Off the Road: Kayaking Conway, South Carolina

by Paul Brady on


The guy at the marina told us that alligators are usually scared of people, so we probably didn’t have much to worry about after the kayaks were in the river. But the Waccamaw flows with what’s called black water–water turned dark by tannins leeched from cypress trees along the banks–making it all but impossible to see beneath the surface. If there were gators about, we’d only know it once it was too late. The sleepy town of Conway, South Carolina was proving to be much more exciting than I’d expected.

Traveling the American Road – Kayaking Conway


A few miles outside Myrtle Beach, Conway is a historic Lowcountry village founded in 1732 that moves about as fast as the slow drain of the Waccamaw. I found it because my friend Rob has family there: They run The Cypress Inn, a Southern Victorian waterfront bed and breakfast that we planned to enjoy for a night. It’s right on the river, with rocking chairs on the porch and an appropriately enormous (and delicious) breakfast.

Conway, a port by virtue of its river connections to the sea, has developed its waterfront into a tourist-friendly walkway, with boardwalks over the Waccamaw, playgrounds and benches, where couples sit to pass the quiet evenings. Live oaks weighed down with Spanish moss lend the town a mysterious air–and some grow in the middle of the road. One guide to the town I picked up at the Inn warns:

Some of our streets split around live oaks and some bend and wind. Drivers should proceed slowly and watch for oncoming traffic, always remembering that when the street narrows to a single lane, the law of Southern courtesy prevails!

The gentility extends to the waterways, many of which are now marked as “blueways,” narrow channels designated for recreation that extend all the way to the North Carolina border. Rob and I took to kayaks–leaky kayaks as it turned out–to paddle the rivers. We got turned around in the forks and bends, but with nothing to do except avoid getting eaten by alligators and water moccasins, our outing was a success. At $30 for the half-day rental, it was one of the best deals of the trip so far.

The area, a farming region since Antebellum times, continues to capitalize on the rural relaxation that’s increasingly popular worldwide. An AgriTourism Passport put together by Clemson University Extension promotes a variety of activities available in the area, including roadside produce stands, you-pick fruit farms, historic landmark plantations, farmers markets, vineyards and museums.

But if you spend the whole trip on eating biscuits and gravy at The Cypress Inn, you’ll have a wonderful time, too. Just remember to paddle off the calories in the Waccamaw.

The Greatest Road Trip Radio Show in History

by Paul Brady on


The best radio station I’ve listened to on this road trip is Road Dog Trucking on SiriusXM. It’s a channel dedicated to truckers, with an ample time for call-ins and opinion-and a plethora of regional dialects, a selective sample that seems to indicate that most of the truckers in this country are white men from the south. It’s endlessly fascinating, this window onto an oft-overlooked subculture, and the pinnacle of the station is a show hosted by Dale Sommers, who goes by the name Truckin’ Bozo.

I don’t recall how I found the Bozo’s show, but at number 106 on the dial, it was likely through some desperate channel surfing. He was talking about, well, something and taking calls from truckers. They almost always go by their handles, names like Seatcover Chaser and Grizzly Bear and Kemosabe and Elvis. (Listing the handles heard on the show is a staple of writing stories about the Bozo.)

Working at WLW in Cincinnati in the ’80s, he developed an overnight country music show that caught on by truck stop word of mouth. Jerry Springer called him “a lone but powerful voice crying in the night” in 1991, introducing a WLWT segment on the host. He was snatched from the brink of retirement by satellite radio in 2004, to bring his show from the third shift to afternoon drive time.

The current program meanders through its three hours. An odd cast of frequent guests call in, filling their roles in story lines still inscrutable to me after listening for six weeks. The Bozo goes on political rants, aimed more at “politicians” than any one in particular, unless its President Obama, who gets dinged almost daily. Some bit of news that’s of interest to professional drivers-cross-border trucking, construction projects, new in-cab computer systems-will be dissected and re-dissected. A producer, Ritchie, will talk about Long Island, where it seems he’s from.

The Bozo’s show is, in other words, almost impenetrable for newcomers. And yet listeners keep coming back, jamming the phones to get a chance to greet the host with the phrase everyone uses when they finally get on air: “Hey there, Bozo.” If they’re lucky, callers will be “given a boost,” hung up on with an explosion sound effect. For how little sense it makes, it’s extraordinarily popular.

By inviting everyone to call in and tell their own stories in their own words, the Bozo has created a tight-knit, pan-American trucking community. After watching the final shuttle launch, I decided to join the club. I dialed in, told Ritchie what I planned to talk about, sat on hold for more than an hour and finally got to talk with the host about the experience.

The Bozo opined about the lack of industriousness and imagination in this country-we’re turning our space program over to the Russians, you see!-and then told a story about seeing a night launch’s exhaust trail from Tampa, more than a hundred miles away. I told the Bozo it was my first time calling in. He gave me a boost for the road trip, firing the explosion sound effect and proclaiming “Liftoff!” Now I just need to come up with a handle.

The Country’s Biggest Tourist Trap: South of the Border

by Paul Brady on

There is a tourist trap in South Carolina called South of the Border. A combination truck stop, motel, roadside attraction, carnival and snack stand, it’s high kitsch of the first order, bordering on exploitative with its stereotypically Mexican “mascot” Pedro. A couple days before the Fourth of July, when I drove through, it’s also a bonanza for fireworks, all manner of which are legal in South Carolina, even if they’re sold at exit one, just south of the border with North Carolina.

Traveling the American Road – Exploring South of the Border


It started as a half-way point on the haul down to Florida, a convenient place for New York- and Boston-area families to spend the night while driving to Walt Disney World and Miami. But faster speed limits, not to mention cheaper flights, a growing number of chain hotel outposts and the economic downturn, have left South of the Border as more of a curiosity than a much-needed overnight waypoint. It’s hokiness is no longer a draw but rather something to be snickered at after you get back in your car and continue down I-95.

One saving grace is Fort Pedro, an explosives depot masquerading as a fireworks stand. A $699 collection of bombs, mortars and various other sparklers was the most expensive package I saw; simple firecrackers seemed unavailable in any quantity shy of 1,000. Packages as bright as the magnesium blooms they promised went on, row after row, as giddy shoppers stacked their carts. One group had assembled an arsenal so formidable it seemed destined for either resale in a control state or the ultimate end to the chunk of South Carolina in which they’d be ignited.

My friend Rob, who was along for this part of the ride, suggested we buy dozens of sparklers to hand out during the Fourth, the better to make friends with. Our best find were yard-long behemoths, in a pack of eight, for about a buck a pop. We declined to purchase super-light hot air balloon-inspired lamps, like you see in Southeast Asia, for fear that we’d spark yet another Lowcountry brush fire. I did buy a South of the Border bumper sticker for a dime.

The rest of the attractions were by turns unappealing or disappointing. The reptile house didn’t seem worth an outlay of $8. The hat shop had precious few hilarious headpieces. The most that can be said of the ice cream stand is that it serves ice cream.

Visitors can ride to the top of the famed South of the Border sign, taking in the view from the “sombrero.” But the open road was waiting. We didn’t feel the need to hang around any longer: we had real stops to make.

Staying with Friends: On the Porch in Raleigh, North Carolina

by Paul Brady on


One thing you won’t find in New York City, at least at my apartment, is a screened-in porch. But in the summer in the south, the porch is the living room, kitchen, dining room and bar, a focal point of a home to rival the greatest of fireplaces. I know because I had the pleasure of enjoying a porch for a couple of days recently in Raleigh, North Carolina.

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Through my friend Rob, I’d met Tim and Susan, a couple that left New York City after about fifteen years to slow down and try their hands in the south. Like our friends in the Outer Banks, they were standard bearers for North Carolina’s wonderful brand of hospitality, immediately shuffling us out to the porch, plopping us down in chairs and handing us frosty beers plucked from an ice chest. One of the greatest things in North Carolina is the beer-filled cooler that holds a prime position on porches across the state.

We talked. Rob updated his friends on news from New York and I grilled the couple on life in Raleigh and how it compares to the north, particularly because Tim will soon open his own bar near the campus of UNC. “The bottom line is, with Research Triangle Park, there is this really well-educated community and an awfully diverse community here,” he says. “My thing is that there’s a phenomenal number of ‘classic American’ bars but there aren’t really a phenomenal number of bars that have been influenced by Europe. And it’s not that I want to create a ‘European bar’ but there are a lot of things that the Europeans get right with bars,” like lighting, music, ambiance and drink selection.

Tim’s new spot should be, like his porch, a great place for gathering. The idea of televisions in pubs is repellant to the long-time bartender, a pointless intrusion on the real reasons for going out: the people and the booze and sometimes the food. Construction at his place is still underway, but he’s already found that the business of building a restaurant in Chapel Hill is, in many ways, much easier here than in New York City. Rent is cheaper, of course, but so are construction costs, contracting fees and permits. Bureaucratic headaches are nothing compared to what restaurant owners confront up north. It’s the kind of place, says Tim, where he can actually open his own business; that wasn’t a certainty in his former hometown. (He also has more room in his house for power tools now.)

Critically for the area restaurant scene-if not his place-the local products are good, says Tim: “There is some very good beer being brewed in North Carolina. I was shocked to say so when I moved but there’s some fabulous beer being brewed down here.” Lonerider’s Shotgun Betty and Foothills Pilsner from Salem, North Carolina are a couple of his favorites. 3 Cups, a Chapel Hill gourmet shop, stocks plenty of international groceries and wines, but its event program is all about local chefs and farmers. “There is good food here,” Tim says. Much of it is on view at the Raleigh Farmers Market, which has so much to offer that it’s open daily.

While his future bar is across “The Triangle” from the capital, Raleigh’s downtown alliance is encouraging development in the heart of the city, where there’s already a healthy dining and nightlife scene. Poole’s Diner is a foodie favorite occupying a restored luncheonette, bustling until the wee hours as friends finish that last bottle of wine and linger over dessert. The chef there, Ashley Christensen, is embarking on a new triple-concept restaurant, adding to the offerings in downtown with Beasley’s, Chuck’s and an as-yet-unnamed bar. It’s not just eating and drinking: The Contemporary Art Museum opened earlier this year in a converted warehouse on West Martin Street.

The nerve center of it all is Morning Times, a killer coffee shop where friends bump into friends by coincidence and everyone seems to greet the baristas by name. Tables line the street, occupied by couples reading the paper and neighbors “visiting,” that southern form of chatting that makes a conversation much more than just small talk. There are salads and sandwiches and wraps to order, sure, but the egg and cheese biscuit is what you really want for breakfast (and probably lunch too).

For all the positives, development work continues, as The Raleigh Connoisseur blog, which tracks downtown news and notes, describes in its mission statement:

Transit, urban planning, and land use are new problems that we will face as the city grows. What will downtown’s role be in all of this? I am trying to follow Raleigh’s attempts at bringing back the urban center it once had in the early 1900s.

Indeed, in this growing city and metro region, sprawl could be public enemy number one, with engineers commuting to RTP, suburbanites driving downtown for a night out or an entrepreneurial bartender living in Raleigh opening his place in Chapel Hill. All the driving makes economic sense now, but will it still as the population continues to grow-and gas prices keep rising?

Six Reasons to Love the Outer Banks

by Paul Brady on


You’ve seen the stickers. White ovals, with the trio of letters “OBX,” an American riff on European nationality decals, they’re a sign of allegiance to the Outer Banks of North Carolina. I always found them annoying: How could some mid-Atlantic beach really be that wonderful? And why would you want to brag about your vacation on the back of your car?

Turning onto the beach road in Kill Devil Hills, with the dunes to my left, houses on stilts looking out over the water and kids slowly pedaling cruiser bikes, the reason became apparent. The Outer Banks are so wonderful, you can’t help but evangelize on their behalf. Here are six reasons why.

Traveling the American Road – Exploring the Birthplace of Aviation


The history: This is where aviation got its start, when Orville and Wilbur Wright finally got their Flyer into the air for a series of short trips on December 17, 1903. The site, commonly called Kitty Hawk but now in the incorporated city of Kill Devil Hills, is a protected national memorial, administered by the National Park Service. For just $4 a person, you can run along the actual path of the first powered flights in human history. Wilbur’s longest ride lasted 59 seconds; it took me 48 seconds to run the 852 feet.

The beach: It’s not the widest beach I’ve ever seen, but the Outer Banks offers miles of uninterrupted strands along the Atlantic. Because the barrier islands here are so narrow, you’re never more than a few minutes from the water. Don’t leave your rental house or hotel without a swimsuit.

The lighthouses: For a place known as the Graveyard of the Atlantic for all its shipwrecks, there are plenty of lighthouses to see. The most famous is on Cape Hatteras, a black-and-white tower that tops 200 feet. It’s open for climbs in season, as are others like the Currituck Beach and Ocracoke lighthouses.

The activities: One reason the Wright Brothers chose the Outer Banks for their experiments in flight is the area’s consistent ocean breezes. Those same winds make for excellent kite surfing, parasailing and even hang gliding. Kitty Hawk Kites is the leader in teaching visitors to hang glide in a single day at Jockey’s Ridge State Park, where sand dunes provide soft landings for students.

The people: I was fortunate enough to stay with the parents of a friend of a friend, a family that’s lived in Kill Devil Hills for 31 years. In a house built on stilts, and listing slightly from hurricane damage, my hosts shared stories of the place and its cast of characters-over beers pulled from an ice-filled cooler on their screened-in porch. For dinner, soft-shell crabs were fried in a pot of hot oil and served along side the best fried green tomatoes I’ve ever tasted. When I said I couldn’t thank them enough for the hospitality, they asked why I couldn’t just stay another night.

The ring toss: My hosts introduced me to ring toss. It’s not the carnival game but a test of dexterity that involves swinging a small metal loop tied to a string across the lawn to a hook mounted on a tree. It’s by turns infuriating and magical and maddeningly addictive. I’d seen it once before, in Maine, but not with the ubiquity it has in the Outer Banks. A trip here without it wouldn’t be complete.