I’ve slacked off on the weekly updates in favor of a more ad hoc approach this year. Now feels like a good time to catch people up on where I’ve been…
Mid-February I pulled out of Gainesville and went a whole 30 miles to Gold Branch State Park, which is about halfway between Gainesville and the coast. After been stationary for 2.5 months, I treated this as a shakedown cruise, struggling to remember hitching up then unhitching and setting up camp. tl;dr is that I figured it all out.
I made it to the coast on my next stop, a smaller park for smaller trailers, Little Talbot State Park. Great long stretch of beach (five miles!) and cool dead trees. The only sad bit was the weather and tides didn’t cooperate enough for me to get my kayak in the water.
Next up was literally up, as in “up the coast” to South Carolina and Hunting Island State Park. This was a return visit for me, and I loved that my favorite tree is still hanging on, despite last fall’s stormy weather.
The longest stop on my Coastal Tour is 30 days a bit further up the coast, near Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. I’m in the middle of that stretch now, and quite enjoying hanging out and seeing all the different moods of the beach and surf, given the variety of weather we’ve had this month.
Yesterday I road tripped down to Charleston sans trailer to enjoy the unlimited hot water of a hotel shower and, oh, yeah, a bit of city life. It’s a cool city and the architecture is fascinating. More puzzling is the significant amounts of Confederate statues and monuments. For someone not from the South, I still don’t get this love of the Confederacy. These were people who supported slavery of human beings; no monument or statue or building should commemorate ANY of that behavior. So you’ll not see any photos of that here. Instead, here’s a lovely sunset picture from my hotel room tonight.
Once you have traveled, the voyage never ends, but is played out over and over again in the quietest chambers. The mind can never break off from the journey.
Pat Conroy
Love Charlestown. Loved the tours. Loved ‘Husk’. The post script is perfect.
Thanks, Dan! Charleston is such a walkable city around the downtown/tourist area, I have quite enjoyed it. If you get back here, try Hominy Grits, good southern cooking in a casual setting.
Lovely “post script.” I enjoy the quotes.
Thanks, Jack! I have fun searching for the quotation that feels right for each post.