We parted ways and then I rode, rode North. I reached Moncks Corner where I picked up a one last supply from a friend and followed the town's main street toward Lake Moultrie which I imagined would make a good first destination. The street turned into a back highway, marked by the dots on my map as a scenic route shown snaked along the southwestern side of the Cooper river. That stretches from the Atlantic and goes inland bulging into two lakes that look as if God took one big fat water and pinched it in the middle, making one half Moultrie and the other half Marion.
Already I've realized I've taken far too much of South Carolina for granted. Following along the lake it has become apparent that what’s special here is to be found in the water. The river and lake duet are separated from the highway by a forest margin. A street sign in the road shoulder, with “Boat Landing” printed on it and underscored by a bold arrow, led me down the first sidetrack. At the end of the road I found a yard for parking and a dock extending out over deep blue water. A verdant fringe of a sort of lily pad wrapped around this piece of lake, the stems of the plants holding the platform above hovering over the water, each holding their own quivering spherical pool of water as they shook in the soft breeze. Across the broad stretch, trees in a dotted line poked out along the horizon budding up from somewhere within the shallows of the lake. Even beyond them the water extended farther until the raw green and brown forested land crept up. It was not something ordinary.
Boat landings are parceled out all along the border of the lake and my first campsite was made that night in the woods beside one. I set out all my things and was glad to find I had everything I needed. It was a peaceful night among the pines with the bugs chirping and cheeping from their hidden places on the branches while I chirped and cheeped out my own drowsy sounds until the dawn.
The colors of the rising sun behind the trees fell onto the eastward folds of the clouds above and the sky grew blue as I gathered my things. I dragged my bike out from the trees to the gravel road (with the persistent seeds of the ditch plants gleefully gripping to my socks and shoes) to go to the boat landing and see the reflection of the young sun's light begin its daily ride across the sky. I found an enclosed leg of the water surrounded by forest like a still and silent shrine. I watched a pair of birds hover over the middle of the water and dive in with an elegant plop, surfacing with a meal in the mouth and leaving dancing rings of water. And then everything would settle again, the water adopting the mirrored sheen of the gradient sky and bringing the lily pads to a contented stillness. All was silent again. With the landing behind me it wasn’t so hard to imagine the place had always been this way and always would be this way, left to its own devices to maintain its perpetual serenity.
Then I heard the rumble of an engine break the silence and a truck pulled into the lot. A man got out and also took a moment to simply be and observe. He was silent and just breathed and walked around the small border of the area. It was just past dawn. Only a salutation was given between us. Thinking back on it now I feel a little regret for having missed potential interaction with someone who has a like mind in such a peaceful space, but I suppose that is balanced by the want to observe and not disturb.
The day went on and I rode down most of the lake accesses I found along the way. As the evening approached I reached a town called Elloree. I stopped and checked my map on the side of the main street and then started forward a bit when a white truck pulled up and stopped by the curb and a lady in the passenger seat rolled her window half down and waved me over. I hobbled along with my bike and she asked me what I was doing and my name. The lady who was driving asked me where I planned on staying the night, and as I've noticed is so often the pattern in the world, one person decided to help another, and I was invited to stay at her lake house.
I took the bags and the front wheel off of my bike to fit it in the back of her truck and we left. Melissa drove, and Carmella was next to her. Marley, Melissa's daughter, was strapped to a kids’ seat behind Carmella and I sat in the seat beside her. Marley babbled away in her 2 ½ year old kid-speak and I listened to Melissa talk about how she had been in the navy and traveled around backpacking during her leaves and her experiences around Australia, Japan, Guam, America.
During the drive she told me how she'd left home at 15, had worked to support herself, keeping the worries of her mother at bay. Now, she earnestly admitted to me, that she had inherited that worrisome motherliness that she was never able to comprehend. She said that during her pregnancy she'd grown a feeling of such profound sympathy for others that she could physically feel the pain, hunger, or suffering she saw. Having life literally growing inside her somehow caused her to become more understanding of the things which threatened it to the point where she was directly affected and actually felt the consequences of others. And a change had come over her since. You could feel the compassionate glow about her.
Carmella was from New Jersey, had just moved from there and in her speech I could hear the Staten Island inflection, a stark contrast to the Carolina’s southern drawl. I met her at a significant time in her life, I think. The change in location and the obviously drastic change in atmosphere was understandably affecting her. Hers is a life of hopefulness and possibility. She turned to me and told me how she met a kid who was homeless and living on the street. She took him in and sheltered him, was a mother to him, and he went through school and is now traveling around in South America. Possibility. When a helping hand is lent it is inevitably returned.
When we arrived at the house I was introduced to Carmella's boyfriend (Melissa's brother), Lucas, and Melissa's husband, Eddy, who had both been fishing. Eddy and Melissa’s main home was in North Carolina and they had this house as a getaway. I was treated with love (and cannot adequately express my gratitude!) and with welcoming. I took a shower and brought my bags in, changed my clothes and all.
They took me to a restaurant and while we ate Eddy recommended some routes and areas for my trip on some maps they'd brought. He was originally from the Smoky mountain area where my final destination is set (final before the return trip at least) and knew very well all the details and intricacies of the area. I listened to his expansive knowledge of the range of it all: about the black bears, the elk, the fall colors and the seasons, verbal panoramas of the rivers and the valleys. We talked about the wilderness, and about the national parks, he told me about British Columbia and the other places he’d been.
All through this Marley colored with crayons in a book, occasionally either escaping to explore or putting food in her hair, babbling away in her secret code half-English all the time with a smile or a laugh and peering around with her inspecting blue eyes, occasionally looking my way and telling me something or other. “She’s telling you all about it, now.” Melissa would say.
Then Lucas told me about some of his escapades on bicycles while living in Houston. He'd once taken a trip 40 miles through Houston and other times when he was kid, just to ride the streets. He'd been living in Key West most recently and he told me about the other keys as well. “You could ride around that whole island ten times in a day, taking your time, stop to drink some beers with the fellas, and not even be tired, except maybe from the drinking,” he said.
When we'd gotten back they gave me my choice of the rooms, and let me rest and work on my photos (Melissa periodically peeking in to give me things she'd found that might be useful to me (98% deet bugspray!)) and then in the morning she made breakfast and we talked some more. They had been planning on taking me back to where they'd picked me up from on their way back home, but at some point since being picked up I lost the axle to my front wheel. Without this it wouldn't be possible to ride my bike. They were gracious enough to take me all the way back into Charleston to get the part and then we went and walked down market street through the booths. By the end Marley was exhausted and I carried her back to the truck where Eddy was waiting for us and we drove back up to Elloree. They dropped me off with parting goodbyes and directions. Then Melissa was double checking just to make sure I hadn't forgotten anything and handed me my sleeping pad. And then they were on their way and I was on mine.
Afterward I only rode another two miles or so before I found a nice swamp off the road a bit and decided to make camp there. At the moment I’m in a library at Saint Matthews, SC. I’ve got a bag of ginger snaps and I’m ready to eat.
You can see the rest of the pictures on facebook!
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