FERNANDINA BEACH FL trip
Sep. 12-17 2021
PART 2
I-26 approaches Columbia, S.C.! We dinnered and lodged in that city, where we were greeted with smiles everywhere! Only a Roads Scholar would notice or care that many Interstate shields on BGS's in South Carolina rock a smaller font size than in other states. It's almost imperceptible, but I have trained eyes that can see it. The BGS also implies that you have to exit I-26 to stay on I-26. You'll see what I mean.
The BGS for I-126 (a spur into Columbia) spells out the route instead of using a shield.
This is the trick I was talking about, where it looks like you have to exit I-26 to keep on I-26. Going straight dumps you on I-126. We fell for that trick on my 2005 trip to Orlando.
I-77 on the south side of Columbia was once unsigned I-326. It became part of I-77 in 1995.
Northwest on US 76/378 in Columbia.
Continuing on US 76/378. A few ramps with I-77 here are kind of weird.
Possibly SC 48.
This is another instance of an unusual speed limit coupled with the Helvetica font family. This may be at Congaree National Park.
This could also be at Congaree National Park. It became a national park in 2003 and preserves a major forest. The park was also the topic of a documentary by South Carolina Educational Television - which also gave us Studio See.
The park has a boardwalk - a people's road, if you will. This 2.4-mile elevated walk runs through the forest and bottomlands. So it's not exactly like the boardwalk on my September 2020 trip to Ocean City, Md., where a woman walking out of a shop smiled admiringly at me.
The boardwalk continues.
A view of some vegetation at Congaree.
The boardwalk gives us a view of this swampy area.
The boardwalk has numbered exhibits like this: Weston Lake, an oxbow lake that formed from the Congaree River.
I think this is another boardwalk exhibit: an old moonshine still.
This would be I-95/US 17 near Ridgeland, S.C. It appears as if this overlays the old US 17, and the road at right came later, perhaps in the path of an old rail line. Also, during my 2005 Orlando trip, we stayed at a motel somewhere near here, and I think that's where someone cracked a silent-but-deadly in the pool, thereby stinking it up.
I-95 south of Ridgeland goes under this footbridge, the Juanita M. White Crosswalk.
I-95 continues.
This is South Carolina's exit strategy on I-95.
I-95 enters Georgia as it crosses the Savannah River!
I-95 goes high-tech as it approaches Savannah! Savannah is the hometown of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, Judge Mills Lane, and Mad magazine cartoonist Al Jaffee.