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Asheville Ponytail
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The Pub-Cycle
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Larry at Mount Mitchell
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DOGS Food Truck
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Junior Brown on the Guit-Steel
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EIL Spotted Near The White House
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Arlington Cemetery
Some call it itchy feet; some wanderlust. But to borrow from Willie Nelson, Larry and I just enjoy being "on the road again...seein' things we might never see again. "
This year we are setting forth on a six week car trip, basically headed to Nova Scotia, Quebec, the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and whatever stops capture our curiosity along the way. Those who are familiar with last year's "On the Road with Larry and Janice" will remember we eschew interstates and chain restaurants whenever possible (notable exception: Starbucks).
As we set out on July 4th weekend, our thanks to Elegant Island Living for providing two nice caps and to Kathi Williams - blog editor extraordinaire and techy-guru. To those familiar with last year's exploits, we are hoping for fewer misadventures with the car, aching muscles, and forest fires.
We began with a wary eye on Hurricane Arthur. While it posed no threat to our departure from SSI, it brought 24 hours of very strong winds to our journey through the Carolinas. Watching its course into Nova Scotia leaving thousands without power for several days made us quite glad we hadn't begun our trip a week earlier.
Within the first few hours we stumbled on some curiosities and a lunch straight out of "Best Thing I Ever Ate" on the Food Network.
Immediately after turning off I-95 onto SC 21, we drove passed a 1925 general store, through farm country filled with strawberry fields, corn stalks high enough to cast shadows, heavy leafed tobacco, and even vineyards!!!!
The town of Branchville, SC, named for a branch on an old Indian trail is actually the site of the first railroad junction in the WORLD! Really. The old depot still stands. This was a stop on the South Carolina Railroad line, built to give the Charleston port better access to western South Carolina And it was the FIRST steam powered common carrier train in America.
Then it was on through Smoaks, the name prompting a long discussion of various ways the town in the middle of tobacco country got its name. Enter Wikipedia. We were both wrong: the original land grant was given in 1789 to a German man by name of Rauch. Seems his sons later Anglicized their name to its English translation: Smoke. Different sons spelled it different ways. Smoak stuck.
Lunch in Orangeburg was at Duke's. Small problem: there are THREE Duke's in town. Although all owned by brothers and all with similar menus, it's not a chain. The one on Whitman Street is the one you want: about a dozen folding 6 foot tables, each set with a big plastic pitcher of sweet tea. Line up at the register, grab a paper plate ("Please take a new plate for seconds"), pay $10 for all you can eat of pulled pork, slaw, mac-n-cheese, fried chicken, fried chicken livers and gizzards (amazingly good) and rice with hash. "Hash" was a thick, but not chunky, tomato-based mixture of onions, potatoes and meat that reminded us of Italian meat sauce. We ate quite well, as did the locals sitting next to us who reassured us that THIS was the BEST Dukes of the three.
July 4 was spent in Asheville enjoying a hike to the top of Mt. Mitchell, highest point east of the Mississippi...NOT New Hampshire's Mt. Washington as most Yankees would have you believe. We were missing the spirit of July 4 on SSI but enjoying the pastoral 360 views of the Black Mountains.
Enjoyed a good dinner at an Indian restaurant where we learned the TRUE meaning of "top shelf" liquor. After Larry ordered a Glenlivet, the bartender hiked up her maxi dress and climbed up onto the wooden bar to bring down the bottle off, yes, the top shelf.
We spotted a great business opportunity for SSI: Pub-Cycle. A 13 seat peddle-powered vehicle where you sit sideways on a bar stool and "bike" your way around town while enjoying your favorite adult beverage. A different slant to our Island trolley!!!
The whole town (high concentration of tattoos and pony tails) turned out in the evening for music by Junior Brown playing his signature "guit-steel" double neck guitar, a hybrid of electric guitar and lap steel guitar. Although Asheville is quite the foody town with a strong farm-to-table influence, we ate at one of the food trucks in this park, DOGS: Dirty Old Geezer's Sausage. After fireworks, Wicked Weed was the place for a beer, and I DID buy THAT t-shirt.
We did experience good ole American capitalism at its finest in Asheville. Town center garage parking on July 3: $5. On July 4? $10!! Gotta love it.
As we headed up Virginia Route 29, we saw signs identifying it as The Seminole Trail and many businesses with the word Seminole in their name. Neat, we thought; just think how many hundreds of years man has traveled this route. Again enter Wikipedia. The Seminoles were never anywhere near Virginia. The state gave Route 29 the nickname in the late 1920s as a way to promote it as a through-route to Florida where there was, of course, a strong Seminole heritage.
Driving the hilly, roller coaster-like terrain at the foothills of the Blue Ridge mountains brought back memories for Larry of childhood trips (four kids in the back of a Buick). The bumps in a car with 1950s suspension would make the kids stomachs lurch and they'd call out "Again, Daddy. Again!"
After a lunch in Lynchburg, VA (at another rail depot)--noted for its lack of churches in the early 1800s and, later, for being the ONLY Virginia town to not fall to Union forces--we headed into Washington D. C. to finish Fourth of July weekend in our nation's Capitol.
We played tourist riding one of those hop on-hop off buses, enjoyed cocktails and dinner in Georgetown on the edge of the Potomac (great people watching--particularly the D. C. powerful on their boats, accompanied by "enhanced" women in glittering bikinis), and visited my father's grave in Arlington.
I assume my Southern friends know that Arlington, set beautifully above the Potomac, was originally a home and farm belonging to General Lee and his wife who was the great granddaughter of George Washington, and had inherited the property. As General Lee left to lead Confederate forces, and Union troops surrounded D. C. to protect the Capitol, Mary Lee left as well, giving the house key to one of her slaves.
But when the $92 property tax came due and could not be paid in person, as was required, the federal government seized the property. Lee's slaves were freed and set up in "Freedman's Village," new housing on the Arlington property. As the fields became appropriated for burial of Civil War casualties, the Washington Chronicle found that purpose "and the Freedman's Village to be righteous uses of the estate of Rebel General Lee."
After the war, the Lee family fought to regain ownership of their property and won a Supreme Court Case to that effect. The federal government, now faced with abandoning a fort, removing the residents of Freedman's Village and disinterring 20,000 graves reached a settlement with the Lee family to purchase the property for $150,000.
Today, my father and 400,000 others who have served our country are laid to rest here on this quiet hillside in view of the much grander monuments of Washington D. C.
Now: a few days with grandkids in NJ, time with more family in CT, and then on to New Hampshire.
See you in the White Mountains.
