Road trip

 It had been a couple of years since I last took a substantial road trip, the kind where you really leave the city and head deep into the country on roads known and unknown.  U.S. Highway 78 follows an old railroad line up the South Carolina coastal plain from Charleston headed to the up country and Piedmont areas of our state.  

I love roads like that because so many little interesting towns line the route.   Mostly they are now  justshells of their former selves, but still they hang in there as living rural communities.  Every ten or so miles I’d come to a new town:  Dorchester, Reevesville, St. George. Invariably there are some great old late 19th century homes set back from the railroad tracks, most still inhabited, but some abandoned or else in great need of repair.  I like to stop the car by the tracks and take pictures, capturing those vintage old homes that have long histories and which hold numberless stories and memories from generations down the line.

Some of the towns, like Reevesville, are so inviting to the casual stranger as to warrant more careful exploration.  In the case of this town, I took a side street that led me to a very tiny business district with a couple of commercial buildings and a post office.  Slightly beyond the little main street were the train tracks, and, of course, more grand old houses.  I never cease to be fascinated by these glimpses of another time and era in the history of the South.  

One of the towns I passed, Branchville (http://www.patsabin.com/lowcountry/branchville.htm) has a very rich railroad history.  It’s reputed to be the oldest railroad junction int he world, and the first operating train passed through here in 1833 in route from Charleston to Aiken.

St George is the county seat of Dorchester County and is another stop on the rail line.  So is the old town of Dorchester whose abandoned general store right by the railroad tracks is a favorite subject for me to photograph.

The day was perfect — a cool Autumn Saturday — and I had the caregiver staying with my mother all day just so I could make this trip.  I visited an amazing nature preserve called Peachtree Rock (http://www.flickr.com/photos/camas/sets/72157628230071007/, headed into Columbia to see a Hudson River School landscape exhibit at the museum of art, then finished the day having a buffet supper at my favorite barbecue restaurant, located appropriately enough, in an old general store.

I feel rejuvenated after such trips.  I just wish I could take them more often.   Every minute and hour you are on the road exploring, presents endless opportunities for small epiphanies and revelations, not to mention treasured time for soul-searching and thinking. 

Here is a set of pictures from that road trip featuring the old houses and towns:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/camas/sets/72157628229914919/