(In the gardens of the Heywood-Washington Mansion in Charleston, South Carolina)
Spring break of 2004 saw me do exactly what one is primarily intended to do—flee the winter doldrums of the northeast to bask in the more genial temperatures of the South. And how marvelously pleasurable our rambles turned out to be! Several latitudes below Connecticut, spring had already burst in with customary gusto and Nature wore the palest pastel shades of the season. Allees of ornamental pear trees bloomed in quietest whites, soft pinks of magnolia blossoms, palest yellows in exuberant daffodils and baby blue in hyacinth fronds fought for our attention in Southern gardens. With Chriselle and me sharing three-hourly stints behind the wheel of our Subaru Outback and Menaka, my niece, a doctoral student at Boston University, bringing up the rear, we left Southport at the crack of dawn to launch out on a tour of the South Atlantic states that will forever remain indelible. Dodging peak-hour traffic adroitly as we edged around metropolitan cities such as New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington DC, our car gobbled up the miles and entering the vast expanses of Virginia, we passed through barren tobacco fields and big tobacco factories (Phillip Morris), with its appropriately fuming smoke-stacks–once the mainstay of Colonial economy—as we arrived in the capital city of South Carolina, Columbia, which was to be the first stop on our travels.
From Columbia, we made our way south, stopping frequently either to visit relatives (we saw some in Gilbert, South Carolina) or to explore cities steeped in Southern gentility such as Savannah, Beaufort and Charleston. In the heart of the Gullah (“Low Country”), we passed by cotton fields (as in the old negro spirituals), tidal marshes full of wispy reeds and roadside shacks selling peach cider and bags of pecans. On Hilton Head Island, we rented bikes to explore the haven that wealthy retirees now call home year-round, at Myrtle Beach we frolicked with cheerful visitors at an Irish pub on St. Paddy’s Day, at Raleigh we toured the stately homes and gardens of the historic district and ended our travels in the Blue Ridge Mountains of the Shenandoah Valley among herds of deer who seemed indignant that we tresspassed in the national park out of season!
Traffic did assault us on our way home, in the Washington-Baltimore corridor, where we were delayed for a couple of hours in peak evening rush. When we did eventually get back home after fifteen hours of driving, we were exhausted, not just physically but intellectually and visually as well for our travels had exposed us to a wealth of history and culture and to a region that is unique. We became accustomed to having our questions answered by locals with “Yes, M’am”, or “No M’am” and were actually called “Yankees” once by a waitress in a Waffle House where pecans were the favorite ingredient. Overall, Chriselle and I drove through 2, 725 miles (yes, that is 2,725 miles, almost double the distance that Llew had driven in Ireland). Yet, we’re convinced that driving tours are simply the best way to travel for there is so much ground one can cover (literally and figuratively) through such trips. How wonderful, I thought, to live in the United States, where the vastness of this country gives each portion its distinctive “regionalism”. The South was strongly reminiscent of Mediterranean Europe and in soaking it up to the point of saturation, we were left with memories of a truly marvelous time.
Do browse through the individual pages for more information on each venue and to follow us on our Tour of the South. Please join us now in exploring Columbia, South Carolina.