An Alligator adventure, and a new state!

So, an eventful few days since I last posted! First I wanted to mention that while in Charleston I had an opportunity to visit the church that was at the center of the shootings earlier this year that ultimately led to the removal of the confederate flag from the capital grounds in South Carolina.


It has been months since the shootings but there were still a number of people coming to pay their respects on a random Saturday in October…including me. All this despite the continued weather issues facing the state! It was humbling and inspiring all at once.

After Charleston however I still needed to find my way out of the flooding…and that proved to be more difficult than I thought it would. The rains had stopped by Saturday evening, but the historic rains had created a significant time delay on when the various rivers would crest. On my way from Charleston to Jacksonboro I still needed to pass thorough the Edisto River watershed, and cross the Edisto River…which was set to crest Sometime Sunday. Everywhere I went I saw scenes like this

Unfortunately, along this part of rt17 the shoulder of the road is NOT GOOD!…about 3″. And the grass to the side of that has not been cut in weeks because of the flooding……Soooooooo, I thought I would take a short cut. There was a road showing up on my phone map that appeared to run parallel to the road I was on, and would have significantly less traffic, so I took it 🙂

I am a genius! The road was perfect, no flooding, no traffic, just open pavement. I ran 4 miles on the road until I came to a crossroad that could take me back to rt17, but why should I do that I said to myself? SO I continued on my genius route for another mile until a came around a bend to see this

Now, some people would think that cutting their losses and doubling back to rt 17 would be the right thing to do in this situation…BUT NOT ME! I forged ahead, unwilling to lose 2 miles of my day to a little bit of water on the road. Unfortunately, while google maps is nearly always correct about half a mile past the minor flooding the paved road turned into a dirt and gravel road…and about a half mile after that it turned into this

and then after I lost my cell service it turned into this

So now that I had no ability to check my map, and I was 2 miles into this this little wilderness adventure I thought it might be time to turn back, but first I wanted to work my way around the tree line a little bit to see if the flooding got better…it didn’t…And that’s when I heard a giant WHOOOSh and I turned to see two birds, one flying away screaching and one being dragged under the water by what I can only assume was an alligator. To be clear I did not SEE the alligator, just LOTS of water flying around…and THAT’s when I decided to get OUT of the water and get the hell out of there! No pics of the last part…for obvious reasons 😉

It turns out I was actually getting closer to Edisto River, and if I had continued on my “path” I would have eventually been swept out to sea and/or been eaten by something. Lesson learned.

I finally did get back on track and passed through Jacksonboro, which is near where a number of scenes from Forrest Gump were shot (including the iconic scene where Momma yells “Run Forrest Run”.

AND FINALLY after weeks of rain in the Carolinas I Crossed the border into Georgia through the Savannah National Wildlife Refuge on a road called Alligator alley

I am going to bed now after a 26 MILE DAY TODAY, but I will post a link to my interview with the WTOC morning news in Savannah (a CBS Affiliate) when it becomes available in the morning…or you can go to www.wtoc.com and stream it on their site. It should run somewhere between 5:00-8-00am.