Wisecracking Across America - 41. Chapter 41

Tuesday, June 22, 1999

It's an odd day that starts off nicely, ends up nicely, and has such howling ugliness in between. The start was a two-hour ferry ride on a boat small enough---fifty cars---for the dog to stay with us on deck. We eased through Pamlico Sound and Raleigh Bay, heading for Cedar Island. At busier times, reservations were often taken a month in advance, but this morning the ferry was less than half-full, and most people stayed outside rather than crowding the cramped air-conditioned lounge. A few barefoot guys even stretched on the hoods of their cars, using the windshields as backrests.

Along the stern, a boy was feeding the gulls, after specifically being warned, by a commanding voice over the P.A. system, "To keep to the back of the boat."

"If he doesn't," a nearby woman cautioned her husband, "those birds'll make a mess of our cars."

The boy was pitching something hard, like small pretzels, with the assurance of a pro. The birds hovered eagerly over the water, each waiting to snatch a treat from the sky, then---getting it---swiftly flying off, instantly being replaced by another gull.

"We should have bought pretzels," I told Tom.

"No way. The dog would just fly off after them."

And wouldn't have much luck in the wake.

Leaving the ferry, we drove though a wildlife refuge, all green and flat and marshy, with twin canals bordering the road, and a vintage speedboat chugging determinedly at our side. Then, suddenly, we were back on private land, and I remembered reading that South Carolina was one of the two poorest states in the country. We were still in North Carolina, and would be for several hours, but I immediately understood why hurricanes sweeping across the Outer Banks always seemed to destroy trailer homes---the road was lined with them.

Reaching Morehead City, we crossed another bridge and were quickly surrounded by vacation homes---stacked precariously on stilts, and poised between Evacuation signs, reminding the always-temporary residents which way to run in a disaster. A missed turn led us to Fort Macon, built just before the Civil War, then taken by the Union after a fierce bombardment. Before that, the fort had protected many of the coves favored by shippers---and pirates.

The locals seemed to have mixed feelings about these thieves. An area high school team was proudly named after them. Yet a plaque we'd seen on Ocracoke commended the sailor who'd killed the dreaded Blackbeard.

Back on course, we hit additional military installations: instead of simply skirting Camp LeJune, we were routed through it, presumably because the base was on tactical alert, and the section of Route 172 we'd wanted to drive was being used for tank maneuvers. Slipping through the Marine base, we passed frequent signs warning against any unnecessary stops. Maybe near the center, we came to a series of fenced-in, grassed-over humps, in twos-and-threes, each maybe twenty-feet high. Initially, I took them for some kind of troop-training obstacle course. Then I saw another sign: Ammunition Supply---Restricted Area.

Away, Tom! Pronto!

Still, we could have as easily been blown up by simply crossing into South Carolina. Instead of a now-familiar Welcome sign, loomed a huge, crudely-painted billboard hawking Fireworks! They seemed big business, as was gambling: behind the sign crowded the first of many mini-casinos---All Video! All The Time! North Myrtle Beach was also the birthplace of that popular 60's dance, The Shag. So my guidebooks said. And it seems the townsfolk still placed bets on who could do it best.

We wanted to be somewhere else, but this time couldn't race ahead. Unpredictably, we were jammed in traffic.

"Where's it all coming from?" Tom asked.

Most of it was streaming toward us. Rush Hour in Paradise? It didn't make sense. Finally, we saw its source: the convergence of Planet Hollywood, the Hard Rock Cafe, and the House of Blues---and with the Nascar Cafe and Broadway-By-The-Sea not far away. And Water Slides! Miniature Golf! Speedcar Races! Outlet Malls! There were even full-sized golf courses, named after---and no doubt replacing---historic plantations.

We didn't see houses, but I'm sure the beach was lined with them, as well as condos. And though the map showed the strip was only twenty-miles long, at one-mile-an-hour, we could have been hiking. The map also presented no escape, as almost the entire coast of South Carolina was a four-lane-highway. And on the resort towns came: Surfside Beach. Garden City Beach. Murrells Inlet. Litchfield Beach. Pawley's Island seemed somewhat upscale, then we were slammed into the mills of Georgetown. Steel mills? Paper mills? It was all smoke and smokestacks silhouetted against the sky.

Eventually, we were rewarded by green serenity: Francis Marion National Forest, mile-after-mile of neat roadside houses, and churches backed by comforting trees. I feared Mt. Pleasant, where we were heading, might be anything but that, and we almost didn't find out. Unwarned, we slipped across the Cooper River bridges into Charleston.

"We could just stay here," I told Tom, though we hadn't planned on exploring the city that night.

"What's in the book?"

The dog-friendly motels were all behind us. So we turned back.

"You went across those bridges twice?" a friend of mine laughed when I reached her later by phone. "Right after we moved here, the Army Engineers did a safety study. On a scale of one-hundred, with zero being the worst, those bridges scored five."

"And that was two years ago," her husband added on the extension.

"Is there any way around them in the morning?" I asked.

My friend just laughed again. "I finally quit worrying about it. I drive those bridges twice a day, and even stopped practicing how long I could hold my breath under water."

A strange Southern custom.

As it happened, Tom and I might have been dead well before then. As we checked into our motel, the desk clerk joked, "I wouldn't tell anyone here where you're from."

"California?" I grinned. "Its reputation that bad?"

"Not that," he said. "It's your town---Sherman Oaks. That guy's name's total mud around here."

Okay, okay, okay. So he nearly burned the city.

325 miles