Of Credit Cards & Bridge Ahoy

Or some such distracted nonsense. Specifically because I was distracted (and maybe a two-glasses of wine lightweight) I didn’t realize until this morning that I’d left my credit card at the restaurant last night after dinner.

Not a great awakening—much less on the day I was intending to tour Charleston, SC at leisure. I instead lost four hours of prime tourist time waiting for Zen Asian Fusion to open so I could retrieve my credit card—which I assumed, but was not sure, was in the possession of the restaurant.

And it was! Thanks to the conscientious workers there I was reunited with my credit card at 11 am , and was able to get on my bike trekking way. 

Very good pan-Asian food by the way.

Back on the West Ashley Rail Trail for the final handful of miles into Charleston, SC proper.

The tidal marshes as one arrives in Charleston by bicycle.

And quickly on to the Battery 2 Beach trail.

Which runs the perimeter of the Charleston peninsula and fringed with beautiful waterfront homes.

But there’s always work to be done, and a detour leads to interior homes and streets…

… and the “birthplace of preservation…”

… this site commermorates the “seizure of the Planter”—where Robert Smalls, an enslaved man, commandeered a Confederate transport vessel and delivered it past Fort Sumter to the Federal fleet.

Much, including the historic color schemes, is preserved in Charleston, SC.

These cobbles are absolutely bone-jarring to bike on, so I mostly walked through these spots.

The area around the Old Exchange Building was the site of one of the most active slave markets in the 1800’s. Preserved for prosperity, but nothing to be proud of—history requires remembrance and accounting.

The Saffron Cafe & Bakery was an excellent lunch place…

… just in time to almost chuck-up lunch going over the 2.5 mile long Ravenel Bridge… 

… not terribly steep, but a good sustained 4-5 percent grade on the middle section…

… which was busy with walkers, runners and bicyclists.

It’s not the 7-mile bridge in the Florida Keys, but it’s much taller and pitched, and I believe it’s the next longest bridge on the Atlantic Coast Route thus far.

On to the eastern side of Charleston—Mt. Pleasant—and a significantly less busy road running parallel to the US 17 traffic madness.

Before the day’s endpoint I stop by REI—where the bike will get a tune-up and refresher, and where I’ll resupply after the first 1,000 miles. 

Even though I’m a third of the way through this bike trek, I feel the thousand-yard stare delirium. I think the difficult conditions—as it pertains to the exposure to dangerous traffic—takes a bit of a toll when one does it for many hours daily over three weeks.

I’m feeling a bit of shell shock, or traffic delirium as it were. So tomorrow the bike gets the spa treatment of sorts.

Where I’m bedding tonight, just a quarter-mile away from the REI.

Day 23
Start: West Ashley-Charleston, SC
End: Mt. Pleasant-Charleston, SC
Miles: 20.46

I started this trip in an abstemious state of mind—no drinking and eating healthy… and I kid you not, this is a manifestation of a dinner brought on by hundreds of miles on US 17.

Laundry, bike tune-up, gear changes, and no US 17 tomorrow! Dinner of Champions! I’m a traffic-shocked wastrel…

What I’m Reading:

… but the only thing ultimately worth your concern is the anguish of your fellow passengers on this hell bound train…

— Cormac McCarthy / The Counselor