Tag: back roads

TBT^256: Road Trip!

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Yours portly is heading to see his older brother down in the Lowcountry this weekend, so it seemed like a good time to look back at this series of classic posts about road tripping around the Southeast and beyond. I’ll be back “on the soulless, boring Interstate Highway System”—specifically the particularly dreadful I-95—but there’ll be some good backroads, too.

I’ve got quite a bit of driving ahead of me. In a couple of weeks I’ll be presenting a couple of workshops at the South Carolina Independent School Association’s (SCISA‘s) annual teachers’ conference. I’ll be covering two topics: how to create a DIY garage band music program; and how teachers can make extra money teaching private music lessons. Naturally, I’ll be sharing the slides and resources with my paid subscribers once they’re done! But I’m looking forward to some open road and checking out the Upstate.

Yes, it seems September will see me all over South Carolina. I should write a book about that (that’s an Amazon Affiliate link; I receive a portion of any purchases made through that link, at no additional cost to you).

With that, here is 4 September 2025’s “TBT^16: Road Trip!“:

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TBT^16: Road Trip!

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All the recent fracas over Cracker Barrel changing its logo (an incredibly stupid move—people go to Cracker Barrel because it’s kitschy Americana with old photos hanging on the wall and Uncle Herschel leaning against a barrel) brings to mind another all-American institution:  the road trip (naturally, the best place to eat on a road trip is Cracker Barrel).  Yours portly hasn’t been able to do much of what would technically be considered “road tripping,” but I have been driving a lot.  Between going to see Dr. Fiancée, attending family events, playing piano in another town on Sundays, and running distant errands, I’ve been keeping the road hot.

Of course, here in the United States we just observed one of our major road trip holiday weekends, Labor Day.  It’s the last big vacation weekend before we slowly creep into autumn.  I can attest that the cars and the cops have been out in force.

These days, I only really want to take road trips with Dr. Fiancée, but those will have to wait until she finishes residency.  Otherwise, I’d much prefer just driving to and from work—and to see her!

With that, here is 5 September 2024’s “TBT^4: Road Trip!“:

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TBT^4: Road Trip!

The Portly Politico1 Comment

Yours portly had a pretty jam-packed summer with lots of time on the road visiting family, friends, and floozies.  Most of that driving was spent on the soulless, boring Interstate Highway System, but I managed to get onto some backroads (including a stop at Old Sheldon Church earlier this summer).

Over the long Labor Day weekend I was keeping I-20 hot with babysitting duties and celebrating my maternal grandparents’ seventieth (!) wedding anniversary.  No real backroads on those excursions, but I did get to drive through the lovely town of Camden, South Carolina, on way to dinner with a friend (she made meatloaf stuffed with mushrooms and bleu cheese; it was absolutely incredible).

But yours portly can’t resist the siren song of undiscovered backroads for long.  I’m looking forward to discovering some more of forgotten graveyards, abandoned middle schools, tiny shops, and other highway bric-a-brac in the near future.

With that, here is 7 September 2024’s “TBT^2: Road Trip!“:

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TBT^2: Road Trip!

The Portly Politico13 Comments

Right after the start of the new school year, I had the opportunity to hoof it down to Orlando for a day at Universal Studios with my family.  After going way too many times in 2020, I haven’t been back much since, so it was good to get back into the parks, even if for only a day.

Before school resumed, I found myself driving all over South Carolina to dine with an array of beauties.  That also provided ample opportunity to explore the highways and byways of my beloved State.

There is a beautiful drive through the countryside between my home of Lamar, South Carolina, and I-95, which GPS always recommends when I head to the Charleston/Mount Pleasant region of South Carolina.  It winds south of town on US-401 to the unincorporated community of Elliott, South Carolina, then veers off onto SC-527 for several miles before hitting I-95 South.  There’s a beautiful old church in Elliott with stained glass windows; across from it is a postage stamp-sized post office, proudly flying its American Flag on a mostly empty street corner.

Along SC-527 is an abandoned middle school, overgrown with weeds and brambles.  While I’m sure there is nothing there now but raccoons and spiders, I’d like to poke around in those remains.  I also wonder what it was like attending classes at this brick-and-concrete edifice in the middle of corn fields in a remote corner of the State, and what devastating depopulation had to occur for a school to find itself, empty and abandoned, so far from anything.  What must it be like for a school to die?  If a school dies, it means the community has already died much earlier.

I’ve come to enjoy these little trips.  There’s a great deal to see, and I enjoy the quiet drives.  After one (quite successful—fingers crossed!) excursion to Summerville, I found myself driving back during a massive storm.  Fortunately, the driving was easy, but the lightning was terrific—blasting out in huge bursts that turned night into day.  I was listening to A Flock of Seagull’s hit “I Ran,” and the lightning would sometimes hit in time with the constantly moving synthesizer part, creating a cinematic effect that could never be duplicated.

My advice to readers:  hit the road!

With that, here is 1 September 2022’s “TBT: Road Trip!“:

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TPP’s Greatest Hits, Track I: Driving the Georgia Backroads

The Portly Politico6 Comments

After MAGAWeek2023 and my extended time out of town, I’ve decided to take this week to rerun some classic hits from the extensive TPP back catalog.  Most of the posts are those with very high view counts, though I am presenting them in no particular order.  TBT will proceed as usual, and regular posts will resume Saturday, 15 July 2023.

With that, here is 7 September 2021’s “Driving the Georgia Backroads“:

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TBT: Road Trip!

The Portly Politico10 Comments

Note—when I first scheduled this post, I was still scheduled to go to Florida.  Due to The Virus afflicting one of my girlfriend’s sisters, we’ve postponed that trip.  So, instead, we’re going to do a little road-tripping around South Carolina this weekend.  We’ll be getting down to Florida in December, though, so while my return to Florida is delayed, I’m looking forward to visiting down there later this year.  Just pray for my sweet girlfriend—while we will have fun this weekend, I know she is heartbroken that she won’t get to see her family as planned.  —TPP

Tomorrow after school I’ll be riding down with my girlfriend to visit with her family in Florida.  After The Year of Universal Studios back in 2020, I haven’t made it back down that way in awhile, and I’m looking forward to a few days over Labor Day weekend in sunny central Florida.

We’ll be taking the Interstate Highway System most of the way, and I doubt there’ll be many backroads, but I’ve always enjoyed cruising the less-traveled pathways to see what little bits of Americana are out there, waiting to be discovered.  There’s still plenty of what John Derbyshire calls the “old, weird America” out there, and I love finding it (and, perhaps, living in it!).

Well, even if we aren’t hitting many backroads, I’m excited to be out and about on another footloose adventure!

With that, here is 22 July 2022’s “Road Trip!“:

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More Georgia and South Carolina Backroads

The Portly Politico11 Comments

As I noted in various updates about delayed posts, I was back in Athens, Georgia this weekend.  On the way over Friday, my GPS routed me a different way than usual, apparently due to a massive wreck on I-20.

The rerouting took me off I-20 at Lexington, South Carolina, taking me through painfully slow traffic in the bustling county seat before spitting me out on US-378 West, which wended its way towards the Upstate.

I then hit US-178 West towards Greenwood and Abbeville, transferring to various State roads.  I eventually ended up on SC-72, heading through Calhoun Falls at the South Carolina-Georgia border.

At that point, SC-72 became GA-72, which took me through Elberton and Comer, Georgia, before depositing me in Athens.

As many of my readers are not from South Carolina—or even from this country!—let me translate that for you:  I went through a lot of small towns in very rural parts of South Carolina and Georgia.

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Driving the Georgia Backroads

The Portly Politico30 Comments

Murphy and I spent this Labor Day Weekend visiting my girlfriend and her German Shepherd in Athens, Georgia, which is about three-and-a-half hours from Lamar.  As such, I spent a solid seven or so hours on the road this weekend, not counting time we spent tooling around Athens.

For a three-day weekend, that’s not much driving, and I’ve driven longer distances.  Way back in the mists of graduate school, circa 2006 or 2007, I drove from Knoxville, Tennessee to Rock Hill, South Carolina (not far), then from Rock Hill to Richmond, Virginia and back just to see the Trans-Siberian Orchestra with a friend.  She took the wheel only for the last hour of the drive back, and apparently as soon as I got into the passenger seat, I was out cold.

Granted, I was twenty-one or twenty-two at the time.  In the intervening fifteen years, my zest for driving all night to hear live symphonic holiday power metal has waned considerably.  Now I’m lucky if I can make it to 10:30 PM without falling asleep on the couch, my multiple after-school drives to Universal Studios notwithstanding.

But I digress.  While I may lack the stamina of my reckless youth, I do alternatively loathe and appreciate a long drive.

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Lazy Sunday CVI: Adventures

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One irony of The Age of The Virus is that while every event and institution found itself shuttered, I got out and did way more than I would have in The Before Times.  The constant demands of The Before Times—the sheer tempo at which I forced myself to operate—also prevented me from getting out and doing the sorts of things that make life worth living.

Indeed, I was bitter about it for a time.  I spent most of my twenties working and hustling, sacrificing many of the social opportunities of those salad days in order to store up my acorns for the future.  Now in my mid-thirties, I’m beginning to enjoy some of the fruits of those sacrifices, though most of the acorns are locked up tightly in my HSA, 403(b) and IRAs.

That’s all to say that The Age of The Virus forced me to slow down a bit, and granted me the time to do some exploring.  I will hasten to add that the misery and death of The Virus was not a cost worth paying just to grant me some more free time; rather, I’m acknowledging the silver lining, and stating the reality of the situation.  It’s not an endorsement of The Virus to take advantage of some it’s few, more positive consequences.

All disclaimers aside, here are three posts for this Lazy Sunday, detailing some of my adventures over the past year:

  • “Road Trip!” – I filed this post while heading to my second of five Universal Studio trips (which consumed a lot of acorns) since February 2020.  The primary focus of the post, however, was to detail a trip through the backroads of South Carolina, an off-the-beaten-path excursion from Columbia to Aiken that took me through Pelion and New Holland.  It was a beautiful drive; New Holland’s vast swaths of cattle pasture were particularly beautiful to see on a summer’s day.
  • “Midweek SubscribeStar Exclusive: Sloshing through Lee State Park” – This post—a midweek exclusive for $5 and up SubscribeStar subscribers—detailed an adventure to Lee State Park, a 1935 Civilian Conservation Corps project that is still open to the public to this day, and just seven miles from my house.  My girl and I ended up sloshing through a flooded-out equestrian trail—on foot!—along with her two-year old German Shepherd.  It was great fun, and a memorable adventure.
  • “Backroads Exploration: Una Adventure” – I own an aging, dented, dirty minivan—a vehicle I love dearly, even if I don’t always give it the TLC it deserves.  To keep its battery charged, I like to take it for short excursions, little jaunts around the backroads.  One recent Thursday evening I took a longer-than-planned trip to the tiny community of Una, South Carolina, just to see what’s there.  Turns out it’s not much, but it’s all about the journey, not the destination—right?

The weather is getting warmer and the days are longer.  It’s a great time to go out and enjoy some adventuring.  Let me know about yours in the comments!

Happy Sunday!

—TPP

Other Lazy Sunday Installments:

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Backroads Exploration: Una Adventure

The Portly PoliticoLeave a comment

As I recently detailed in the post “Routine Maintenance,” I managed to get my old 2006 Dodge Caravan running again thanks to an $80 battery.  I finally hooked up the battery maintainer, too, so hopefully the old girl won’t drain down due to neglect.

After installing that battery, it reminded me of how fun driving a busted up minivan can be.  Readers might scoff at that notion, but that van and I share an intimate connection (well, at least I do with it—it can’t really think about who is driving it).  After fifteen years, I’ve learned that machine inside and out.  Sure, after driving my tiny Nissan it takes some adjustment (I still reach for the gear shifter in the wrong place occasionally, and briefly forget where the lights are), but it’s surprisingly nimble.

Aside from the maintainer, I’ve been taking the van for weekly drives to keep the battery up.  My girlfriend and I took it to Lee State Park a few weekends ago, loading our small bit of supplies and her faithful German Shepherd into the cavernous interior.  Since then, I’ve only done a few small jaunts with it, with the exception of last Thursday night.

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