Isle of Palms SC
Tues Oct 17, 2023
(0 miles)

Later today, my work colleagues are arriving, but since I took yesterday off, until this evening it’ll be a not-so-regular work day for us. We’d be working from the road together for the first time in the same hotel room. Should be interesting!

Up at 06:45, we got coffee from the lobby and had another great beach walk, this time with a beautiful sunrise to take in!

The beach was even more empty at this hour than yesterday, with just one guy walking two dogs who was happy to let us give them some pets. We walked south this time around and went quite a distance down the beach. We wanted to walk back on the road, but weren’t sure how to distinguish public access ways from private paths. When we ran into the same guy, he clued us in that the public beach access trails were all numbered with green signs on the dunes (oh, so that’s what they mean!). We found the next one and headed out to the street.

We decided to go out for a quick local breakfast and chose the nearby Sea Biscuit Café, which has great reviews. It was only a five minute walk from the hotel and we had a wonderful breakfast there on their screened patio in the crisp morning air. Their huge homemade biscuits are a specialty so of course I had one of those with a crab omelet and bacon. So Good. Char’s veggie omelet was also a hit. The waitress was super-nice and it turns out had lived in Franklin MA for a year (small world). We chatted about about the climate differences and she told us her goal was to make it through the winter wearing shorts every day.

Feeling good after a nice meal and friendly local conversation, we retreated to our hotel room/office to start logging our hours for the man.

When evening rolled around, we joined my co-workers at the rented AirBnB house down the road for a nice simple cookout, beverages, and conversation, late into the evening.

 

More photos from Tuesday.

 

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Isle of Palms SC
Wed Oct 18, 2023
(0 miles)

Another day, another beautiful sunrise walk on the beach! We spotted a few of the same people and dogs…we’re starting to feel like locals. 🤪

Breakfast today would be a work affair for me. I met my colleagues for 08:00 at the nearby Acme Lowcountry Kitchen, while Char fended for herself at the hotel where she’d work remotely from our luxurious room office for another day. 🙄 For some reason, our main waitress at Acme was in a surly mood this morning – definitely more of a crabby pants than a happy clam! You’d think she’d be glad to have a larger group like us in the fairly empty restaurant at mid-week! Oh well, the food, at least, was delicious! I ordered their Fried Green Tomato Grits Bowl, which included fried eggs and Brussels sprouts, some extremely tasty pimento grits, and a couple fried green tomato slices on the side.

Following breakfast we retreated to the AirBnB for a few hours of meetings with a nice view of the ocean.

For lunch, my colleagues and I hit up Papi’s Taqueria, right down the street, for lunch. This is a hip little beach joint with VW van decor and motifs everywhere. The serving window from the kitchen was the front panel of a bus, especially neato. ☮ I tried a plate of tacos including beef, chicken and chicharron (pork belly). Since I saw others ordering a cocktail, I tried their Mexican Mule to help loosen my mind up for our afternoon team work session. 👍🍹.

When work was done for the day, Char rejoined us for the team outing, which would be a harbor cruise on a big catamaran sailboat.  We all shared Ubers (about 30m wait) to the Shem Creek waterfront area in Mt. Pleasant. I think I’d been expecting more of a historical boat tour of the harbor, but in fact it was more of a beer cruise, with weak overpriced alcoholic drinks in cans fetched from a cooler. Still, it was a beautiful day and we were out on a boat for a cruise around Charleston Harbor, so a good time was had.

After the cruise and cocktails at the dockside bar, we crossed Shem Creek by the nearby bridge to make our 20:00 dinner reservation at Tavern & Table.

With a couple raw oysters for an appie and a very good salmon Caesar salad, I thought I was behaving pretty well, considering it was my third full meal of the day (two is my norm). Then we headed next door to a joint called Sunsets for a final nightcap and several of us unwisely (perhaps under the influence) decided to order dessert. They had pie, so of course I needed that along with my margarita.  The slice of key lime pie they brought me (and several others) was a bit overwhelmingly as big as my hand! While not the best I’ve had, it was pretty fookin’ good!

Back to IOP via Uber, where a few of us hit the local dive bar called Windjammer for a final, final nightcap. I think it was some sort of jalapeno margarita, paid for by one of my teammates, and not really made very well. The place was almost empty, so the bartender was talkative, telling us stories about how crazy the place gets in high season. You can tell they are a quantity over quality type establishment! 😆

We only had to wobble down the stairs and next door to reach our hotel and collapse into bed.

More photos from Wednesday.

 

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Isle of Palms SC
Thu Oct 19, 2023
(0 miles)

We could get used to these sunrise morning walks along the beach.

Today’s breakfast provided by Café Paname, a local coffee shop about a 10 minute walk from the hotel. We picked up some croissant breakfast sandwiches and some good coffee to bring back to our room. Today is a travel day for my colleagues, but another work day for me so I could take Friday off for us to start our trip homeward. I began working while I ate, then headed over to the AirBnB with my laptop to take advantage of their laundry facilities while I worked. I set up on the back deck with a beautiful ocean view – not a bad office space! – while the others cleaned up the AirBnB and got themselves packed.

I finished out my work day and week back at the hotel. At last! After the location for this trip was announced, I’d been happy to discover I knew at least one fellow long-distance rider in the immediate area and had reached out to Bill K last week to meet for dinner. I wanted to try some of the local barbeque and had been thinking of trying either Lewis‘ or Rodney Scott’s, which seemed the prime contenders in the area. Both are in Charleston and would involve more waiting for an Uber, if we intended to have a drink or two. So instead Bill had suggested a local place called Home Team BBQ just south of us on Sullivan’s Island.

By the time our delayed Uber ride got us there, Bill was already holding court at the bar with one of his favorite frozen Irish coffee drinks in hand. His wife was travelling so it would just be the three of us.

Home Team seems a pretty nice place and was getting busy on a Thursday evening. Bill had put our name in, so we were seated quickly. I’d last seen him at the Iron Butt Rally in June, so after chatting a bit about our current trip, it was nice to revisit our rally experiences and exchange some stories.

While the conversation and company were superb, the food was so-so. I had a two-meat dinner with ribs (too dry and tough) and brisket (ok) along with some slaw (good) and mac ‘n cheese (ok). The sauces were flavorful, but couldn’t overcome the dryness of the meat. Not sure if that’s the way folks like it cooked down here or if they were having an off-night, but I like my ribs to melt off the bone into my mouth, and my brisket fatty and tender! Bill, let’s try Lewis’ next time! 🙂

On the bright side for Char, this was one of the few BBQ places I’ve been to that actually has a non-meat salad option suitable for vegetarians. So she was happy as a clam. Bill seemed pretty happy too, giving his dinner two thumbs up. He’s a sharp and witty conversationalist, and we were happy to mostly listen as we were both feeling a bit worn out from our late night yesterday and a full day of work.

After a lovely meal and bidding our local friend goodbye, we caught another Uber back to IOP after about a 20 minute wait. We spent the evening packing up and finalizing tomorrow’s route. We’d had a great few days here on the coast and were grateful for the opportunity afforded by my employer to stay right along the shore. I’d be happy to come back to Isle of Palms in the future, if we can find a decent off-season lodging deal on our own