August 8th, 2007 – August 10th, 2007
We received quite a bit of concentrated media attention shortly before and during the first few weeks of our trip. One result of that was receiving some great personal messages from a number of people. One of those who responded was a cyclist in Charleston SC, who offered to help us out if we needed anything when we came through Charleston. By the time we finally got up there, he had just left for a 10-day trip to Germany, so he put an email out to other cyclists in the area. By return email, he received a response from Charles Fox, who is not only an active cyclist, but also officiates at cycling races.
Charles was absolutely wonderful. He picked us up at the Greyhound bus station, took us and our luggage to his home for a quick breather, then took us on a short driving tour of downtown Charleston. He then gave us the keys to his son’s car, showed us where we could sleep, showed us the showers and laundry, drew us a map to the historic area of Charleston, and sent us on our way for afternoon of sightseeing.
We were delighted to say the least. The only downside was that Charleston was experiencing a record-breaking heat day (we found out later that it reached temperatures of 115-118 degrees), and the car had no air conditioning. We didn’t want to do either a driving tour or a walking tour under those conditions, so we found our way to the Tourist Center and just sat in the Center for an hour or two, enjoying the air conditioning and the exhibits and the people-watching. We spent the evening just hanging out, watching a movie and doing laundry (Charles had had to leave to take his son to college and was gone for the next 24 hours).
The next day wasn’t any cooler, and we did manage another driving tour by ourselves, but we just couldn’t stand the heat. We ended up back at the library near Charles’s house, where we looked at their paperback collection, and Chelsea worked on our website contract. We did score big time with the books – we traded in 6 of ours and took 10 of theirs, so we increased our book net worth by 4!
Charles came home that evening and made arrangements for his sister Diane, another avid cyclist, to take us to the bus depot early in the morning, and also made arrangements with his extended family to host us at Wrightsville Beach in Wilmington for the next day or so.
Charles obviously gets our Hero of the Day for his incredible generosity with the car and house and laundry and transportation. And we have to give Diane a Hero of the Day, too, for getting up SO early to get us to the bus depot.