2005/04 Hamilton trip - Leaving Columbia |
|||
April 2005
Dear All,
So how do Hamilton and Niagara become part of the tale of the Deep South trip? Well, when we ended part one of this tale we were sitting in a campsite on Edisto Island, waiting for the rain to stop. We were almost at the end of our outward trip, and the plan was to drive up to Columbia, South Carolina, the next day to check in with Provan Industries, the manufacturers of our motorhome. The following day, we would drop the motorhome off for warranty repairs and then fly up to Ontario for a golden wedding celebration.
Some of these paragraphs and photographs are only available via the family's userids and passwords |
There was a lot of luck leading to this neat arrangement. We had already arranged the Deep South trip in order to take the camper to Columbia for repairs, but we had the problem of finding somewhere to stay while it was being worked on. Then we received the invitation to the celebration, and decided we’d fly instead of driving. I have to admit that even then I thought we had an additional problem: what to do with the camper while we were away. It was a little while before the light bulb came on!
Wednesday March 23rd
Well, the rain at Edisto didn’t stop until the early hours, by which time the campground was a couple of inches deep in water. The flood cleared out most of the tenters, who retreated to their cars or to motels. Surprisingly, the water had already gone down by dawn, and I was able to hike the nearby Spanish Mount trail. This was a pleasant walk through the forest, but ended after a few miles with a barrier that said “Trail closed. Unsafe cliff”. At most the trail was five feet above sea level, so how dangerous could it be? The warning was clearly a lie as the barrier a hundred yards beyond this said “Unlawful to proceed. The state is required by Federal law to protect certain areas”. At this point I gave up but mainly because I’d have had to bushwhack through poison ivy to get any further in. I still don’t know what was there – burial mounds, shell middens, alien spacecraft – who knows?
On our way upstate to Columbia, we stopped in Hollywood to use the laundromat. Remember, this isn’t California; it’s the Hollywood in South Carolina, and a pretty poor and sad-looking place it is too. South Carolina has a lot of very poor rural communities, and this is one of them. Everything looked tired and run-down. We were definitely in the racial minority there.
After finishing the laundry we drove a few miles to another wildlife refuge for lunch and then headed north to Columbia, on what was turning into a beautiful day. We stopped at Provan Industries to hand David, the owner, our list of problems with the camper. He admitted that the first half-dozen Tigers that they’d built in South Carolina after moving from Denver had been poorly assembled due to inexperience. He even added a few things to our list for checking, problems that the other early Tigers had experienced.
We arranged to bring the Tiger back in the morning and set off to camp at Sesquicentennial park on the other side of town. This time luck was with us, as the gates were still open. We met the ranger just as he was driving out to lock them.
Thursday March 24th
It was another bright morning and a busy one too, with us getting packed for the trip to Hamilton, and getting the camper tidied for handing it over to Provan for the repairs. Dave, the owner, seemed to understand the problems on the list, but asked if we could stay away longer to give them more time to get all the work done, especially the painting. We couldn’t, as we had free-flight tickets, which are very difficult and expensive to get changed at the last minute. So, maybe we’ll have a problem when we get back from Ontario.
Next.