Day 12: October 21, Georgetown to Buck Hall Recreation Area

I woke up early, before anyone else, and spent the next hour or so quietly re-packing my bags. I had bought so much food at Walmart that it was going to be a tight fit.

Joe's mom made breakfast with scrambled eggs, bacon, and strawberry biscuits, which I had never had before but decided I really liked. ("They are just a pouch mix!" she said.) As it was a Sunday, they had Church stuff to do, but invited me to stay for lunch, as they were having a special chicken and rice with sausage dish (chicken perlo) that I had also never had before, but it looked (and was) really good.

I cleaned my chain, which I had been neglecting, and pumped up my tires. I was a little upset to find some rust spots on all of my links, and wondered if it was just something that was to be expected from living outside in a high humidity location which causes a layer of condensation to form on everything almost as soon as the sun sets, or if it was something that could have been prevented if I was using a different lube or if I cleaned my chain more often. I told myself that chains are relatively inexpensive, so I shouldn't beat myself up too bad over it. As it was, the spots were in a relatively cosmetic location (on the straight bits) and not in the parts that actually moved.

Lunch was at Joe's grandmother's house, who lived just around the corner. I rode on over so that I could leave from there. It was a really nice Southern meal, with biscuits made from scratch by his grandma and homemade apple butter to go with them, the chicken perlo, homemade mac ‘n cheese, beans, deviled eggs, and sweet tea.

I really didn't want to leave, but it was getting late (almost 2 pm already), so I finally said my goodbyes and got on the road. After not riding for a few days, my legs seemed particularly stiff. The backroads I took to get around the first section of 17 (before the next bridge) were absolutely fantastic. A guy in a truck had passed me a few times before stopping to ask me if I was lost or needed help. He offered to give me a ride to Charleston, as I was apparently doing a poor job of explaining that I was really looking forward to riding there through the Francis Marion National Forest. Once the mosquitoes found me and started attacking in earnest, he finally let me go.

Once back on 17, I was a bit irked by the fact that, despite there being almost no traffic, the few cars that did pass me seemed to pass me unnecessarily close (one SUV missing me by about a foot). I turned off at the very next road to follow signs for "BJ's," because they stated they welcomed bikers and hinted at a campsite nearby. I changed my mind a few miles up the road when I still hadn't reached it and turned onto a dirt road instead. According to my GPS, it went all the way through, and it seemed packed enough for me to be able to ride on, and I congratulated myself for finding a nice alternate route to get away from the rude Sunday drivers on 17. "I'll take this dirt road over 17 any day!" I told myself.

A mile or two in, the road turned to sand, and I fishtailed a few times before completely losing my balance. I tried to get back on to ride, but I just couldn't get going in the sand, and was forced to walk. After a while, the road hardened back up and I got back on. This pattern happened a lot over the next few miles. What should have taken me only an hour was now going to have me barely getting out by sunset. Not only that, but every time I was forced to walking, the mosquitoes literally formed a swarm and attacked anything that smelled remotely tasty: my bags were also covered in the little blood suckers. My bug spray did absolutely nothing, and I was cursing the position I was quickly finding myself in, as I got more and more desperate to get away from the things. I found a grassy clearing to one side that was clearly used as a road at one point and debated parking it there and setting up my hammock with my mosquito net to try to get out of their reach. Unfortunately, in my uncoordinated hurried desperation, my bike hit a little sand curb and tipped over, my leg scraping on the chain as I tried in vain to prevent it from going down.

Reaching a new low point, I abandoned my bike on the side of the road and walked in a wide circle for about 5 minutes screaming at no one in particular while slapping my whole body with my hat trying to keep the mosquitoes from landing on me, trying not to cry and thinking about what to do. I had about an hour and a half before sunset, I was still a good 5 miles from the next intersection on this horrid sand road, I was bleeding from where the chain cut me, and I was getting absolutely eaten alive and nothing I was doing was stopping them in the least. Finally I scraped up my last bit of resolve to get the hell out off of this stupid road, because if I didn't do it tonight I would have to do it first thing tomorrow. I begged and prayed for any stretch of hard packed dirt so I could get on and ride for a minute and let the wind sweep them off of me: the breeze made by riding was my only relief. A few trucks had passed me, and I secretly hoped they would stop and offer a lift. I was in fact desperate. Finally, one was going my way, so I moved over, but couldn't stop myself from doing the slapping dance as he was taking forever to pass me. He stopped and asked if I was OK. Well, NO! I did my best to sound civilized about my situation and he quickly hopped out and we threw my stuff in the back of his truck. We were literally running around to get everything in as fast as possible, the mosquitoes were so bad.

He told me that he had come out to go hunting, but he had given up as well. He had even tried to wear a mosquito net hat/face shield thing, because you couldn't even breathe without sucking them in. I told him why I was on this road in the first place, and he apologized for the rude drivers: "We normally pride ourselves on being bike friendly!" he said. I've been hearing this sentiment a lot from South Carolinians... I curiously asked him if he had noticed all of the swerving skid marks I had left in the sand patches: he had, but he thought it was something that was dragging off of the back of someone’s truck, but it was strange to him as they would come out of nowhere. I got a chuckle out of that.

He drove me to a campsite a good 10 miles down the road, and again I felt like I was cheating, but I reminded myself of the situation I was in not long before and got over it. I absolutely needed a hot shower now.

I got the last campsite in the back (I've come to find that at *least* 90% of all campsites are always taken by the "full timers" living there...) and they let me set up in the trees, even though the rules said I was supposed to be on the tent pad. I thought that was nice. There was a hook on a tall pole (at least 7 feet high) that I suppose was for a lantern: I thought it was a good substitute for bear bagging to keep those stupid raccoons out of my food, and wished all campsites came with such a pole. Not 2 minutes after I finished setting up and was about to head off for my shower, the camp host came by with all sorts of pity in his eyes that I haven’t seen since dealing with my landlord in Montana as I went through my divorce. (I didn't need pity then, and I certainly don't need it now.) He came to tell me of an empty tent that belonged to some guys at another site that they weren't using, and he would feel a lot better if I slept in there tonight.  I told him thanks, but I am plenty comfortable in my hammock, but if they are friendly people, I might go visit with them for a while after my shower.

The three guys at the campfire were pretty good company: they were all old buddies who get to come out for two weeks of the year and go camping and shrimping with each other and just have a dandy time. At least two of them were old war vets who still thought of themselves as hippies (although I wouldn't have called them that). They had every gadget that a modern kitchen would have under their canopy plus some: a mini fridge, chest freezer, ice maker, microwave, coffee maker, toaster... You name it: they had it! They also had a space heater inside of their tent. Yep, they were really roughing it. Haha!

They had a decent fire going, but I noticed the logs needed to be rotated but no one seemed to notice, so I took the poking rod they had and did it myself. They were all impressed and I explained that at home I did this a lot. I was now the designated fire person and that was my stick, the fire was my job. They joked that if I cooked them a good breakfast in the morning I could stay as long as I wanted.

Eventually I decided it was rather cold out and as they had an extra cot in their tent that night (one had gone to a wedding or something for a day or two), I would bunk down with them. A couple of dudes and a space heater in a tent should be better than me swinging in a hammock right by the water, right? My feet were pretty cold all night regardless. (I think it was because they were actually up against the side of the tent, which I didn't realize at the time.)