Final Dog Days of Bike Tour

On Thursday, we biked 31 miles to the Charleston Tea Plantation, the only place in North America to grow and process tea. Since I am a tea aficionado, I really enjoyed the indoor and outdoor tours and bought some souvenirs. (Lauren Pressley: I thought of you while we were there!) Bill is a coffee guy, so he choose to do an extra loop to the waterfront while we were on tour. One of the highlights on the ride was the Angel Oak, a live oak tree rumored by the natives to be 1400 years old. We heard a story that the Spoleto Festival held a ballet on flooring placed under the tree a couple of years ago and two yellow snakes, caught enthusiastically mating in the branches, fell to the floor on top of the dancers! Above is a picture of the Angel Oak. On Thursday night we had dinner at High Cotton, one of the best restaurants in Charleston.

On Friday, the trip came to an exciting conclusion. We only biked 22 miles but we had all kinds of dog encounters, the most exciting of which was when a pretty little black lab mix ran alongside our bikes for THREE MILES. She wouldn't go home, no matter what we did. She was even bowled over by a pit bull on the way and was even more determined after that to stay by the nice bikers she decided to adopt. We finally stopped and called our van support, asking them to take the dog back to where we found it. They couldn't find anyone who knew the dog and left it with some people who said they would take care of it but when we checked later we found that the real owner came looking for her and so the story ended happily. We almost had a sister for Salem and Homer! In all the excitement, I forgot to take a picture of the dog, but here is a picture of two nice horses with whom we shared an apple.

We had lunch at the Caw Caw Interpretive Center and then returned to the Charleston hotel where we left our car last Saturday and drove home. It was a great trip and I highly recommend Carolina Tailwinds to everyone!

Day Off in Charleston

Wednesday was our "free" day on the tour, which came at a good time so we could rest our seats and do something different. Bill chose to run 11 miles over the Ravenal Bridge, something he had always wanted to do but we could never make it down to the annual Cooper River Bridge Run. He arranged for a pick-up on Sullivan's Island so he wouldn't have to run back!


I chose to play tourist (along with about 10,000 other people in town) and walk through a couple of historic homes. As many times as I've been in Charleston, I've never taken the time to take a house and garden tour. The first one was the Nathaniel Russel House, lovingly restored in all its grandeur to the time of its original owners in the early 1800's.







The second house was the Calhoun Mansion, also dramatically restored after being condemned by the city in the early 1970's. The current owner still lives there and in fact was in his study working while our tour group tramped through his house. He must be rather eccentric, as he crammed the house full of 23 truckloads of antiques from all time periods and all styles: Egyptian, Chinese, Native American, European, etc, topped off by a taxidermy collection of exotic animals. The tour guide said that the most common reaction upon opening the front door is Oh My God. She wasn't kidding. Now I understand why the Historic Charleston Foundation declines to list it on its site.

The final house I visited was the Aiken-Rhett House, which in contrast to the other two was in a state of conservation, rather than restoration. It was purposely left in a state of decay, showing (literally) all layers of the family that lived there from 1817 to 1975. It does a good job at showing how slaves lived in these high society Charleston town houses. This is an image of the stable behind the house.

So after all this touring of historical homes, I was as tired as if if I had ridden a bike all day. Our group celebrated our day off with a Happy Hour on the rooftop terrace and then Bill and I had a dinner on our own at Fish. Truly, it is impossible to have a bad meal in this town!

Tuesday in the ACE Basin

Today was by far the best cycling day. We returned to the ACE Basin (Ashepoo, Combahee and Edisto river watershed). The route was simple, 16 miles out and 16 miles back of low traffic, shady pine trees arching overhead, punctuated with rice plantations, salt marsh, and alligator-laden ponds. See if you can spot the alligator at the bottom of the picture.

We had lunch at the National Estuarine Research Center, where a biologist gave a talk on the ecology of the area. One of our guides is a biologist herself and knows absolutely every tree, flower, bird and mammal in the area. Here is a picture of me on the banks of the Ashepoo River. On the way back, temperatures reached 88 degrees, so we were hot and tired at the end.

After biking, we shuttled into Charleston and checked into the Ansonborough Inn. OMG. What a gorgeous place. There are five pieces of original art in our bathroom! I will never stay at another hotel when I am in Charleston. We had a fabulous dinner at Magnolias and called it a night (except for blogging and email, that is).

Beaufort, South Carolina

We had a full day today. Up at 6:15, on the road at 7:15 for a bike tour of beautiful downtown Beaufort, SC. There is more money in this town than our beloved Beaufort, NC: bigger houses, and more of them, but not as many boats or docks. The live oak and Spanish moss give it a magical feel. We saw the house and the green where they filmed the tag football scene in The Big Chill. We saw plenty of evidence of social stratification (like this house for sale), which made me think of the South Course with Earl and Angie.

After a huge breakfast, we biked to the Penn Center, where freed slaves were educated by Northern missionaries, and we learned a little about the Gullah language. Then we biked about 25 miles to Hunting Island State Park, truly the most beautiful state park any of us had ever seen. After lunch, Bill put his toes in the ocean but at 66 degrees, it was too cold even for him.


Then we took a 2 hour eco-kayak tour of a salt marsh lagoon, complete with a hike over to the beach where there was serious erosion. At 5:00 we were all pooped and shuttled back to the Inn, where we swapped stories at Happy Hour and then headed off to a light dinner on our own. Watching the NCAA right now. Go Butler!

South Carolina Low Country Bike Trip

Bill and I are taking a lovely spring vacation on the Carolina Tailwinds Low Country bike tour. We arrived on Saturday evening, just in time to get our bikes fitted and then headed to downtown Charleston where we had a drink watching Butler beat Michigan State (yay) and then went to the Easter Vigil service at the Cathedral Church of St Luke and St. Paul. One hour forty five minutes including Confirmation surely makes up for the fact that we are missing Easter service on Sunday!

On Sunday morning, we left Charleston and shuttled to a convenient put-in point where we road through Forrest Gump territory in the ACE Basin outside of Charleston. Here is a picture of the "Run Forrest Run" lane of trees overhead. We also passed "Bubba's Shed" and Forrest and Jenny's tree. The countryside is quite beautiful with live oak trees arching overhead with Spanish Moss and wisteria that just came into bloom.

I did a leisurely 30 miles before lunch and Bill took an extra loop for 39 miles. After lunch, we shuttled into the beautiful town of Beaufort, SC (that is byoo-furt, as opposed to the North Carolina town of Bow-furt, which we love beyond all other and where we hope to retire some day). The similarities between the two ante-bellum harbor towns are amazing, with many street names the same. We are looking forward to exploring the town in the next couple of days.