Wilmington to Yemassee, SC Sept. 22-27, 2021

After two rain days in Wilmington, NC Jay decided to put in at least 70 miles a day while the weather was favorable. We continue to head SSW along the coast. Jay cycled the last bit of the Outer Banks passing through Kure Beach, NC catching the ferry to Southport to continue the ride on the mainland.

It’s now offseason so the normally bustling summer towns of Myrtle Beach and Surf City were at the start of the winter ghost town cycle. Jay’s bike maps now took him off the shoreline through long stretches of idyllic tree covered roads as well as hazardous miles on busy highways without any shoulders.  

Our roads are still planned by car-centric engineers. In a few places where the very narrowest strip of asphalt extended beyond the roadway that would provide some biker safety, the North and South Carolina Departments of Transportation opted to rumple strip that bike accessible real estate. Car safety is important, but riding with cars zooming past just three feet away at 60 miles per

Steeple w/ wind vane instead of cross

hour is a white-knuckle experience. One needs to accept the tradeoffs from pedaling down beach roads to gliding under Spanish moss trees on the deep back country roads of the Carolinas.

After Jay resumed his ride from our hotel in Mount Pleasant, SC, Helen toured the Cold War Memorial and took a 90-minute bus tour of nearby Charleston. She enjoyed seeing all the beautiful homes with the piazzas on the sides of the houses. Of course, there were churches, government buildings, The Citadel and more. There is a lot of history still visible in this picturesque city.

An Off-Road Discovery

The Charleston Visitor Center itself is a beautiful, open building full of brochures, displays and a staffed kiosk if tourists have questions. One updated feature of this renovated structure is the restroom (singular). The stalls are closed all the way to the

bottom. Helen was a bit taken aback when she walked in and a smiling young man was drying his hands. At first she thought she was in the wrong place, but then saw another woman at the sink washing her hands. Our church in Atlanta is renovating and updating an old church for our congregation’s use, and one of the features is to make non-binary people comfortable is the unisex restroom. We don’t know how comfortable other people may be, but Helen found it a bit disconcerting.

Rest Day

We are now taking a rest day in Yemassee, SC located in the middle of nowhere at the crossroads of US 95 and Highway 17. When Jay resumes riding tomorrow, he will cycle through Beaufort, SC completing the day’s ride in Savannah. We plan to book a room at the Marriott Riverfront Hotel where we concluded our Seattle to Savannah cross country bike ride in 2018.  We doubt we will be greeted with hoopla and a bottle of champagne as we were at the conclusion of our last great bike ride. Savannah is  just a waypoint on this journey, but being in Georgia will no doubt give us a sense that we will indeed complete this ride to Key West, Florida!

Video of some more images.