South Carolina - Day 13 - Mary McLeod Bethune, Columbia, to Croft St. Park

Croft State Park, Spartanburg

Tuesday, 23 May 2023

Although Google claimed today's drive wouldn't be much over 3 hours, I knew I'd be driving in the Columbia area and figured I'd need extra time.  Which, of course, I did.  It took us 7 hours.  We left the campground at 8:40.

today's route

Leaving Poinsett State Park, we passed a sign at a side road: "STOP - DO NOT ENTER - AIR TO GROUND BOMBING."  The day before, while we were minding our own business in the campground, we all heard what sounded like bombing alarmingly close by.  And though I didn't have an internet connection I did have my trusty AAA map, and that said this state park was right next door to a USAF Gunnery Range.  And later the internet confirmed Shaw AFB is located at Poinsett, and it's a huge training ground for military pilots.  Glad they were aiming accurately.

In a field, I saw every cow in the field mobbed together head first, except one standing with the others but with his head pointing out instead of in and one other that was lying down there.  I think cattle behavior is really interesting.

The town of Sumter, "Uncommon Patriotism, Progressive Spirit," seems proud of its speedway.  And an area in town with iris gardens around Swan Lake.

I saw a lot of very tall, old pecan trees and a sign saying pecans were for sale.

We passed acres of corn and a crop that looked like wheat.

I was aiming for a location in a rural area where a remarkable woman had been born, and where a community facility has been established.  I couldn't find online when they were open but did find that some people had tried to visit but found the facility unaccountably closed.  That meant I went with no expectations other than to see what I could see, and that's about what I got.

Mary McLeod Bethune, born in 1875 to previously enslaved parents, was the only one in her family who went to school - so when she got home each day after walking 5 miles each way, she taught the others what she'd learned.  She continued to be that kind of person throughout her life.  For a summary of her remarkable life, you can go to this link.   https://www.womenshistory.org/mary-mcleod-bethune  And if you want a great deal more detail, the Wikipedia page has it.   https://en.wikipedia.org/Mary-McLeod-Bethune

That was the only place I found to park because . . .

. . . the gates were locked up.

I couldn't read any signs at that distance, but I'm
assuming this is the house of her birth.

A view through the gate of the grounds - the
house is on the right.

This summary of her accomplishments
was on the brick gatepost.

Well, at least I tried.

In an oddly apropos moment, I heard on public radio an interview with a woman who is now the president of an advocacy group, and she's a strong proponent of showing up.  She said for some years she's been going to public hearings on all kinds of subjects - local water quality and land use issues - all kinds of things.  And she said if you show up at a public meeting, you may get heard; whereas if you don't show up, nobody knows your point of view.  She said just by showing up, she individually and her group members have made a difference in public policy by being willing to give public officials their point of view, and their reasons for it.

In one of my earlier lives, I was a public information officer for a controversial public agency.  It was part of my job to hold public hearings, so I'm in a position to say that she's absolutely right, and too few citizens are aware of this simple (though time-consuming) technique.

South Carolina does something I don't remember seeing anywhere else, and that's giving streets names like this: S-31-64.  Lots and lots of the roads - especially outside urban areas, though not exclusively - have names like this.  It's been confusing for me because until recently I've been ignoring Google's instructions that include road names like that.  I've gotten some really weird info from Google about street names from time to time, and I just assumed these names were part of it.  But I've been finding lots of places where these do seem to be the only names the streets/roads have, at least according to the road signs.  I wonder how the local folks refer to them.

At Bishopville (I guessed because there wasn't any name sign on the highway), I came across the Pearl Fryar Topiary Garden.  It's a 3-acre site that was created by a man named Pearl Fryar who spent his off-work hours in the garden.  He taught himself topiary work and his gardens show his love for the craft.  Myself, I prefer nature in its natural state, but I can see these gardens were a labor of love.

I passed the turn for the South Carolina Equine Park.  And realized I'd forgotten that horses are big in some parts of South Carolina - Aiken, for instance, back over in the west, not far from Anderson/Lake Hartwell.

I passed a plant labeled WEYLCHEM, which I managed to translate to some kind of chemical company.  I looked them up and learned they "specialize in Grignard chemistry" which of course is meaningless to me.  But I also learned that someone is impersonating this company on Facebook and offering jobs - and the company is emphatic that they don't have a Facebook presence.  Do you suppose the scammers are looking for the kind of personal information people routinely put on job applications?

I heard on the radio that Arizona grows 20% of the lettuce we eat in the winter, and that these fields are watered by the Colorado River.  That water source, of course, is in the news, given the dire state of water levels in the Colorado.  I guess we'll be feeling the pain from the river level all over the country through the crops they can't grow, so we can't eat them.

South Carolina names a lot of its highway interchanges for people - in memorium, usually.

I crossed the Broad River (it is) and on I-26 found many many miles of road construction.  Each side was 2 lanes with the shoulders blocked off by jersey barriers.  The road surface was uneven, including 1 section that canted traffic off the road, and the bumps in the road pushed me to almost tump over while a semi was passing.  It was a scary area and seemed to go on for a long time.

I passed the turn for the Battle of Musgrove Mill State Historic Site, which I'd never heard of.  It was a battle during the Revolutionary War where the Americans attacked what they thought were equal numbers of British troops.  But the British had been reinforced and the Americans weren't in a position to retreat, so they took positions behind logs and so forth and very nearly beat the British soldiers.  Just one of the skirmishes that happened in the guerilla warfare that the war and terrain inspired.

I found gasoline for $3.15/gallon.

Kudzu is very evident everywhere.  A nature website calls it "the invasive vine that ate the South."

When I was only one mile from tonight's state park, I came across some sort of terrible problem.  Many multiples of emergency vehicles were blocking the small road.  I could see a long line of fire trucks, ambulances and police cars but no hint of what had happened or where I should go next.  I pulled into a nearby driveway where a Fox News guy was sitting in his car, intending to ask how to get around the blockage - when a guy pulled up next to me in a pickup and asked if I wanted to get around this.  And when I said where I was going, he said to follow him, which I did.  He took me along 3 small local roads that ended up on the same road I'd been on but past the blockage - and in fact he took me right to the entrance of the state park.  Really nice guy.  I doubt if I would ever have found my own way out of that maze of streets without his help.

At the park office, they hadn't heard anything about it, so I was able to tell them to watch Fox News tonight to learn.  I lost my TV antenna so can't do that.

When I tried to empty my waste tanks, I ran into a problem because of the configuration of the dump site.  Ended up spilling some blackwater and had to clean it up.

The campsite I was given had a definite slope that would have been hard for us to take, but it was also a wide site, and I ended up parking sideways in the site, rather than the lengthways the park had intended.  It still wasn't a perfect solution but much better.

After all that, we were settled in our site by 3:20.