“A Weekend In the Country”

This past weekend my wife and I were invited to a wedding being held on Dafuskie Island, South Carolina. The idea of spending a couple of days on an island was immensely appealing to my wife. Not so much for me. Maybe it is some form of claustrophobia but the thought of being stuck on an island with no way to get to the mainland except for a ferry that runs a few times a day is a little offsetting to me.

I felt the same way when we went to Hawaii. I mean I was on an island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. What if it sank! I can swim but not good enough or long enough to get back to the good old USA mainland. But at least in Hawaii you had grocery stories and movie theaters. On Dafuskie you basically have the basics and nature.

Communing with nature is not one of my things. If nature wants to commune with me it can come to my house and sit down and talk. My idea of enjoying wildlife is to have a wild time reading a book or seeing a movie. Bugs, reptiles and other creatures are not my thing. 

Anyway I digress. We drove down to Hilton Head, South Carolina on Saturday morning. The ferry was leaving at 1PM. Mapquest said it would take us three hours and nineteen minutes to get there. By leaving at 8:30 in the morning I thought we would have more than enough time. And we did. But then we had to stop and buy me some socks. I had forgotten to pack any. And then we wanted to eat. We always want to eat.

I remembered a little restaurant I had eaten at when I had come to Del Webb’s Sun City to speak to a group. It was close to that location and had wonderful chili. We spotted it and turned in there to have lunch. The chili was just as good as I remembered it. I was enjoying it so much I didn’t look at the time. When we came out of the restaurant I realized we had twenty minutes to go thirteen miles.

We didn’t speed but we went the maximum. Somehow we also managed to hit every traffic light right. Not one red light did we encounter. Still we pulled up at the ferry doc k at 1:01. The baggage had already been loaded but they made a special run for us and we were able to get on the boat and get settled for the forty-five minute ride.

What worked in our favor was they were having some problems with the boats. They had been running late all day and some runs on the previous day had been cancelled. We however made it fine and arrived at the hotel around 2:15. Our bags made it to our room which is always a good thing, and that included the bag that had my diet cokes, cheese and peanut butter crackers, and M&M’s. I told you I don’t “rough it.”

I did panic when I realized I had left my fan at home. I always have a fan running at the side of our bed so I just knew I was going to have a sleepless night. Turns out I was so tired by the time we made it to bed I slept like a stone.

The wedding was beautiful. It was held outside and there had been fears the weather was not going to cooperate. We had ridden over on the ferry with the woman in charge of the reception. She spoke with a Jamaican accent and I told her I could listen to her talk all day long. I also told her to save me a lot of food at the reception.

I needn’t have worried there was enough food for an army. There was roast beef, shrimp and grits, grilled chicken, potatoes, vegetables and much, much more. I didn’t even have to rely on my crackers and diet cokes.

The rain held off all afternoon and night as we partied hearty. The bride and groom were picture perfect and seemed to be totally pleased with how everything turned out. There was even a rainbow in the sky as they were taking their vows.

The next day we left the island, took the ferry back to the mainland, lunched at an Italian restaurant, and got home in time for me to review “Baby Mama.” Now there’s my idea of a wild life.
 

 

 

 

 

©2008 Jackie K. Cooper

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