Edisto days
Falling in love with a Lowcountry gem
I’m not even a beach guy, really. Give me the mountains nine times out of ten. But Edisto Island, South Carolina is the most frequent exception to that rule.
For the last fifteen years, my wife Melissa and I have made a concerted effort to travel. It has been an investment in venturing out, in seeing the world. Though we’ve not gone beyond Europe and North America (yet), we’ve seen a few things.
We have tent camped in Iceland, hiked in the Hebrides, completed the Big Sur Marathon, and road-tripped from Monterrey to Seattle, taking in the iconic Marin Highlands and the otherworldly Oregon Coast.
We’ve seen the sights in Paris and London and Rome and Prague, but the hikes are what mostly come to mind. A strenuous jaunt with our dear friend Martin up Snezka - the tallest peak in the Czech Republic (they have beer at the top!) - fueled by goulash at a rustic guesthouse along the Polish border; an epic hike through the pristine Austrian Alps; lung-searing ascents through the Canadian Rockies; and tramps through some of the icons of the US National Park system, including Glacier, Yellowstone, Grand Teton, Zion, Bryce Canyon, and Arches. Every one of them are spectacular on a scale that is difficult to convey.
But for my money, there is no more beautiful place in the world than Edisto.
Each year Melissa and I make the drive from Raleigh to Edisto for a visit with my mom and stepdad, Howard, who have part ownership of a place at Wyndham Resort on the island.
The drive from Raleigh plays out in three acts - starting with the long and unavoidable stretch down I-95 - lots of trucks, relentless traffic, not particularly relaxing, though we’ve made the best of it with some great podcasts over the years. After the better part of four hours, we’ll mercifully exit 95 around Walterboro - always a relief to be off the interstate - and enter Act II. This is a more enjoyable drive along mostly two-lane black top as the heat-stunted pines and sand hills of South Carolina’s Coastal Plain gives way to the fabled Lowcountry.
It is often late afternoon by the time we embark upon Act III, turning off a bustling Highway 17 onto State Highway 174. This is where Edisto begins to work its magic. Designated a National Scenic Byway in 2009, Highway 174 is a tree-canopied jewel, running seventeen miles along salt marsh, maritime forests, and small farms. Tendrils of sunlight filter through the moss-draped and time-gnarled branches of live oaks. As you roll past the hamlet of Adams Run with its diminutive and ancient post office, you have entered a different realm - a tide-haunted and forgotten world - and you feel your pulse slow to island pace.
At certain points, the oaks give way to clearings revealing pluff mud channels, as white Ibis fly low over spartina grass stretching out in a thousand shades of green on both sides of the highway. Light dances off blue inlet water like polished coins, and oysters cluster on banks, waiting for harvest.
Shape-shifting cumulous clouds fill a big sky with their shades of pinks and greys, bleeding into a blue-green haze at the horizon. Palmettos, the state tree emblazoned upon t-shirts and window stickers wherever you wander around South Carolina, grow naturally here, clustered along riverbanks as far as the eye can see. The pungent yet pleasing marsh aromas waft on breezes through cracked windows and an open sunroof as you roll past leaning shanties, hundred-and-fifty-year-old churches, and weathered juke joints where old bluesmen once plied their trade.
The McKinley Washington, Jr Bridge rises dramatically over the Dawhoo River, providing a birds-eye view of the marsh and channels below as you continue onto the island proper. You roll by Botany Bay, and Eddingsville Beach, past Edisto Island Bookstore with its shelves of local histories, fine selections of Lowcountry noir, and a resident cat regally named Sarah Margaret. Finally, you pass Edisto State Park before arriving in the town of Edisto itself, turning right down Jungle Road with its strip of shops and restaurants and raised beach houses, then on toward the Wyndham resort.
The house is a well-kept, mid-80’s-vintage two-bedroom duplex, elevated on pilings in the style of most homes in the area. There’s a small, well-equipped galley kitchen, comfortable dining and living areas, and a loft area atop a spiral staircase. The feature that defines it is a large screened porch overlooking the 14th fairway of Wyndham golf course and the evergreen marsh beyond. It’s a favorite spot for sitting and reading, always good for people watching and cool breezes. A half-mile amble to Bay Point beach at the tip of the island yields the best sunsets I have seen, hands down. If you are lucky, you’ll catch a pod of dolphins lolling effortlessly in the gentle surf just beyond shore, and the ten-hour round-trip is worth it just for that.
Shrimping boats lurch out to sea from the marina nearby, followed by flocks of scavenging gulls with their shrieking calls. Pelicans glide overhead as kayakers paddle along, navigating the marsh through the verdant maze of channels, while oystermen return to shore with their hinged treasures in the cooler months. Morning coffee is savored a little later and a little longer than usual. Books are read, meals are planned and executed, and island rhythms push the noisome chatter of news and politics and workaday concerns deep into the recesses.
Restaurants come and go on Edisto. Help is hard to find everywhere, but particularly on a tiny barrier island some sixty minutes south of Charleston. But Whaley’s seems to endure. It occupies a low-slung cinderblock building a block off Palmetto Boulevard - Edisto’s main drag. Whaley’s is a former gas station dating back to the 1940’s, and the old pumps still stand sentry out front. It was once the only place for gas and fresh water for nearly fifty miles. It’s a lively joint where locals and visitors gather over cold beer, unpretentious (but good) fare, and better stories.
“Arrogantly shabby” is the famous motto of sister beach town Pawley’s Island, up the coast a couple of hours, in Georgetown County. That spirit resides in Edisto as well. But there’s a depth - a hauntedness - to Edisto, storm-tossed and born of a troublesome history, the color of indigo and the texture of sea-island cotton.
And for me, its the most beautiful place in the world.
