Turnaround bright eyes, every now and then I fall apart
Total Eclipse of the Heart - Bonnie Tyler
What can I say. Seven years in the works, originally dreamed up back in this post when I was unemployed and broke. Fortunately, now in much better financial standing, I could easily swing for a couple days vacation to a locale in the path of the Great American Solar Eclipse totality. I chose Charleston since, well, it was the closest and I could drive there. Plus it was a location I'd never been to and could provide many other tourist activities besides the eclipse itself. Though it would pan out that my choice of Charleston, featuring a summertime climate similar to Orlando, prone to frequent afternoon thunderstorms, was almost a disaster, the gods of awesome events thankfully held the actual approaching storm at bay up to the last minute, literally! So I was able to experience the phenomenon of total solar eclipse and all its glory. And glorious it was!
My lodging had been booked and paid for over a month in advance. Good thing, since rooms were hard to come by closer to the event day and those that were to be had weren't going cheap. But man, did I chose wrong on this one. More about that in a while.
Hulk's tire issues were straightened away and he was filled with gas and given a good wash. I stocked up on bottled water and Diet Cokes, along with trail mix and leftover pizza. Though the fluids were nice and refreshing, turns out I wasn't making my way on the Oregon Trail after all. I wasn't in jeopardy of being consumed by dehydration, malnutrition or dysentery. I even took a break from the grind and stopped after crossing into Georgia at a Subway.
The physical complications that plagued my 2008 Washington road trip were non-existent on the way up to Charleston. Weighing some 45 pounds less makes a big difference. But so is staying hydrated and getting enough sleep. These issues would pop up to cause a bit of a factor on my return home.
Mentally though, the drive both there and back was exhaustive. I actually don't like driving. I'm not really that good at it and having to constantly be on alert for the other A-holes on the road with me is so frustrating. Plus, doing 70 miles an hour on somewhat shitty road conditions while 18-wheelers zip past your very, very tiny car creating a sucking wind turbulence pulling you towards their immense, multi-ton metallic masses while they cruise aloofly by at about 90...not fun...not fun at all.
I'd planned out the route ahead of time using Google Maps on my computer, of course, but having neither data availability or access to a good road map app (damn Windows phone), I couldn't review it while en route. And, since everyone else in the world seems to have superior Android and iPhone devices well capable of not only providing a detailed map, but even GPS voice navigation, well, paper maps are a relic of a bygone yesteryear. On one of the occasions I was lost (yes there were several, sigh) I stopped in at a gas station and even inquired if they had any road maps. The millennial behind the counter looked at me as if I just asked if they sold whips for my horse and buggy.
I set out around 8:00 am, Sunday, August 20th, and arrived at my hotel in North Charleston around 3:30 pm. A bit longer than the Google Map anticipated 5 hours and 46 minutes, but as I mentioned, I stopped for lunch, got lost a couple times and stayed safely under the speed limit. Traffic up I-95 was rather heavy too, perhaps attributed to people moving into the path of totality for the next day's event.
The office of the Econolodge seemed okay enough so I checked in, got my key cards and made my way down to my room. As I parked, I saw a group of Hispanic dudes gathered around a makeshift junkyard BBQ grill. I don't think they were grilling anything but they all seemed quite curious about me and my car, staring right at me. There was a family of redneck-looking white people just arriving as well and I heard one of them complaining that the room wasn't clean ans it still had someone else stuff in it. I lugged my bags up to the second floor and a girl with pink hair and a zillion piercings asked me if I needed help. I thanked her but said I was good. She let her droopy, likely drug glazed eyes linger on my a few seconds too long as if to say she could help me out in other ways if I wanted for a few bucks.
I was now in full freak out mode. What the fuck was I getting into.
Once inside my room, my stomach sank to my knees as I looked around. This place was a total shithole. Fuck!
I was fully aware that I'd booked and paid for the room online and was under the restriction of a no money back policy. I thought of returning to the front desk and asking for another room, but I quickly realized that, quite possibly, this was their best room. This place actually rivaled the good ol' Hotel Capri. Though back then I didn't have a choice and now I did, I was tired and figured finding another hotel with vacancy for a decent price that was in better shape than here would be a challenge. Plus with the shit going down at work, my apartment and all, I really didn't want to spend any more. I decided I'd stick it out.
I double checked the deadbolt and hoped it'd be enough. I peeped out the window and the hopped-up hooker was still sitting in the stair well. I wasn't going anywhere. I felt like it was the zombie apocalypse and I was hunkering down, trying to be as quiet as I could.
All right, I sighed, how bad could it be? It's a Choice hotel chain after all. And the likewise Choice owned Quality Inn I'd stayed at the weekend before in Orlando was great.
First was the smell. It hit me like a ton of bricks. You could tell at one time they tried to Carpet Fresh or Febreese it away but I think they gave up quite a while ago. It smelled like something up and died in there. Secondly, there was the fact I was now indoors and I was still sweating...the A/C, even placed on max, sucked. Bugs, I checked the mattress and there was a zipped bed bug bag on it under the slightly stained sheets. And on the wall, snagged in cobwebs behind a crooked floorlamp shade was the desiccated exoskeletal remains of a cockroach. No live crawlies though, that I could find (yet), so I guess that's good.
Funny note here as I type this...the word "Febreese" in the paragraph above had a red squiggly line indicating a spelling issue so I right clicked on it and the suggested replacement was "Freebase." LOL! Well, they were likely doing that in some of the other rooms of this den of depravity, for sure.
I stripped off my sweaty clothes, and exhaustedly sat by the weak outflow of the A/C unit after grabbing one of the 24 oz. Buds I'd bought at a nearby bodega-like convenient store before I checked in. Everything will be better once I'm a little drunk. It always is, right?
On the positive side, the mini fridge was clean (ish) and kept my brewskis cold, the shower had great force (just like the Hotel Capri...must be in the fleabag hotel manual...keep the showers flowing hard) and the TV was a modern LCD flat screen and had HBO, so, another weekend I got to watch Game of Thrones on its network at the time of first broadcast.
Oh, and the bed was actually rather comfortable, albeit I couldn't get under any covers due to the temperature. Just as well perhaps. Better to have as many layers as possible between me and any potential straggler bed bugs.
The next morning I woke up nice and early after a fairly okay night's sleep. The place was surprisingly quiet. No loud partiers. No booming rap music or reggaeton. No freaks knocking at my door. And no sounds of gunfire.
As planned, I made my way downtown to board the ferry to Fort Sumter. On the way, on a highway overpass just before the Charleston city limits, I spotted two guys positioned squarely in the middle of the overpass, waving their hands us cars zooming by beneath them. Aw, see how friendly the South is. Oh, but I left out one little detail...they each were also waving enormous Confederate battle flags. Oh brother. It seems they've done this before. The pic below is from an article online about them doing this back in April.
It was busy, likely again due to the influx of us tourists in town for the eclipse, but the ferry had a good size to it, at least three decks, so all 200 or so of us fit on fine. I got a top deck, open air seat so I could enjoy the sights and breeze of the harbor. I loves me my boat rides.
The cruise took about half an hour to get to the fort, which is situated on a small island at the head of the natural harbor entrance. The recorded narration was actually well voiced and interesting. Of course I'd done my homework before arrival and knew about many of the historical facts he spoke about. The most famous, of course, is the fact that the secessionist-controlled armaments firing upon the U.S. Army held Fort Sumter, was the start of the American Civil War.
After an hour touring the fort, taking many pictures of crumbling walls, old cannon and this video below of the U.S. National Park Ranger lead flag raising, we re-boarded the ferry and headed back to Charleston. On a ramp heading down, some obviously tilted guy pushing a baby stroller purposely ran right over my foot. I stared at him like "WTF, dude?" and he bid me a totally fake apology. Whatever! I felt bad for him, schlepping his bratty kids, enduring his nagging wife and regretting his dull and dreary breeder life. Ah well.
In the gift shop I bought a souvenir T-shirt and my eye caught sight of the tilted stroller guy looking absolutely miserable as he was forced to spend his money on crummy trinkets for his squirmy brood lest they grow up thinking their dad didn't love them. He doesn't, of course, but at least Billy and Sally have their fucking Ft. Sumter snow globes!
Okay, calm down imagination. This guy succeeded in tilting me! LOL!
Next up was choosing the venue I wanted to go to for the eclipse viewing. I'd already whittled the selection down to 3 possible candidates. And, after learning a bit about the other two yesterday, I think I made the best choice. A Facebook video from Paul Robinett, aka Renetto of classic YouTube fame, showed what it was like at the venue he chose...the deck of the USS Yorktown aircraft carrier museum. No chairs, no food, no live band...just the old jets and a hard flat metal deck. Paul also mentioned the other venue I was considering, the Charleston Yacht Club beach party near the carrier museum was turning folks away, they were fully booked.
I went across the Cooper River to the local soccer team's field, MUSC Health Stadium. They had live music, many food and drink concessions, ample stadium seating (or on the grassy field itself if you wanted) and a huge Jumbotron with NASA's coverage of many various total eclipse events across the country showing the moment of totality for each as it made its way across the continent. Here below I included video showing the encroaching darkness of totality.
As I mentioned at the top of this post, the chance to see this in person was absolutely momentous. Like many say who have seen these...I'll never forget the experience. I even cried...yes, cried actual tears at the moment of totality. It was all that!
As you can see and perhaps hear in the video, our vision of the event was threatened by ominous puffy storm clouds. Luckily, the clouds that did come into play trying to ruin our day were thin enough to see through and it was pretty clear most of the time including the moment of totality, where the moon completely covers the disk of the sun, allowing the sun's corona to beam from the edges of the completely dark disk of the moon. Though the clouds of sufficient thickness to obscure then sun stayed away up to and including the moment of totality for us, they did eventually roll in during the late stages of totality and blocked out the image of the sun as the moon continued on its trek across the solar disk. While we were able to see with our glasses the decreasing solar crescent as it was being overrun by the moon prior to totality, we couldn't see the crescent shape as it grew after totality while the moon moved on, allowing the sun to reign in the mid-afternoon sky, the way it usually does every single day. We did get a dramatic thunder and lightening storm though, for me making for a not-so-fun drive back to my hotel.
I texted Ric during the event and after getting to the hotel room I phoned him. He said over in Charlotte, NC where he was, it got a little darker outside but not very dark. No glowing black space orb for him. What a difference a few hundred miles make!
I took a nap for a few hours later that afternoon but after waking up around 11 pm to go pee, I saw a live roach crawling over the used towels on the floor of the bathroom. Oh yeah, housekeeping had never come to my room that day. No fresh towels, no made bed, no removal of trash.
I was over it. Still tired and very drawn out from being in the pre-storm, pre-totality hot sun all day, I packed up my shit, left the key cards in the room and didn't even bother to check out. I was paid up, there was no reason to see someone in person I might be inclined to get rude with. Besides, when it comes to my goals for this trip, I got what I came for...no need to stick around.
The traffic was much lighter driving back in the middle of the night, of course, but I hadn't gotten enough sleep and apparently neglected to adequately hydrate since I was struggling to stay awake throughout the arduous journey and was wrought with pains from my kidneys. Thankfully the aches subsided after drinking many fluids and I got home around 5:30 am without incident. I parked Hulk, thanking him silently for his good work, went up to my well-cooled, bug-free apartment and collapsed in the comfort of my own bed.