Greg & Camille Go Bike

We woke up a bit after dawn and it actually felt pretty comfortable outside. We packed up camp and explored the state park a bit on the way out, stopping at: the beach to see a cloud covered sun low on horizon over the water; Atalaya, the Moorish style castle built in the park; and the causeway through the swamp. The causeway in particular was beautiful with lots of birds active and a handful of photographers with SLRs all trying to snap interesting shots.

The ride to breakfast was on nice, low stress off-road paths and after only a half-dozen miles we were at our destination, Bagel Cafe. We snacked on a couple breakfast sandwiches and coffee. While we were eating, an older couple stopped by and asked about our trip. Small world, but she was originally from Wilmington, Delaware. He was a fellow cyclist and had loved biking around the Chadds Ford area. He was originally from the Netherlands and had worked for Dupont. He moved to Delaware for work and that's how they'd met. They seemed excited about our trip and about the interesting coincidence. It was such a satisfying encounter and a great start to the day.

Continuing on, we were on some side roads for a bit but pretty quickly it turned into more stressful, narrow shoulders on route 17. We followed it for maybe a dozen miles until crossing an especially windy bridge into Georgetown. Georgetown itself seemed pretty cute and we stopped for another quick coffee break. While crossing another bridge on the way out of town, Camille rolled over some debris and to pick up her 4th flat of the trip. She fixed it up just before the rain started to sprinkle down.

After another half mile on route 17, we turned off onto rural back roads. As we travele farther on these roads, we started seeing fewer and fewer signs of human habitation and most exciting, less traffic. We passed maybe a half dozen vehicles over one 45 minute stretch. The scenery was predominantly forest with trees overhanging the road, often with a nice coating of Spanish moss. Occasionally the forest gave way to swampier scenes and there were several old, picturesque plantations interspersed throughout.

Eventually, we were forced to turn back onto route 17. Thankfully, we were now in the Frances Marion National Forest. There were nice wide shoulders and much lower levels of traffic. We tried to invent a detour at one point, but unsurfaced roads and a pack of 4 dogs chased us back onto the shoulder of the highway.

We stopped one more time before our destination for groceries. Here, a woman in the parking lot came up to us and handed us a few crumpled dollars. We tried to protest but she insisted placing them on the surface next to us before walking way. The encounter was really confusing for us. Did she think that we were homeless/needy or was just trying to be supportive of our adventure in whatever way she could?

We arrived at the campground at Nature Adventure Outfitters around 4 pm, with roughly an hour until sunset. The bathrooms/showers were roughly a quarter to half mile from the sites so we stopped off to shower before heading to the site. Having not showered the night before, it was pretty satisfying. Just as the sun was setting, we biked down to our sites to enjoy a breathtaking view of the marshlands. After a quick dinner of tuna and cous-cous, we settled in for the night.