4/23/23 – South Carolina Already? Richmond Hill, GA to Beaufort, SC

Miles: 83.36 Today / 840.17 Total
Elevation Gain: 827ft. Today / 6996 ft. Total

Today was a Sunday, with no way to go to church and no way to stream church or religious music. There was just time, LOTS of time, to sing church songs to myself and think about spiritual things, which is not the same as going to church.

I may be getting into a routine, here. This morning, I was up early and on my bike by 8:08 AM. And that was after preparing and eating breakfast; packing up my sleeping bag, mat and ground cover; preparing bottles; sorting out and loading up snacks and bottles on my bike and in the rest area bins and ice chest; mounting all my lights and devices (5 total) on my bike; cleaning my teeth and braces; applying sunscreen; carrying my gear back out to the trailer and stowing it; and pulling out and donning a jacket to keep warm for the first couple of hours (it was 54 degrees out). How’d I do?

We traveled down busy rural highways and through several nondescript small communities, till we arrived in Savannah, one of the most historic cities in the South.

The entire historic district is street after street of amazing, well maintained, historic homes and buildings.

Our rest area was in the parking lot of a Krogers Grocery Store, just a couple of blocks from Forsyth Park, the centerpiece of downtown Savannah. It has 30 acres of walking paths, fountains, statues, ball fields, playgrounds, and other facilities and was a busy place, with locals, tourists and vendors engaged in all kinds of things.

South of the park were several squares, each with a large monument as its centrepiece and multiple memorials erected to honor famous heroes and historical figures and to recount historic events that occurred there. Revolutionary and Civil War battles occurred near what is now downtown Savannah, so some of the leaders and heroes of those wars were honored.

Surprisingly, some Civil War memorials are still standing. I wonder how much longer they will be there, or will people in the US come to accept that our ways of being change and evolve over time, and the past is worth remembering so we can see how far we’ve come. I’ve included photos of many of the memorials here, in case you like reading that kind of stuff. I do.

As I pedalled out of Savannah, I passed through Wentworth, where the Port of Savannah, the third largest port in the country, is located. It moves 5.6 million containers a year, which is almost a third of what moves through the Los Angeles/Long Beach Port. It was a very busy place.

Moving down the road, I passed through the Savannah National Wildlife Refuge,
where the only wildlife I saw was road kill being eaten by vultures; Alligator Alley (I didn’t see a single alligator); beautiful forested areas with Spanish moss hanging from everything; and some massive rivers and swamplands.

And then, I crossed over into South Carolina! Yay!

The scenery in South Carolina was just like the scenery in Georgia. More lush forested areas, more rivers, and more swamps.

As we approached Beaufort, our destination for the day, we were routed onto a historic rail trail, the Spanish Moss Trail, for 7 miles. It had lots of cool scenery and historic buildings along a nice, shady, smooth, winding path. My grandkids would have loved riding their bikes on that trail.

My grandkids would have loved Savannah too. I need to talk their parents into letting me take them on a long vacation so I can show them some of these sights!