Issue:
January/February 2005

Text:
Chris Myers

Photography:
Chris Myers and Kathy Myers

Geographic Region:
SC, USA

Pages:
102 - 107

Visit the gallery for more pictures

 

The Call of Adventure
Rick Chappell and the guys at Honda of Winston-Salem, our local Kymco scooter dealer, don't quite know what to make of it when I tell them I'm planning on riding to Charleston. Everyone agrees that a scooter is the perfect ride for Charleston; they just don't agree with me that it'll do fine as a ride to Charleston. Which makes me wonder what's happened to our good old American sense of adventure. Undeterred, I fire up the mighty 250cc Kymco power plant and head home to show Kathy our ride for the weekend.

"It's cute," she says, "but will it make it all the way to Charleston?" Man, what a bunch of doubting Thomases. I quickly tell her to grab her helmet and join me on a quick ride to stress test this bad boy. A zip through the country and a short jaunt on the highway assures her, and me, that we'll have no problems on the road. Curiosities satisfied we headed inside to pack for our trip.

300 miles, 250ccs, and1.5 Gallon Fill-Ups
Every good road trip starts with topping off the tank. The fuel gauge shows the tank nearly empty, and the automatic shut-off stops the gas pump almost as soon as it starts. Yep, 1.5 gallons does the trick. You gotta love it.

We're taking back roads as much as we can, which makes a lot more sense than riding the interstates and fighting the cyclonic blasts of speeding 18-wheelers. (Crazy, maybe, but I'm not insane.) That lengthens the trip but the scenery and the unique charms of the road will be worth the extra time. The flat landscape of southern North Carolina and South Carolina isn't too spectacular but somehow it never grows old. The towns are small and the farms large, yet the nods and waves from the folks you see are welcome reminders that there is such a thing as southern hospitality. And thick as the scent of magnolia, there's an air of mystery about many of the towns the road winds through. Each seems the perfect setting for a great southern novel. But some stories will never be told, and maybe that's a good thing.

The Kymco is running flawlessly so far, sipping gas at a miserly rate that prompts jesting about high fuel prices. Scooters are great on country roads. The easy automatic transmission makes small town traffic lights a breeze. Likewise, the "need for speed" just isn't there, which makes the local constabulary happy.

It's been a long but surprisingly enjoyable day on the Grandvista. The little 250 had no trouble with the 300 miles of relatively flat terrain. We're glad to be in Charleston at last. Now the real fun begins.

Spend a Day Riding;Spend a Day Walking
Kathy has been dying to visit Charleston for years. The first thing she wants to do on Saturday morning is ride into town and "grab a quick cup of coffee." No ma'am, sorry, no dice, no deal – it ain't happenin'. My wife's quick cup of coffee would likely become an all-day affair. She's disappointed, but understands. We have a tour to do and the plan calls for a little scoot through the Francis Marion National Forest and around Lake Moultrie. This should take most of the day, so coffee on the fly is a better, if less popular, idea. We cross the Cooper River and head north.

Charleston is a big city, but it ends rather abruptly as you head northeast. Rather than inquire about a coffee shop, I trust my instincts. Quoting Paul Harvey, "Now you know the rest of the story." The best I can do is gas-station coffee and a mystery-meat microwave croissant. Luckily, Kathy is road savvy and understands that "stuff" happens. Riding through the Swamp Fox's stomping grounds, we realized a couple of things. This place has lots of pine trees and guys with guns. It's hunting season and we're riding right through it. Yikes. I have no problem with firearms (in the right hands), but accidents can happen. Kathy suggests we keep moving and I can't disagree. The vastness of the place and the immeasurable mass of pine trees are impressive at first, but get tiresome after an hour or so, especially when coupled with hypnotically straight roads. The only 'Grand vista' in this place is the Kymco.

I assure Kathy the ride around Lake Moultrie should be better. Well, I'm partly right. The roads are just as straight but the scenery does improve. The landscape here is more agrarian and we get to watch something neither of us had seen before, the harvesting of cotton. It's everywhere around here. Like a giant snow-globe scene, acres upon acres of cotton bolls cast a winter aspect on this fall day. The globe gets shaken some when loaded trucks rumble by and stray fluff flies from the bales. It's cool to see all of this and know that we're seeing clothes in their infancy.

The Kymco glides us across the flat, straight roads in search of the Lake Moultrie. There's plenty of evidence of boats, fishing and even canals, but we never did see the lake. Eventually, we end up back in Monck's Corner and begin the last leg back to Charleston. These roads wind past old plantation estates and the huge live oaks that line their unpaved drives. The waning sun upon the Spanish moss that drapes them creates the illusion of a tunnel leading to the distant homes and the expectation of glimpsing carriages and crinolines amid the scene. There's a timeless tranquility here that belies its past and place in the modern world.

Tour complete, we find ourselves darting through heavy traffic when approaching town. The amount of congestion early on a Saturday evening only hints at the numbers drawn to the city's dynamic nightlife. We decide to venture downtown for a little taste of what tomorrow will offer. People crowd the restaurant district and every eatery seems to have a line. Enticing aromas of gourmet fare and short order grills combine to form a culinary net capable of entangling even the most stalwart of dieters. We're sensing this town is not Atkins-approved.

Tired from a day of riding and wanting to avoid unfamiliar roads after dark, we reluctantly tear ourselves from the city's come-hither grip and opt to investigate when we have a full day to work with.

We've Ridden, Now We Walk
What a difference a day makes. While yesterday's so-so coffee somewhat did the trick, today's is pure heaven. Maybe it's just the vibe of Charleston or the delightful character of the East Bay Coffee House, but pecan pie for breakfast is the perfect choice. Now the day belongs to my wife and I happily cede control of our explorations.

Maybe it's the toll the nightlife takes, or the tolling of the church bells demanding penance for weekend behavior, but the streets are almost deserted, making Sunday morning a great time to see the city. Activity is slow to get into gear and it's nice to be there to see Charleston waking up. The day is gray and dreary, but there's no way to put a damper on the sheer beauty of this downtown area, in particular the splendid antebellum homes facing the waterfront.

The nimble Kymco is ideal for blasting down Meeting Street or for quietly stealing up a semi-private alley to sneak a peek at a hidden garden. U-turns are probably illegal here, but with all there is to see it's impossible not to indulge in a few. Before we know it, lunch is upon us and one of Charleston's many landmark restaurants, Poogan's Porch, beckons. Their menu choices are many and varied, and so, our recommendations are not necessary. OK, you have to try the fried green tomatoes...

After lunch, we grabbed the Kymco from the self-appointed scooter-only parking place and hopped across town to tour the Aiken-Rhett house. This tour is unique in that the house has been kept in its nineteenth-century state. The family who lived in the house made few modifications to it over the years and eventually they donated it to the Charleston Museum. In 1995, the museum sold the house to the Historic Charleston Foundation, which opened it to the public as a house museum. They adopted a "preservation, not restoration" approach. Many of the original objects and fixtures still abide in the rooms for which they were purchased.

In a city with this much history, you know there are skeletons and ghosts in every closet. The Ghosts of Charleston Tour will show you where to scare them up. This is a walking tour of several of the many haunts of the city. It's a lot of fun and there really isn't that much walking involved – although, this late in the day, I was wishing they had provided scooters instead.

With the ghost circuit done, we wrapped our brief stay in Charleston. The narrow eighteenth-century streets, designed for horse and buggy, are perfectly suited for scooters, and the Kymco Grandvista performed admirably. It conquered highways, byways, and alleyways with ease. Scooters seem custom-made for metropolitan areas like Charleston. Parking is a breeze and you can explore all day on a gallon of gas. And with all the money saved on fuel, almost anyone can afford to splurge a little on a magical weekend in a beauty like Charleston.