Yesterday we had ridden through the lovely historic downtown and waterfront areas of Georgetown. Today we rode out through the newer commercial areas of town along one of the highways. The population is only about 9,000 so I'm guessing it services some of the surrounding communities as well.
It is interesting riding through some of these smaller towns, well off the interstate highways. Almost every town has a Dollar General and/or a Family Dollar. We saw this on the Southern Tier as well. Apparently there are over 11,500 DG stores in 40 states and over 7,000 FD stores in 44 states. A total of over 40,000 dollar stores of all brands throughout the US. Really?? They're obviously thriving. But - we are seeing that a lot of these communities have seen better (or perhaps just different) retail days. Lots of abandoned stores and entire malls in some cases. We have seen empty houses, some with "for sale" signs still on them that have obviously been unoccupied for a long time and probably are destined to remain so. In just a few weeks of riding we have gone from the incredible wealth so gaudily displayed in southern Florida to the just-trying-to-get-by crowd in rural Georgia and South Carolina. Interesting..........
No pictures today, as it was raining the entire ride. Can't say that I particularly enjoyed the ride. It was supposed to be 51 miles. However - there was an error on the cue sheet and the turn that was supposed to be at mile 12.9 was at about mile 9. I was already past 9 when the SAG flagged me down, so I just kept going on the more direct route that I was on. I ended up with 39 miles. Shorter route, but the downside was that we were on a two-lane, no-shoulder busy trucking highway the whole way with limited visibility due to the rain. I saw nothing but the road immediately in front of me and barely dared to reach down for my water bottle from time to time. It was one of those rides where you don't realize how scary it is until you take a break and watch the trucks whiz by. Actually, the proper route wasn't that much better. Still on the same highway for almost as many miles, with a quieter 10 mile loop road thrown in partway. Glad I did the shorter route Soooo glad to have everyone in safe and sound!
Stats for the day:
63 km from Georgetown SC to Conway SC. Temps 14C to 15C. Rain the whole way. A relatively light rain, but cumulatively quite a bit of water. A bit of a headwind to ensure we stayed out there as long as possible :) We're out of SC tomorrow. Woohoo! Here's hoping NC has better riding.........
I guess the US South really took it in the teeth with the Financial Crisis of 2009 and it taking awhile to recover. You're seeing it first-hand.
ReplyDeleteHope the weather and scenery improved tomorrow...