Past Adventure #4: Mist and Fog

I have patched in a few stories because for about a three month period, I did not write in my previous blog and they are, as Kerouac wrote in 1951, "too great not to tell." After I finish this last tale, I will chase many more new stories.
The Gulf of Mexico began pumping heat and thrusting it northward. It was sultry and warm in Charleston for about four days. Instead of high 50s at night it was 70s. As I awoke to this balmy weather last  Monday morning, I thought to myself, "what perfect weather for the beach!" And so I did something last week that I have never done before: I bicycled all the way from my house to Folly Beach. This was about twenty-five miles. The ride to downtown wasn't anything special. I've done it so many times before. Riding my bicycle through downtown was really neat. Downtown and James Island -- the island of my childhood -- I will never tire of. Next came the James Island Connector. It was marvelous. The sun was all on the water. Even the smallest altitude is thrilling. The Connector drops down low and you ride through a forest in the sky. What I remember the most was the sunlight. The sunlight illuminated all of what seemed to be a rapid memory-journey through my childhood, seeing all the scenes of James Island from the sky, on a bridge that didn't exist when I was born.
The traffic on James Island was terrible as always, but soon, I began to smell beach and knew I was close. There are three bridges on the way to Folly Beach. The concrete seas were rough and bumpy, because they were such old roads. I sailed on it regardless, though smooth sailing it was not. After the second bridge, I dropped anchor and surveyed the landscape. A crew building a deck saw me pull out my keen sea-telescope, placing my left leg on the bridge rail for stability. To the west I saw palmettos in the great distance, tidal islands in the marsh, and a great fog thrown up by the humid air rolling in from the south. My favorite part of the beach was always the marshlands that extend beyond the horizon in both directions, and now I am seeing it in the best way possible: fifteen mph and no windows. My mind keeps coming back to those veiling vapors, vapors that will always lend an intrepid mystery to a land. Where mists in the mountains shroud great summits, fog in the inlet marshes hide pirate treasure. The only way to see the next few hundred feet of the marsh is to get up close. I think another muse of mine will soon be the canoe. But now, my ship sails the pavement. It has taken me many places, and will continue to do so.

Past Adventure #3: Swamp Short

I usually take a thirty-mile loop to get my fill of swamp-grass, perpetually-earth-toned trees, water, and waving grains in the lateday sun. I discovered the beginning and end of it contain the majority of these (begining from US 52 onto State Road S-8-43 and ending on US 52 coming out of Goose Creek), and one day, I decided to do only these parts. It was short, the water was deep blue, and it gave me those chills that the song Walls Of Time brings to me upon seeing swamp trees in early or lateday sunlight. I one day will take a canoe out to these waters, they are haunting and hold some tantalizing burnt-umber mysteries.

Past Adventure #2: "Promised Land"

This was what I whispered to myself as I began bicycling down Bushy Park road, seeing the dual boat-landings and power lines aligned in the distance open up to my view. It had been a seemingly infinite period of time since I last came here and tore away the soles from my old shoes that saw me through the mountains last year. Red Bank Road has always been just something to get through. It gets promising at the boat landing and gets more golden all the way through Strawberry. The wild growth to the side of the road was strong as before, and the air was just right. The road was rough and unsmooth, but so was I. I remember not having as much stamina though. I was tired by the end of Old US Fifty-Two, where the bridge passes over the rails stretching onward to Florence. I just looked up and down the tracks from the bridge countless times, resting. I then did something unprecedented:
I got off my bicycle and walked

This tiny road ending in a loop off of the main road, partly paved, partly dirt and gravel. I remember the sunshine. It was special and all for me. Open and green, but also small and intimate. I saw a brook of a stream, and you can imagine how much this delighted me. Just like the railroad tracks, you can't exactly find the beginning of the stream.
I really ought to put some more wear in my leather than in my rubber from time to time.

Past Adventure #1: Onwards To Magic City

After the blue car was damaged from its drive in the mountains, I often found myself taking the train to Florence, Carolina. I first bicyled to Florence on _______ . In total, it was a fifty-five mile journey from Moncks Corner to Olanta. The best part was is that it wasn't an ordeal at all. It was slow, warm, and enjoyable. All I remember seeing is a field over the first bridge out of St. Stephen and the railroad tracks stretch onward. I did thirty miles from Moncks Corner to US 521/US 52 and relaxed for two hours at a fuel stop, eating fried chicken and watching 'O Brother, Where Art Thou?'

The next half of the trip is what will from here on out be known as the Barren Land, where your camelbak runs out of water, and all there is to eat is cotton. The only water comes from the swamps and the spigots of church buildings. There are no towns for landmarks, only passing highways. Sumter highway, Turbeville highway, New Salem highway. Once Burnt Branch road became Park road, Olanta snuck up on me. It came about eight miles sooner than I had expected. I was amped! I just kept going, for all of four miles. I felt like an arrow that could shoot out all the way. I stopped in a field by a row of small trees lining a long driveway to a house and laid in the grass with all my sweat and bicycle helmet. I felt like victory. I imagined being approached by a law officer and saying to him "aaah, yes, you aren't used to my kind are you? I'm one of the few left" "I'm sorry, son, what are you getting at??" "The tramp or transient, you know. I know most people prefer to drive, but I like to do it my way" "Well, what you doin' laying around, this is someone's property" "When drivers need to rest from driving, don't they pull off the side of the road until they are ready to get on again? I'm doing the same thing, 'cept I don't go by car, I go by bicycle. Surely I am not trespassing any more than a tired driver is" "Don't let me see you still here in thirty minutes" "Can't promise nothin' sir, I just gotta listen to my muscles and go when they are ready and rested." But I mainly enjoyed what was left of my chicken and dinner roll, singing some songs from the movie. You always think about these things though. I got picked up as agreed and wheeled in to Magic City, happy and chattering all the way. Soon I will travel all ninety-five miles

Leather On Rubber - One Thousand Miles Out Of Arden

A leather-rubber tramp is much like any other tramp: Traveling over great distances, often for extended periods of time, abstaining from normal, long-term labor and thus remaining aloof from mainstream society. What makes this subspecies of transient peculiar is his mode of movement: bicycle. A leather tramp sees America by virtue of the sole of his shoe, often traversing shoe-tearing terrain, hence the adjective leather. Where a normal person can wear down a regular pair of shoes in about a year, a leather tramp will have gone through many more by then. A rubber tramp sees America by virtue of his gas tank, be it motorcycle, car, or even moped. Though a leather tramp may hitch-hike, he does not go through the arduous task of replacing tire after tire (of course much more frequently than the city commuter), thus the distinction between those traveling on leather shoe sole and those traveling on rubber tires. Now a leather-rubber tramp naturally calls upon on both to see his way. He needs his leather shoes to pedal, and he needs the rubber bike tires to carry him forward. He wears them both out considerably. His fuel is not gas, but water and the sunshine -- he is a creature of light. He wears a massive tan and a rugged unhandselled countenance. His vital heat is indefatigable. He may wear a bandanna. His shoes have holes in them. He knows not about studying life, he is too busy living it to heed the theory thereof.

The Legend

~ Three-Hundred and Sixty-Five days ago, I got a new bicycle. This bicycle was forged out of the memories of my time in the mountains. It is an eighteen-speed Motiv, the frame of which was taken out of a junk heap and put together, using spare parts, into a functioning bicycle by a retired man in Arden, NC: David Dunbar. This bicycle cost me nothing, but gave me everything beautiful. It brought me down from Arden, through Salem, Clemson, Ninety Six, and down to Orangeburg. Since this Frankenstein Two-Wheeler arose and went forth, it has seen hundreds of miles. The rubber thereof has seared on the asphalt of Strawberry, Carolina, rested in the grasses of the US 52/US 78 split, leading to two of the twelve corners of North America, rambled up through the Barren Land that will always stand along the way to the Magic City, pushed onward even to Edisto. I have only woven a portion of the tapestry, many patches I will weave in now, though a manly weave is always left a bit rugged.