Backwoods South Carolina

After we left Webb at his Hilton Head home the day slipped gradually but inexorably into muddle and chaos. We paused to find our way to a campsite Layne had found on the Harvest Host website. 

Apparently outside Kingstree South Carolina there is a farm and a farm store where you can buy local products and spend the night for free on the farm. Typical Harvest Host offerings give RVers the chance to spend a free night at a small business with the idea being you buy some of their products to pay them back for giving you a space to park overnight. We’ve done it dozens of times. Eventually the system had to fail us. 

I created a two part route to allow for a little I-95 to get us away from Hilton Head followed by two hours of cross country driving to enjoy the backroads. And naturally we dawdled. As we rolled along an empty road at fifty miles per hour I saw a sign to a monument. My first instinct which carried us a quarter mile past the turn was to press on. My second instinct was to find a u-turn and go back. Isn’t this why we take the backroads in the first place? 

Anderson Field is remembered in part for a group of Tuskegee Airmen, pioneer black pilots, who trained for combat in World War Two  here, after the initial group in Alabama proved their worth to some of their white critics.  

A 1995 movie of that name starring Lawrence Fishburne brought this story to life in 1995 and in 1997 by pure coincidence I’m sure, the city of Colleton, South Carolina permitted this monument. The main statue is missing from its plinth for reasons not stated but there is an informative billboard at the rather drab unloved site. 

Our journey across South Carolina left us a bit behind schedule as our pace slowed through small towns, wrecked immobile homes and heaps of roadside trash. I still thought to myself better we travel this slice of life than face the harrying freeway in a slow van. 

We had another slight problem in that I wanted to empty our loo. We weren’t critically full but I like to keep ahead of the head filling up. So when we saw a sign to a boat ramp or a trail head or similar I pulled off the highway and went searching. In many states such places have vault toilets perfect for responsible portapotty dumping. Not South Carolina. Not only are the highways made out of petrified rocky road ice cream, the state which hates fresh pavement is also reluctant to offer roadside picnic areas, rest stops, parks, trails or other public spaces. It’s on a par with Mississippi, the worst of all. I was missing Florida’s smooth roads and hundreds of public open spaces equipped with vault toilets. 

We paused for a dog walk or two, and of course the afternoon crept on though eventually we found Vicki’s country store just as dusk was settling over the land. Layne went in eager to peruse the produce and spices and jams that make up her van life shopping sprees. After I walked Rusty I joined her. Boy they still allow smoking in food stores in the Palmetto State?

Down to the crossroads they said and turn left. You’ll see the farm. Easy peasy. Too easy if you think about it. Layne found the farm  address on Google maps and with that the last of our cell service faded to dark. Like the light outside. We found a sign for the farm and a mailbox with their street number, 1284 Sam Browne Road, and when we turned in we met a large black dog playing through the fence with a lonely large black horse all by itself in a paddock. 

I stopped and went to knock on the door of the house. There was a collection of blankets on the porch as a form of dog bed and a pile of cigarette butts on the table and no answer from the lighted home within. Rusty was frantic to get out and meet the black dog and as much as I indulge his every whim this didn’t seem to be the time nor place. 

“Shall we press on?” I said pointing down the dirt track. 

“On private property?”my wife said, her tone clearly identifying the idiot in the family. Just then headlights came down the track. Saved! They will know…I edged GANNET2 to one side and the car… whooshed straight on by. We gave up. As you can see on the iOverlander map below Kingstree is in the middle of the abomination of desolation when it comes to overnight options represented by the various green discs on the map.

We actually handled it well. Luckily iOverlander works  offline, to some extent, and I figured a route to coastal Georgetown which got us online and back on Google maps. Walmart was not our first choice of overnight spots but in this case we were quite happy to park behind the garden center and fall asleep in total ambient silence. Morning brought rain of course: 

There was a time when not finding our planned spot might have made us sweat. This change of plan was easy especially as it gets dark at 5:20 around here and we had lots of time to regroup! We usually have a back up spot in mind if our hoped for sleeping spot doesn’t work out. This time we had to make it up on the fly and we did without losing our minds or our tempers. In a van there is no one else to blame and that can make close quarters living awkward.  

Up next: the plan is for a quiet night at Cracker Barrel in Wilmington North Carolina on our way to the Outer Banks and our rental house on Ocracoke. The Carolinas shock -horror-drama of no state parks or free dispersed wilderness camping may continue!