Pinkie and I are officially on the road to Oregon. We bought a travel trailer last year and since I survived the very same last year we decided to take a slow trip to Oregon. We left yesterday from Havana and spent last night in Darien GA. We had some tense minutes yesterday evening as we were under a Severe Thunderstorm Warning. The impressive front fizzled before it reached us, but as we traveled the roads today the evidence of its passing were numbers of downed trees along the roadway. We are just south of Charleston and we arrived early today. We loaded up in the truck and drove into downtown Charleston out to the Fort Sumter Memorial building. It's next door to the SC Aquarium and both sites are fronted by Liberty Square. It's an ironic name for the place where hundreds of thousands of African slaves were bought and sold. We could see Ft. Sumter far off in the distance. It made Civil War era artillery a little more understandable. Finding our way back through the streets of Charleston proved a challenge.
We were on Calhoun Street and I first noticed a large gathering of people. Then I saw the name of the church they were assembled in front of...Emanuel AME Church...a day and a year after the shooting of nine people. Sobering day reflecting on history past and present.
Tomorrow we will be on the coast of NC. We will spend 5 nights at Kitty Hawk before we strike out for MD. Both Kitty Hawk and Maryland stops are to visit with Pinkie's family. We'll leave MD on July 5th and point towards South Bend IN to see my Aunt and Uncle. She's the last of the Aunts on my Dad's side and it has been too many years since I last saw them.
We're taking our time to get to Oregon. Our plan is to stay off Interstates and max out at 55 mph. So far the plan is working. I'll send some posts along the way. I'm going fishing in a little while. There's a catch and release pond here and no license required. How could I not?
I went out on the beach yesterday morning to cast a while. We had thunderstorms Wed. night and a few that crossed the island yesterday (more on those later). The surf has been beaten down from the constant west wind so fishing was a cinch. Catching has been another story. Zillions of tiny bait fish working the shore break had me optimistic about my chance to get a tug on the line. The sun coming up in front of me and thunderstorms rolling up behind me made for a good start in spite of no bites.
Absolutely stunning pictures!