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Kate Brady
Kate Brady shows the route her family took on their County Trip, “a journey around the state without interstates, fast-food restaurants, or chain hotels.”
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Pearl Fryar's Topiary Garden
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World's smallest police station.
“Okay, I’ll go,” I said when my dad came to me a few years ago and told me his crazy plan to take a trip to all of the counties in South Carolina. Yes, all 46. Only my parents would come up with such an off-the-wall proposition.
Mom and Dad had decided that I needed to see my state, to be proud of the place I call home. As a result, they had planned this so-called County Trip, a journey around the state without interstates, fast-food restaurants or chain hotels. I agreed to the idea with the hope of acquiring some cool T-shirts and maybe eating some good food. Little did I know I would come home with a new perspective, not only on our state, but on my life. I would grow closer to my family and return with some incredible stories and inspirations. Little did I know my faith would grow stronger, I’d meet people who would feel instantly like lifelong friends, and I’d risk my life 46 times so my dad could take a picture of me on the side of the road in front of every county sign.
We traveled from the mountains to the sea without reservation—often stopping to tour a historical site or eat at a hole-in-the-wall restaurant on some unmarked stretch of road. Every county had something to offer, a story to tell. It was told in all ways—dusty windows on small-town streets to high-rise concrete towers, luscious gardens to huge cotton fields, and mountains that touched the sky to sand that mingled endlessly with the sea. Sometimes we would see only pine trees for what seemed like days as we weaved along on pitch-black roads lined with miles of forest. We rode through tiny towns framed with a nostalgic elegance. Then there were those places where we drove for almost an hour trying to find a place to eat amidst rusty “Sorry, We’ve Gone Out of Business” signs and buildings falling in on themselves like cardboard boxes after they’ve been eagerly ripped open on Christmas morning. We saw church signs on almost every road reminding us of the truths of our Lord. We read many “Jesus Saves” signs printed in bold script. We saw acre after acre of farmland, as South Carolina is a state proud of its agricultural heritage. Then there were the cities, flashing and exotic against the dry corn-stalked background of the rest of the state. We stumbled upon unique places. From the topiary gardens of Pearl Fryer in Lee County to the serenity of Mepkin Abbey in Berkeley County, from the World’s Smallest Police Station in Fairfield County to the World’s Largest Peach in Cherokee County, from the highest peak at Sassafras Mountain in Pickens County to the Indian Burial Mounds at Fort Watson in Clarendon County, our state is home to a gentle beauty amidst a landscape of tradition. I came to imagine the battles we read about from rusted historical markers at Cowpens and King’s Mountain, revisit the past in small towns like Aiken and Abbeville, and taste the tea leaves that grow so bountifully at Wadmalaw Island, the home of North America’s only tea plantation. Framing the varied towns and settlements that dot the state like the spots of a ladybug, the landscapes of South Carolina are vast and special. From the mountains to the sea and almost everything in between, we experienced it all. We lay back on the beach, made it our goal to reach mountaintops, and scanned the sand hills.
Traveling all around the state and avoiding interstates at all costs, we took the road less traveled, and it was sometimes lonely. Every once in a while our Paleolithic paper map wasn’t so easy to follow, and we felt lost. Like life, the roads of South Carolina are sometimes long and winding, narrow and challenging. My experiences on the County Trip taught me that embracing the unknown can be an incredible adventure. The spots along the way taught us about who we are, and the physical landscape varied like the circumstances we face each day of our lives. We weren’t on a mountaintop the whole trip; there were times of openness, times of peace, and times in the valleys when we thought we were truly lost. However, no matter what we had to go through, we always made it home. The County Trip taught me that South Carolina is a place of history, a place of beauty, and, most of all, a place I am proud to call my home.
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Beyond her travels around the state, Kate traveled to Washington, D.C. this summer as a representative of Blue Ridge Electric Cooperative on the Washington Youth Tour. She and 63 other students from South Carolina went to our nation's capital to learn about the relationship between electric cooperatives and the federal government.