Cycling Across America #18
Part 18 of the Cycle-Across-America series relayed day by day, exactly ten years after it happened. (Read from the start in Boston)
Bennettsville - South Carolina - motel.
My cousin was great and looked after me. I tended to stiffen up in the evening after the cycle and the leg is not great for walking. Getting in and out of cars is tricky too. He told me about life there, the soccer complex, the campus of the Methodist College and the whole social scene. It was good to hear familiar accents.
Five or six blokes were living in his apartment. The place had the walls covered with football jerseys from all over Europe including Italy, Brazil, Notts County, Liverpool and my cousin was wearing a Bohs jersey from Dublin. There was a red England old ‘66 jersey signed a couple of weeks back by Jack Charlton who was over making money and slagging off David Batty. They all watched the Charity Shield up in Raleigh which receives the sports station but Fayetteville doesn’t.
I noticed something’s going on in Grozny, but pretty much the States is the whole world when it comes to the news. Libby Dole has made a big impact. I heard her speech live when I was in Virginia. The cable was broke so we only had six stations. Five of them were covering it. They were all buzzin’ after her speech and when I went through North Carolina the papers were all excited about her (I think she’s a local girl).
This morning II stayed on the pavement the five miles into town and then cycled through the centre on the roads. From Ramsay Street to Gillespie Street to Southern Avenue. Nice centre but nothing special here. I wouldn’t think getting through all the mush is worth it just to see it. The State House where they ratified the Federal Constitution is on a roundabout in the middle.I was trying to use secondary roads not marked on the map. From the sun I reckoned I was going the wrong way and headed back two miles and found Fisher Road. That was my road. Then I was looking for Arabia but was lost in a sprawling curvy rolly-polly maze of sleepy suburban secondary roads. I asked a woman at her postbox where it was.
- Oh honey it’s a long wayShe meant five miles. Then the houses disappeared and with it suburbia. I was in the country using what town names I had and the sun to pick and choose my roads. Bliss for miles and miles. No traffic whatsoever. I actually skipped Arabia and went straight to Dundarrach which was a crossroads where I had a drink-stop opposite a recycling building - pickups outside full of cans. Antioch (a church ), Wagram (never saw it), and eventually took a minor road into Laurinberg for dinner.
After the fifteen miles of greater Fayetteville I had just gone through forty miles of very few houses or indeed farms. Swamps and bridges, and trees mostly in the distance. Overall though it was mainly miles of cotton fields and peanuts with some tobacco and corn.
Straight down the 401-15. It was only fifteen miles to Bennettsville. I would stick with it despite the ideal morning on the traffic-free secondary roads. I seemed to have my courage back. On the dual carriageway and then on the single carriageway. But I was using the mirror extensively. I wasn’t scared - even of the monster trucks but saw no point in wasting all this concentration so peeled off onto a road to the right and tried to find a way in.
Crossed the state line into South Carolina at a very quiet crossroads and noticed a slight change to the landscape. The trees seemed smaller. The place seemed marshier. Plenty of birds. A couple of cardinals. Very few buildings. Judging by the sun I needed a left turn soon. At yet another A.M.E. Zion church a man was trimming a bush. He told me to take the next left and it would bring me all the way into Bennettsville. It was after five, warm, and perfect. I got chased by some dogs but was already averaging about fifteen to seventeen mph - this brought my average for the day up to twelve. A couple of days ago it was down just over ten. I felt strong again The invincibility was returning.
In North Carolina I had big roads, with a ditch alongside which frogs would jump in and out of as I passed. Beyond, animals would russle in the growth. And then there was those trees. In the northeast of the state it was like they ruled and we tried to survive with them. Nearer the centre and south it was the trees that seemed to be trying to survive with us.
If I don’t get an early start I’m in trouble as I need to do over ninety tomorrow, I think. I know I don’t have to go right into Columbia, indeed I’d happily stop fifteen miles short but I’m not sure if there’ll be lodging there right beside Fort Jackson.
My cousin told me about Fort Bragg in Fayetteville being the biggest in the States. I did see two soldiers from Fort Bragg on the box convicted of rape.
Tonight I left my motel in the dark and cycled with lights the five hundred metres back to KFC for food and the Citgo for some stuff. I was not frightened and I was very careful. Despite dual-carriageway - there was very little traffic. If something came I pulled into the long long grass with my new bicycle “Long Grass”.
Read from the beginning of the Cycle Across America
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