Year 3 - Day 10 Charlestown SC to Beaufort SC

We had a long day today. We rode a total of 81.9 miles that took us a little over 6 and one half hours riding time, but 9 hours total! 

Our first challenge was to ride over the bridge from Mount Pleasant to Charleston. This bridge, as you can clearly see in the photos, is very tall. In fact our riding profile shows that we climbed a little more than 200 feet after leaving the hotel. I took some photos as we left Mt Pleasant.








The outer most cables, if you want to call steel rods cables, must vibrate so much, either from the wind or loading of the bride, that the engineers have installed shock absorbers on the cable above the attachment points. 


One topic of discussion from yesterday was the H.L.Huntley submarine. This was the sub that recorded the first official “kill” ever for a sub. It has been recently discovered and returned to a Navy facility in this area. Gary discovered that a replica of this submarine was on display outside a museum in Charleston, not far from our route. We made a diversion to see the replica and take some photos.






 As we made our way through what I can only assume is “old town” Charleston, I snapped several photos of notable buildings that seems to well represent Charleston in years gone by.



Once we departed Charleston, we again played leap frog with Route 17. On one such diversion, we were pleasantly traveling down a very quiet back road, crossed an intersection, and the road turned to sand. For a while, we were fine. The sand was packed and rideable. As we continued, I almost lost control and barely saved myself from falling. Shortly further in, it was totally unrideable. We were all pushing our bikes. Not only was it difficult to walk in this stuff, but extra difficult to push a loaded touring bike also.



We found a small restaurant on Route 17 called Ace Basin Fish Camp. It was a very small unassuming place, but this is also a little gem. The food and the service were great.


After lunch we continued about 20 miles down Route 17. Then we turned a little more south and headed toward Beaufort SC. We arrived at the hotel about 5 p.m. Of all the Hampton Inn hotels do not have a laundry, we are staying at one and now have two days soiled clothes! We will wash tomorrow!

The hotel is amongst several very old “live oak” trees, each with a plethora of Spanish moss hanging from them. The sun shone so nice on them that I could not resist taking a couple photos.



 We rode 81.9 miles today, climbed 797 feet today. Total for our current year is 580.7 miles and we climbed 10,884. When you look at the Ride with GPS profile below, please note that for some reason even though I paused it at the restaurant, it messed up the profile and I was again shown to be riding under sea level for the remainder of the ride.



Total for our ECG trip, we have done 2,195.5 miles and climbed 72,308 feet.

 


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