One R2D2 mailbox and
Fourteen Post Office pictures in the morning.
One hundred fourteen professional cyclists in the afternoon.
We had a reservation at a Holiday Inn Express (guess I should make this an acronym – HIE) for Sunday night because our original plan called for us to drive up on Sunday morning to watch the Professional Road Race Championships that are being held in Greenville. Decided to drive up today and catch a few Post Offices. Ten fell before the shutter. Most interesting: Tigerville.
Last night, six FRS pitchers gave up nine runs and 13 hits to the Baltimore Orioles. Tonight, 1 pitcher gave up no runs on NO hits. In 23 year-old Clay Buchholz’s second big league start he faced only three more batters than the minimum possible.
Didn’t post last night, not because the wireless connection was crap in my room like last week, it was fine because we were home, but because it was such a full day and we got home too late to blog about it.
In the morning Donna and I went on a drive to photograph a half dozen Post Offices. In one I had to use the Emperor’s Mini Me because it was inside a building with no outside indication it was a PO and another that will have to be re shot on another trip that way because there were too many people in lawn chairs in front waiting for a parade.
True to the Postmaster’s letter the Post Office in Hilda was inside a car garage store. There was little section just inside the front door on the left that was set aside for that official function. If you look towards the bottom of the photo right next to a fuel filter is the Matchbox Garnet Red Miata. The other side was the cashier for the garage. Coincidently when we pulled up there was a white 1st Gen Miata just outside one of the garage doors with it’s hood up being worked on.
When we entered the town limits of Ehrhardt, SC the town sign said “Home of the Schuetzenfest.” I wondered to my self what that might be and when they held it. The answer to the second question was answered when we got to the intersection of US601 & SC64. There were people everywhere. The road was not blocked yet, but you could tell that people were staking out spots to watch a parade. The Schuetzenfest was today. How lucky could we be? Well, not so lucky, the Post Office was nowhere near the south end of town where the Google map thought it should be. We parked the car on a parallel street to the parade route and did a walk through. Found the PO and it was 100 feet from the center of all the action. This photo would have to wait for another day. The answer to the second question had to wait until we got home and checked Wikipedia. Leave it to South Carolina to misspell it and homogenize it to look like another “festival” with blow-up kids entertainment thingies, crafts for sale and deep fried dough.
When we got home we had some lunch and I went outside to wash the car for a couple of Miata events for that afternoon & evening. First up was the annual Sno-Cap Drive-In Anniversary hang out in the parking lot. Donna stayed home from this one as it was hot as the dickens and there is little place to hide from it over there, plus it is just a bunch of cars with a bunch of car guys standing around talking about cars. On the way over I found out how it looks to have a waterfall cascade over the windshield header. It looked a little hazy ahead and I didn’t didn’t see any oncoming cars with wipers on, so it couldn’t be rain. Wrong oh. It was a pop up thundershower and it happened so fast I had no time to prepare. Most times if you hit a shower and it is not too heavy the best defense is to roll up the windows and keep moving. This was no one of those times. Traveling at 60 MPH in a deluge just results in there being enough water and force behind it to make it come rolling over the windshield. After about a minute or so it was safe to pull over so I could get the top up, of course I had the boot on which just caused more of a delay in getting every thing closed up. The interior and myself were soaked. Almost turned around and went home, but seeing as I was halfway to the Cap I went anyway. About 2 miles later the storm was gone and the skies were blue so I dropped the top again hoping the sun would help dry everything out. Five miles later when I got to the Drive-In the only way to tell I had gotten drenched was the puddle of water surrounding the shift boot and the damp side of my clothing that I was sitting on. The whole hour and a half I was at the Sno-Cap it didn’t rain a drop, but wouldn’t you know it, a couple miles into the drive home it started to rain again and it kept it up for the rest of the trip. This time I was ready, I put the top up before I even left the Cap’s parking lot.
I had just enough time when I got home to dry off the recently washed car and listen to 4 innings of the FRS whoop up on the Chicago White Sox before heading back out the door for the MMC‘s Bug Splat Rally which I run. We had a good turn out (for our little club) with 9 cars at the restaurant. Eight of which went on the run. The bugs were not so cooperative though, there were a lot of clean Miata noses at the Dairy Queen finish. There were a few large splats, but the biggest bug trophy went to a car that came back with a large mosquito plastered near their turn signal. The highlight for us was the medium M&M Blizzard we split.
This morning we went out and did a 13 mile ride on the tandem, the first 50 feet my butt protested the return of the bicycles seat so soon after Friday’s ride, but I showed it who was the boss by continuing on. In truth that was partly the reason we did go for a ride today, because all we have been doing is short and very infrequent rides the limiting factor in our enjoyment is uncomfortable sitting. Most people who start bike riding as an adult think that the reason their hiney hurts is they need a wider, cushier tractor seat, but what they really need is miles. I don’t know what really happens, but it is like forming callouses on your hands from doing manual labor. If you are sitting correctly on a modern lightly padded skinny seat after a while of riding your sit bones won’t bother you even on very long rides.
After riding we did our weekly grocery shopping and were home and in the house for good by 10:30 AM.
I was pleasantly surprised by Stranger Than Fiction that we watched this afternoon, it would have been perfect if not for the happy ending, I would have given it a 10 out of ten, had it stopped right after the bus accident part.
We are at 221 South Carolina Post Offices. About half. I say about because when I started this and made up my spreadsheet of all the POs in the state I came up with 460. How accurate that total will turn out to be is not clear. Ther are 9 military bases that I’m not sure I will be allowed to waltz onto to just take a picture. There is a Greenwood Post Office I know exists, but isn’t on the list because it is not listed on USPS.com. How many more are there that I don’t know about? How many are listed and aren’t there anymore?
So far, four are MIA, including the one that is supposed to be at 4708 Sandy Run Road (see attached photo) that we tried to find today. On the USPS web site this is called a Hampton Post Office, with a name of Crocketville. As you can see it doesn’t look much like a Post Office. Probably was one when Crocketville was a real town and not just a marked section on SC63 east of Hampton, but no more.
There are 3 Post Offices listed for Walterboro, two of which are north of town and not too far off I-95, so it was decided to get these two before getting the downtown PO. The best laid plans… We got on I-95 heading north and after a 1/2 mile there were orange signs warning of an accident ahead. Then we got one of those display boards that said there was a detour around the accident at the next exit. Then with three miles to go to the exit, traffic came to a standstill. We crept along with 65,000 other cars to the next exit. Donna suggested we give up on this PO because of the traffic, so we got off the northbound exit, looped right back on the southbound and shelved those Post Offices for another time.
Our other failure this weekend occurred in Beaufort on Lady’s Island. We couldn’t find the address of 10 Sams Point Rd. There was a shopping center with a Publix that might have been it, but there was not any USP signage out front (nor an address either.) There was a shopping center kind of parallel but it was on a different road. We looked there and didn’t find anything either. Now that we are home and see that that road is called Sams Point Parkway it may need another visit. This is not a hardship in any way because this is just a stone’s throw away from the other reason we went south to Beaufort besides Post Offices, Barbara Jean’s crab cakes.
About 10 miles from home the Emperor passed through 65,000 miles.
I missed you?
At somewhat the last minute we decided to head south to take some Post Office pictures. Found a HI Express in a town called Yemassee and made a reservation. It wasn’t until we got there that I wondered if they had Internet access in the rooms. If it didn’t I’d be fine with that, I brought a book. Well, it turns out that there was wireless access, but because we were at the end of the hall it was weak as a kitten. After I gave up, Donna got the Weather Channel to load, but it appeared as if we were on a 14.4 modem (and then wouldn’t stay connected.) So we gave up.
Posting this on Sunday, but dating it Saturday for historical top transision data.
What the heck is this?
Another Carolina Car Trek car. This is one of two in the thriving megalopolis of Society Hill, SC.
Somewhere north of Chesterfield, SC the Emperor drove through the 64,000 mile mark. We have eaten out twice today, but I can’t talk about it because I just got through watching Feasting on Asphalt II. They spent two days around New Orleans and what they got to eat made anything I had today look and taste like soggy Ritz crackers.
At Cousin Laurie’s house we meet up with some of the same cast of characters as you can see in this photo, AKA the Midlothian McGraths, who were visiting as well. I found out that I had mislabeled the oldest and middle daughters in the photo. I’m pretty sure I’ve got them correct now.
We snagged 4 Post Offices this morning on the way up to Chesterfield; Hopkins, Gadsden, Eastover and Horatio. The first three have been at the top of our Most Wanted List for a couple months now, but because of where they are located (in the middle of, and on the way to, nowhere) it took a concerted effort to get them photographed. We are planning on an even dozen for on the way home tomorrow because if we get that many our captured total would be a nice round 200.
We were back in northeast South Carolina hunting Post Offices. Knocked off 16 more, bring our total captured to 184 out of the total of 460. I was stopped by a freight train twice over the weekend, once on Saturday with Donna’s cousin Susie and her daughter Katlin in a Jaguar XJ8 and on Sunday with Donna in the Miata.
The visit wasn’t all fun and games though, we were there to offer what moral support we could to Donna’s cousin Laurie because her husband Ted was in the hospital. Ted’s lifelong health issues had final caught up with him. Diabetes and a bad heart caused an early retirement. The diabetes led to weakened kidney’s which finally gave up after a his last heart attack necessitating dialysis. When we visited in March they were still struggling with getting the home dialysis to work right and Ted reminded us of how Donna’s mom had gotten towards the end. When we stopped in last week the both of us were shocked at how far he had deteriorated. He fell out of bed on Tuesday and was hospitalized in Florence at the McLeod Medical Center. Ted passed away early this morning.
While traveling west, somewhere east of North, South Carolina the Emperor moved past the 63,000 mile mark.
For dinner we both had a bowl of Won-ton Soup and an Egg Roll, while we split an order of Jade Chicken (don’t know if this is a regular Chinese restaurant dish or just got it’s name because we were eating a place called Jade of China.)