We started the morning at the School Grounds Coffee Shop. Brian, the owner, has been incredibly helpful since we arrived, and his wife, Pam, bakes goodies fresh every morning. It’s located in what used to be the cafeteria of the old schoolhouse.
Pam and Darcia had coffee. I had a frozen lavender lemonade and it was DELICIOUS!
We grabbed a pastry and then set off on our first adventure of the day: finding one of the island’s old cemeteries.
We did not find the cemetery. We did, however, spend a ridiculous amount of time riding around looking for it.
The roads on Daufuskie are an experience on their own. At some point during our expedition, Pam announced that she “felt bad for driving down the middle of the road.” (To avoid the holes).
I told her that was ironic since she will take down a “Private/Keep Out/No Trespassing” sign without batting an eye. Make it make sense.
Eventually the roads became questionable enough that I decided if we kept searching for the cemetery, we might end up residing there. At one point, I wasn’t even sure we were on the island anymore.
We admitted defeat. It was time for lunch.
Every local we’ve met has told us to eat at the distillery. So we did. I had the shrimp po’ boy. Everyone was right, it was amazing.
After lunch, we headed back to Bloody Point Beach. We wanted to swim. There was only one tiny problem. Our swimsuits were back at the condo. We could have driven back, climbed three flights of stairs, changed clothes, gone back down three flights…
…or
we could just swim in our clothes.
Did we walk straight into the Atlantic fully clothed?
Yes. Yes, we did. And it may be one of my favorite memories from this entire trip. We found so many starfish and sand dollars!
Very little about Daufuskie has been how I planned it. Maybe that’s why I’m falling in love.
Several hours later, we returned to the condo covered in salt and sand. We were SO gross. We showered and washed off the remnants of a memorable day.
The memories stay, thankfully.
For dinner, we ate PB&J sandwiches and Pop Tarts. We watched The River Is Wide, the movie based on Pat Conroy’s time teaching the children here on the island.
Three days ago, it would have just been a movie. Not anymore. We’ve traveled these roads. We’ve seen the old schoolhouse. We’ve heard the stories. We’ve started learning about the people who lived here and the Gullah culture that is still such an important part of this island.
And we’ve met Sallie Ann. Sallie Ann played Ethel in the movie. So, sitting in our condo eating sandwiches, we weren’t watching a movie about some mysterious little island somewhere off the South Carolina coast. We were watching a story about the island outside our window.
Daufuskie has gotten under my skin in three short days.
I have two problems:
- I never want to leave.
- I want to purchase and read everything Pat Conroy ever wrote.
I don’t know exactly when Daufuskie won me over. Maybe it was somewhere between the homemade pastries and the cemetery we never found. Maybe it was the shrimp po’ boy. Maybe it was meeting people whose lives are woven into the history of this place. Or maybe it happened while I was standing fully clothed in the Atlantic Ocean, laughing with my friends. Whatever it was, it happened.
Core memories secured.
One more day…
Andrea Beam 