the button king and pearl fryar

6/9 Bishopville, South Carolina

Sorry to work in the past again folks, but we never got around to a post for the swell stuff we visited in Bishopville on our way across South Carolina. Well worth the stop was Dalton Stevens' Button Museum. mrs. a-go-go called ahead to check if the museum was open for the day but only got the answering machine so she left a message and we figured we would try our luck. If you go, do try to stick to the directions on the website. Many of the rural roads turn into unpaved ruts and a GPS may send you down one of these.

When we arrived Dalton seemed to be expecting us so they must have gotten the massage on the answering machine. We pulled up to the white museum building and Dalton ushered us in out of the sun after a brief introduction. Inside was a dazzling display of his insomniac handiwork.

Dalton says that the button applique started one night when he just couldn't sleep with just one red button sewn on the knee of his denim pants. From there he covered a whole outfit including hat and vest, and the body of his guitar. Dalton indulged us with a few songs on his guitar and then he took us into the building next door where he demonstrated some of his other favorite instruments, a mandolin, a banjo, and a washboard tie!

Dalton then offered to show us the way to something else he thought we should see in Bishopville. He was on his way to town anyhow so he said, "Follow me and I'll take you to see the topiary." Huh... We exchanged concerned looks and wondered what we were in for but Dalton was right, we did need to see this. He led us to the garden of Pearl Fryar who has turned the land around his house into a marvelous topiary art project.

You won't find the frozen green elephants and turtles that may spring to mind, and there are no elemental solids here. All of Pearl's shapes are wild abstractions and imaginative organic fantasies. He started with no training and a few plants discarded from the nursery and made training and trimming plants into his own vision. If you are traveling Interstate 20 across South Carolina, don't miss the short detour for these one-of-a-kind creations.

south of the border

NOT down mexico way...
oh South of the Border, you held promise in your very being. i imagined a slightly downtrodden adventure with faded leftovers of your glory days and instead we found a place that was hot, hot, hot and more than downtrodden (and horrifficly un-pc). frightful really. i expected it to be bad in a b-movie kind of way i did. i shouldn't have been surprised it was seedier than a fat watermelon. yet, i am satisfied we hit ya (thanks Bob!) and i bought (too) many postcards to prove it and a plastic dancing donkey toy and a gingerale...if only i remembered to bring out the duaflex. eeps! still, it has major kitsch appeal, someone get in there and kitsch it up please!i knew we were in for it when the billboards began to appear. much like The Thing in arizona, the more signs the more yer likely to find yerself in a room with a fake two-headed turtle (not that is what The Thing is, i'm just guessing it's something sad like that).Pedro's diner is more awful than awful. if you hit South of the Border, don't eat here, just don't. do bring a camera, sure it's cheezeriffic but you can't beat large gorillas and turquoise jackalopes. oh and there are fireworks a plenty so stock on up. other than that make sure you drive (or walk) the short block over to North Carolina and capture the moment...hey, you could even stand in both states at once! South of the Border on Roadside America and Wikipedia

the place I've been thinking about for so long

6/8 Congaree National Park

About a year ago when we decided it was time to make this big trip happen and I started planning and linking together points on the map, I looked at a list of all the national parks. Quite a few national parks came up that I had never heard of or at least ever thought about because they were so far away. This trip would be the grand opportunity to see the far away special places. A mysterious name on the list, Congaree, I read was a rather new addition to the National Park system. The more I read about it the more enthused I became. Soon Congaree became my goal, my reason to spend weeks driving across the southern states. There were lots of destinations along the way and I don't mean to diminish all those experiences and flavors, but when we crossed into South Carolina I at last felt far from home and amazed that we'd come so far.
Congaree became a national park in 2003 after being a national monument for 30 years. It preserves the largest remaining stretch of old growth flood plain forest. It attracts a mad array of migrating birds and seasonal residents too. A few days before we were to arrive in South Carolina there was a flood warning in effect for the area around Congaree, and I worried that our visit would be cut off. The park normally floods at least ten times a year, but a short call to the Visitor Center assured us that the water was receding and we would only have some extra mud if we ventured off the boardwalk to the longer trails.
After pushing our way through some chaotic traffic in Columbia, SC the road turned down into the bottom land of the flood plain. The air turned cool (but no less humid and heavy) and the green took over. We passed a few houses and farms as we followed what we thought was the way to the park, heck it was called Congaree Park Road. Hmm, something was wrong. We could not get to the park and there didn't seem to be any helpful brown signs, other than the one we stumbled on that pointed the way to a canoe landing. After some fumbling with the map and some dead reckoning we at last made our way to the park entrance and the camping area. If you go, make sure to carefully follow the directions provided on the web site. Finding Congaree is not as easy as most National Parks where you start seeing the direction signs when you're still miles away.
The park was a delight. Hot and sticky, but still a delight of green, and muck, and fungus, and bird song, drippy wet growing things, and...

We saw insects to beat all; Odonates (dragonflies) that flew with a bat like flutter, and brilliant green beetles having a frenzied party on the muddy trail. The high canopy of the cypress, tupelo, and loblolly pines cast more dazzling patterns than a disco ball, and the scrabble of vines and moss completed the encyclopedia illustration of thriving bottom land forest.
Congaree at last. For me this made a fine corner stone and capped the first part of our trip. From Congaree we would wind our way North for part two; Appalachia, the big cities, New England, and Canada (or at least a little taste of it). See you there.