Prince Buckingham and Side-eye Sam

I spent the weekend with my childhood best friend; our first sleepover in forty years: the summer after she moved to Savannah, I went to a slumber party at her house when I was at the beach with my family. That was in 1985.

We rented an Airb&b in St. Matthews, South Carolina, roughly halfway between my home in the Charlotte area and hers just outside of Savannah. Here’s where we stayed:

My drive down was fantastic. I eschew interstates and take backroads every chance I get. There’s nothing I love better than a two-lane blacktop through an old forest. I drove through Sumter National Forest instead of taking 77, and it was spectacularly beautiful. I drove past singular ancient oaks, peach, plum, and oecan groves, clusters of oak, pine, cedar, cypress, river birch, elm, and maple, crape myrtle and magnolia, beautiful pink silk trees. Flowers in the sky, great fields of green, horses, cows, sunflowers, mules, and goats. Produce stands. I stopped at one on the side of the road in an air conditioned building at a farm in operation since 1812. I bought a tomato and two ears of silver queen corn.

When I walked back to my car, it was beachy hot, with a breeze, and something about that open sky and open road made something sing in my blood like the first time I drove into Charleston.

I was still a good hour away, hit some rain and traffic in Columbia but got out of both quickly enough, hopping on 26 toward Charleston with nostalgia walking around inside me while I drove east. I was back on a stae road soon enough, into the Congaree, near that forest, driving in the trees again, arriving at my destination before I knew it.

Nancy was already there, and I swear she hadn’t aged a day. It was as if there had been no years, much less a double score and change. After hugging each other to death, I brought my stuff in—three small bags, the produce, a pan of bread and dipping oil from Marrelli’s in Belmont

and this carrot salad

Nancy brought a bottle of wine we never opened, cheese, berries, pita chips, yogurt, Fresca, proper margarita mix (just juice), Aperol

and Tanteo jalapeño tequila

We nibbled on fruit and cheese and sipped aperol spritzes and talked and talked and talked. After a while, we went into town and picked up a mushroom pizza and had jalapeño margaritas and played cards against humanity without points or anything, just cracking ourselves up with some dark humor.

We slept like babies, past dawn, until 8:30, had fruit, yogurt, and coffee, then headed into Columbia to the Saturday Market.

The heat was brutal, and after walking a few blocks, we ducked into Mast General Store and browsed and cooled off. I found (and purchased) a gorgeous yellow Gustav Klimt print scarf, and Nancy got a South Carolina ornament for her tree. We walked another block, then headed back to the country, in our deliciously air conditioned quarters. After a light lunch, we decided to see a play that night, set a clock, and took a nap before eating leftover pizza and driving back into Columbia in Nancy’s Tesla with me behind the wheel. It was fun to drive.

We had to check out this morning, and we named a few of the deer first (20 deer, a dozen ducks, a pheasant, a turkey’s tail, tail feathers, and feet, and forty fish is the taxidermy inventory, and an entire wall of trophies). Prince Buckingham is the lead image, and here is Side-eye Sam:

Ducks!

Here’s Simple Simon:

That’s not all! When it was time to leave, I saw that I was only a little over an hour away from Aiken, so I called my mom, and she and my sister, who live in Augusta, me me fir lunch at The Feed Sack on Whiskey Road.

After a wonderful weekend with people I love, I drove through downtown Aiken, past the courthouse, where Patrick and I got our marriage license, then up the peach ridge from Edgefield and back into Sumter National Forest and home to North Carolina.