Above Ground and Counting: Southern Exposure

January 2014

Holidays are about traditions. And no one clings to holiday traditions more desperately than lonely, childless uncles and aunts. That would be Anne and I. We have convinced ourselves that our visit is the highlight of the season. That remains to be seen. Regardless, we make our annual New Year's swing through the South and test the hospitality and patience of relatives from Virginia to the Carolinas. Like 2% milk, we have expiration dates. Our trips are carefully crafted in order to leave while we are still consumable … there is nothing worse than when a visiting aunt or uncle starts to "turn" … we spoil so easily.

That said, we headed south a few days before Xmas for our New Year's rendezvous in Simpsonville. Our goals … family … adventure … the ocean … and relaxation. On the down side would be about 2500 miles of driving. I will say this from the start, being a trip planner is a thankless task. When one plans thoroughly and efficiently, presenting a detailed spreadsheet of the ensuing trip to one's traveling companion(s), ridicule, rather than thanks, is generally the case. My spreadsheet of joy was a brilliant design … and much maligned as was I.

The worst thing about our visits to the South is getting there. Generally, it is a power drive … 8-17 straight hours of interstates. We are usually too intent on our final destination to divert for entertainment along the way. This time, however, we planned for stops in Roanoke and Asheville before reaching our Simpsonville destination.

We stopped for the first night in Lexington, VA and dined at the Southern Inn Restaurant. We wasted no time acclimating our palettes to Southern specialties … in this case, one of the best pecan pies I had ever tasted. We gauged our time the next morning to arrive at opening time in Roanoke at the Taubman Art Museum in the downtown area. The Taubman was beautifully designed … the building, a piece of art in and of itself. The Imagine Peace Exhibit of Yoko Ono, a wonderful children's' exploration area, and a photo exhibit on the Civil Rights Voter Registration Campaign as captured by 7 major photographers of the period made the visit well worth the time. The operative words for lunch were "hot" and "dog". Though our initial efforts for a dog at the Ole Mule Hot Dog Company were unsuccessful, we soon found a satisfactory replacement and enjoyed the first of many mandatory hot dogs for the trip.

The afternoon found us back on the road and on the way to Abingdon, VA to visit Anne's Uncle Jim and Aunt Peg before heading through the mountains to Asheville, NC in a heavy fog and rain. We arrived only to find that I had booked the hotel for the wrong nights and virtually all of Asheville (at least what we could afford) was booked. All but, the Mountaineer Inn! On first inspection, we surmised the Inn to be a West Virginia version of the Bates Motel, transplanted into the mountains of Western NC in the late 50's and preserved as such by some inexplicable time warp. It was a place to stay … we did survive … that is all I will say.

We decided the next morning to relocate to another hotel and once established, we headed to Chimney Rock near Bat Cave, NC. I admit … we were not in complete agreement about the wisdom of heading to a mountain park in a dense fog. I assured Anne that the rain would stop and the fog clear. It wasn't until we actually pulled into the parking lot at the top of the mountain that the fog lifted. Amazing.

The sign at the park entrance informed us that the elevator to the viewing area at the top was out of order. The stairways to the top were extensive and the views along the way were magnificent. We relished the exercise. However, Anne did mention later that there were 540 steps … but who's counting?

From Chimney Rock, we headed to Flat Rock, NC to see the Carl Sandburg Homestead and Museum. The Sandburg Homestead is a gorgeous setting. We toured the homestead and the goat operation that his wife established on site . The Sandburgs definitely lived a secluded and low-key lifestyle in Flat Rock. Interestingly, when Carl moved to the homestead very little renovation was done to the existing house other than to build bookshelves for his 17,000 volume book collection.

There was no use hanging around the Sandburg Homestead any further. We concluded our visit back in the Asheville area just kicking around town and enjoying the restaurant scene. We tried a tapas restaurant, Zambra, for dinner and a Cuban restaurant, Havana, for lunch. There are many more restaurants worth exploring in the area on another visit.

Next stop … Simpsonville, SC and Smokey, Kerri, Barrett, Quinn and Putter. Game On! By this, I mean the game was on … the football game … my cup runneth over. The Game was on in a broader sense as well. … our Xmas celebration … the New Year's Celebration with fireworks … and a hiking adventure for Quinn and I.

We wasted no time getting to the Xmas presents having contained ourselves until dinner was over. I love to do special wrapping, especially for the kids. For Quinn, I used doll faces, driftwood, artificial flowers and multiple layers of Saran Wrap to extend the time it took him to open his books about the prior three hiking adventures we had had.

I also created a present monster which could not be unwrapped. Instead, Barrett and Quinn had to reach inside the the monster's mouth and into it's stomach (I had wet the entryway for realism) to retrieve three small gifts that the monster had allegedly eaten.

Later, we also got a chance to see both kids in action with their new motor bike and 4-wheeler that they kept at granddad's house.

The next day, while dad watched the game and the girls shopped for stuff for the New Year's Eve celebration, Quinn and I went on our hike. This was the fourth of our hikes together. Each of the prior hikes had a theme. First, we were in search of dinosaurs … then Sasquatch. Next, was the Señor Citizen Hike and the story of Juan Exaggerito and his pal, Pe Pe Pantalones. This year, our hike was The Lone Stranger and Pronto in search of Black Fart. As usual, we had a great hike.

It was New Year's Eve and soon the party would begin. Decorations were hung throughout the house and the guys drove to Anderson to get just the right combination of fireworks. Naturally, we overdid it. We lit up the sky with sparkles and color and deafened anyone brave enough to come outside. We got lucky with a bomb going off prematurely without serious injury to anyone. Maybe we need to rethink the need for fireworks tradition.

We all struggled to stay awake until twelve, but somehow made it. Happy Birthday, 2014!

Like I said before, people, even or especially relatives, can only take so much of me. I mean "of Anne". It was time for us to move on. We drove to Batesburg, SC near Columbia and spent the night with my brother, Wayne, and his wife, Cheryl. This was a great time for us to analyze everyone in the family without the necessity to act upon any of our conclusions. I do believe that we were in agreement that I was the only normal one in the family and Wayne was the second-most normal. While there, we discovered that the Peachtree Inverted Triangle Rock had turned over … now, the Peachtree turned over rock … not exactly a tourist attraction anymore. Wayne and Cheryl took the news badly.

From Wayne's … next stop, the ocean. Thanks to the generosity of our friends, James and Lynn, we were able to stay at their cottage at Folly Beach. Unfortunately, we brought with us cold weather seldom seen in the Charleston area. It never occurred to me that water pipes might (and did) freeze at the beach.

For the most part, our time at Folly Beach was spent relaxing, walking the beach, collecting seashells, and enjoying the scenery … even if it was cold. We visited Lauren and Brittain in Mt. Pleasant to check out their new house and went out to dinner with them at a new, local restaurant. We bought fresh shrimp and oysters and cooked them at the cottage. Mitch joined us for the weekend. A friend of Mitch's lived nearby and we joined them for dinner one night. Several of the group were musicians and sang and played for several hours. It is somewhat of a shock to realize one is a senior citizen and that his nephew feels the need to walk him back to the cottage at 11:00 PM and then return to the party. Unless of course, Mitch was only worried about Anne. We were pleasantly surprised to find out that there was a recycling program on Folly as well as a oyster shell recycling program on James Island.

While we were at Folly, we took the opportunity to take in a few other sights. One the we enjoyed a lot was visiting the USS Yorktown at Patriot's Point in Mt. Pleasant as well as the submarine also docked there. The Yorktown was amazingly large and the submarine was amazingly small. Other exhibits included various aircraft, a prisoner -of-war exhibit, space capsules, and more. Lots to see.