Laurie Pipes In

So Thursday we drove down to Charleston and along the way we stopped at a rural supermarket where eyeglasses were $1/pair, packages of broccoli came with plaintive labels urging "Try Me," and there were steaming cauldrons of boiled cajun-spiced peanuts. (Our assessment: soggy warm spicy glop.) At our campground just outside the city, there was a huge
dog park with a lake and tons of romping room, perfect, so long as you stayed away from the natives:

Friday night, we had dinner with one of my favorite people in the world, Emily Meier. We went to Bennington together and for all of you who don't know her, you'd love her. Fact. She took us to a farm-to-table restaurant, which was fantastic (mushroom risotto, curry mackerel, baby veggies with aioli), especially since we stayed away from the headcheese charcuterie with beef cheek bits in gelatin and "happy trotters" aka pigs feet.

So at this point, you might be wondering is it like to drive a 27 foot RV. Well, first of all the rear view mirror is entirely a decorative object, from which we've hung a swinging cowgirl (thanks Lorrie Cohen!), and the blind spots are not really spots so much as swathes. On the interstate, I've gotten accustomed to Prius' and F-150s swerving and darting around me, so that I feel a new found camaraderie with the big-rig drivers, which I'm sure is not reciprocated. And this brings me to the New Jersey Turnpike. Governor Christie, you really have a problem with traffic, don't you? On the NJT, not only are the tolls in the $8-12 range for RV's, there are also a series of ancient arched bridges which have signs leading up to them indicate they have a 13'3" clearance. Since we're 12' tall, you'd assume that it'd be no problem. But you'd be wrong. If you're in an RV the right hand lane, approaching the first of these bridges at 65 mph, you'll suddenly see a sign attached to the bridge warning that your lane has a clearance of only 11'2". Ummm….Throw on the turn single and swerve into the other lane praying no one is in your blind swathe. 

Enough of the kvetching. We spent all of Saturday wandering around Charleston, which C and I agree is the most beautiful American city we've ever seen -- stately and more modest homes plastered in the sorts of pastel colors you usually only find in Europe, filagreed wrought iron fences, handsome columns, floor to ceiling windows, beautiful little gardens, cobblestone roads, flickering gas lamps. If you think that the novelist Pat Conroy exaggerates when he writes about the city's charms, he really doesn't. Oh, and today's front page news was that South Carolina just passed a law making it legal to carry concealed weapons into any restaurant or bar. Yehaw! Just don't get into an argument at the Bojangles drive-thru….