Country Road, Take me Home...

We left Darlington around 9:00 AM on Friday, May 11.  We were headed to the country.

Actually we were going to have lunch with my mother's cousin, Katherine Shaffer and her husband, Vern who live in Kingstree.  Katherine's mother, Gerdette, was my granddaddy Nesmith's sister. I have wonderful memories of visiting Aunt Gerdette as a teenager (along with my sister, Cindy, and our cousins, Ellie and Jimmy Capp) and in about 1980 my children and I spent a delightful evening in the Shaffer home.  I was excited about seeing them.

I do not have a GPS.  I do use MapQuest.  I know that sometimes when making that choice, one might end up driving the scenic route.

When we started planning this trip, my mother wanted me to look at her Atlas.

Oh no.  I didn't need an Atlas.

I should have remembered.  Last year when my friend, Deborah Hansen and I went to Baltimore and I put the routes together (via MapQuest and AAA), she still kept saying that she wished she had her Atlas so she could see the "whole picture".

At any rate.  I had not looked at an Atlas, nor any other maps.  I was good to go.

We were on Highway 52 on the way to Kingstree.  I've been to Kingstree before.  I knew the way. 

But wait, MapQuest told me to turn left on Cade, right on Hemingway (there's a familiar name), left on Nesmith (very familiar, since my mother is a Nesmith by birth); right on Turkey Creek (my mother remembered that area very well).

This is not the road we traveled but it's not that far from the way it was!

Now what MapQuest didn't tell me was that some of those turns were onto roads that were NOT PAVED.  And that they were right down the middle of crops  - corn and tobacco to be exact. I promise you we could have reached out the window and "pulled tobacco" something my mother did as a child.

I kept telling her that she should be glad I got the directions from MapQuest rather than her or she might be in "big trouble".   

                                            

We arrived at Vern and Katherine's and had a lovely lunch (that story next).  Next stop, Andrews, South Carolina.  I looked at MapQuest.  The directions told me to turn left our of the Shaffer's drive. I did and realized what lay ahead of me was - you guessed it -a dirt road.

We had gone a very short distance when to the left I saw Aunt Gerdette's house.

This photo of the corner of Aunt Gerdette's house was taken in 1998

I remembered the day Jimmy dropped the platter of friend chicken on the floor and Aunt Gerdette told us not to worry because she had just mopped the floor that morning.  I remembered when our family visited the house (now owned by her granddaughter, Rebecca) in 1998 and what a fun time that was. 

We turned into the drive - it was a great place to turn around. 

We never made it to Kingstree.  Later mother told me that if I had turned LEFT instead of RIGHT at one juncture it would have taken us right back to 52 - and Kingstree.

But remember - I was depending on MapQuest!