May 19, 2008
Day 7: Givhans Ferry State Park, SC to Andrews, SC
69.24 miles, 5:26:47 Ride Time, 12.71 Average Speed, 25.3 Maximum Speed
Slept well in the tent until about 4:00, when I was awakened by a man's voice: "Fred! Fred! Fred!" I was groggily wondering who Fred was, and why someone would be calling to him outside my tent, when the man started whistling. OK - apparently Fred was a dog who had escaped his master's campsite last night. That mystery solved, I slept for another hour, then got up in the dark and started packing everything. I had left a couple of empty panniers outside on the picnic table, and they, along with my bike, were covered with dew. I suppose I need to start bringing everything into the tent with me (except of course for the bike, which wouldn't fit, and any food, which would attract the dreaded raccoons).
I got everything together, and was riding out of the campground at dawn, only to find a locked gate when I reached the boundary of the park. I was able to walk the bike around one end of the gate and get back on County Road 19, where I rode five or six cool, shady miles to Ridgeville (pop. 1690). (This was the coolest morning yet, and I wore my arm warmers for the first time on the trip).
The only breakfast option in Ridgeville was a gas station, where I got a sausage-biscuit, chocolate milk (quickly becoming an addiction on this trip), Gatorade, and Little Debbie apple pie. Estimated calories: 1200. Oh well - I would probably burn that off in about 25 miles. Of course, there was no place to sit inside and eat, so I stood outside the front door by the bike and wolfed it all down, while the locals streamed in and out of the place. Many of the people I saw were wearing uniforms labelled "Corrections Officer", so I guess this was another little town where a prison was a major employer.
After another twelve or thirteen miles on quiet backroads, I stopped at a little store at the intersection of US 176 and Black Tom Road, where I took off the arm warmers and applied sunblock. While I stood around for a few minutes, Robert, from yesterday, rode up. He had made good time (or I had made lousy time), since his tent was still up when I had left the campground.
Robert and I decided to ride together today, but I did warn him that it was my habit to stop and photograph anything that was even mildly amusing.
The next twenty miles took us into the sprawl surrounding the town of Monck's Corner (pop. 5,592); traffic was heavy, so it was a relief to reach a long stretch on the much quieter Witherbee Road, where we we had a pleasant ride through a national forest. Around noon, we made an unplanned stop in the little town of Bethera. Our maps showed that there was only a post office there, but in fact there was also a nice well-stocked country store - the nicest country store I'd seen in the last week, in fact. I'd grown a little weary of all the little stores in the last couple of days that seemed to mostly stock cheap, large cans of beer and malt liquor - they were kind of depressing. This place had barbeque sandwhiches, and a nice, clean area to sit down and eat. I did have some barbeque, along with the now obligatory chocolate milk.
The twenty five miles to Andrews was marred by some heavy truck traffic, but it wasn't horrible - all but a few gave us plenty of room. What had gotten bad by now was the heat - it had to be in the high eighties - so I abandoned as unrealistic an earlier plan to ride another 60 miles to Conway - I didn't have a 130-mile day in me today.
We arrived in Andrews (claim to fame: Home of Chubby Checker; population: 3,068) to find the one motel: The Colonial. It was a typical small-town motel that had fallen into a state of disrepair. I've stayed in lots of these kinds of places, but here I did see something for the first time: Some sort of food preparation was being performed in the parking lot outside the office - chiles (I think) and other stuff was drying on bedsheets lying in the parking lot. I took a photo, so maybe a reader of this journal can identify what's being done; the owner was evasive when I asked him about it later. Speaking of the owner, I could never establish a rapport with him; he was a totally humorless older man who wouldn't negotiate the price of our rooms at all (and these guys usually do, at least a little). Also, he flatly denied that the motel had WiFi, even though my WiFi detector showed it; it was a secured network, not open to the public, OK, but don't lie to me and tell me it doesn't exist at all. Later, as I tried, and failed, to guess the password to his network, I entertained myself with idle fantasies of turning the guy into the local board of health, for the crime of preparing food out on the ground of the unsanitary parking lot.
Before giving up and checking into the Colonial, Robert and I rode to the other end of town looking in vain for another motel; we didn't find one, but we did meet three other touring cyclists, going the opposite direction. One of them was the third guy I've seen in the last week touring with a single speed - and this was one huge gear. He had somehow ridden this thing all the way from Brooklyn, NY, including the super-hilly section through Pennsylvania! To his credit, his answer to my "Did you have to walk the bike up any hills?" was an immediate "Oh Yeah!"
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Today's ride: 69 miles (111 km)
Total: 490 miles (789 km)
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