US 52/US 78 Split and Kitty Hawk

Something incredible happened this week. The temperature increased by an average of 20 degrees. I worked up a sweat while biking. It brought me momentarily back to this summer, that it was the strangest and best one I've experienced yet. This summer and the next I shall be preaching the gospel, a stranger in a strange land, so I know it will get even better. The summer after that I will be driving EVERYWHERE, including the west of Alex Supertramp. It just gets better and better. It makes me think of, while on my two-and-a-half week bicycle trip, how many times I saw summer pictures of the North Carolina hillscape and yearned to see all the lushness. But back to the warm Charleston weather that is now, as I type, going away. The first experience, greeting the warm weather, was on a usual bicycle ride on my Bushy Park route on Saturday early afternoon.  I had passed by a walking trail many a time while completing my 30-mile run, but this time I went down the path. It was very adventurous for me bicycling on this root-covered walking trail. Twists and turns. I'm hooked. I get lost temporarily, which is the point of the whole venture. Not all that wander are lost. After finding my way back onto the main road, I return home, in awe. On Sunday, I roamed some more, but in a car. On my way back from church, I continued down Rivers Avenue, passing the US 52/US 78 split -- 52 going to Goose Creek and Florence and northward, 78 sprawling west into Aiken and Georgia and onward -- and sweeping by the winter swamp that has been calling to me for months now, not planning anything. I came up to where 176 begins, and felt the knee-jerk reaction to take a left and drive on up through the Holly Hill of my bicycling lusts, running alongside I-26, making its way through Columbia, Spartanburg, and finally, the mountains. However, I turned right onto Red Bank Road and enjoyed the sunshine poking through the mostly-cloudy skies down Old Back River Road and all of the country that I'm blessed with living so close to.

On the music side of things. I am finally, after amassing days worth of hours listening to it, buying This One Is Two, by Ralph Stanley II, the progeny of the famous Ralph Stanley. I also bought much Alison Brown, a fantastic composer and banjo player. To sate my Dobro addiction, I bought a Union Station album. I bought a few albums that contain numbers I have mentioned in my Locations, such as Jim Van Cleve's No Apologies (Devil's Courthouse) and Balsam Range's Last Train To Kitty Hawk.

Musically-Inspired Geographical Location Of The Day
Today, I go to an unexpected place, mostly for the fact that its on the coast of the Atlantic. The place is a very small town called Kitty Hawk. The only attraction there is the Wright Brothers monument and a maritime forest. All of this by the sea. This song talks about progress artistically. I love how it is written. I love the pairing of airplanes and locomotives in this song. I've always wanted to travel somewhere by train. I've been wanting to travel the Outer Banks of North Carolina for some time now. This song captures the feeling of desiring to be swept away for me.

No, no, nothing lasts forever

Nothin' says goodbye like a ticket in your hand

They say makes progress makes us better

Time ain't standin' still for anyone
All aboard the last train to Kitty Hawk

The yesterdays takin off

And tomorrows gonna fly