizzie as they fly by, spewing wood chips over our shoulder. They don’t phase me as much, I chalk up the difference to my heavier bike and packs.
2:30PM: Peeter into Darlington’s downtown district. Find it enchanting; could be the endorphin kick instead, but why not give township the benefit of the down? We lock up and walk into Jewel’s Deluxe Restaurant on busted legs, swing open the door saloon-style.
Eat three meals between the two of us: a grilled cheese with potato salad, a club sandwich, and a grilled chicken salad. Chat with a woman in blue summer blouse who works across the town square at the courthouse. Ten minutes later she spins back through the door, tells us “the deputy wants to see you before you leave. She’s waiting for you across the street, in the courthouse.” Okay, got it.
Champ chomp nibble, food goes down steadily but so many piles to vanquish; slurp slooorp sip three 22oz. unsweetened ice teas sucked in; we’ve managed to keep restaurant open far beyond 2PM closing time. ‘Take your time sweethearts’ says waitress who chuckles at us; ‘don’t worry about a thing’ says the owner, India Rogers. She can relate, breeds and shows prize horses and is no stranger to bolting down food and sleeping on motel cots. I try to pay; they won’t take my money. ‘Feeding you a warm lunch is the least we can do. Yall’re the ones tryin’ to bike 100 miles today.’
Don’t think about “deserving” a free lunch — it won’t get you anywhere — accept it, feel humbled, and find a way to express your genuine thankfulness. Use this experience when trouble hits you later.
South Carolinians — go to Jewel’s Deluxe Cafe. You won’t regret it.
About to leave — that’s right, we never saw the deputy. So we do; she pokes head from courthouse lobby as we slow mosey. We’re the first transcontinental bike tourers stopping to dabble in Darlington in recent years. I’m glad we’ve put it on the map as everyone stationed in the town is good-natured towards cyclists. Deputy Meyer advises Lizzie on roads out of town and asks if we need a direct line to her station in case of trouble. But we’re good, and floored by Darlington’s muster of encouragement — certainly when it comes from someone who can radio to roughly half the cars in the county, which the deputy attests are clued into her dispatch station.
I wander off to a nearby park to stretch, my only true focus is on biking 90+ miles and making it to Sumter to meet Russ, the next warm showers host, and his bulldog.
7PM: Final stretch into Sumter under stifling sun, boy-oy-oy-oy my right knee aches from the stress of eleven hour haul. We skirt beside the brick, chrome and sculpted concrete of the throwback town center, may storefronts shuttered but some lively, and tuck ourselves onto a bike lane into Russ’s neighborhood in south Sumter.
Meet Russ, Ara, and THREE dogs, only one of whom is the eighty pound bulldog, Butler. Everyone impressed by Lizzie’s three plate helping of pasta and salad. I drink two beers but feel like I could drink six. Better stick to two — tomorrow brings more biking and more unknown terrain to navigate. Before that, of course, I plan to spend a lot of time on the floor tussling with Russ’s dogs.
