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.