Not all Roadside Stops Are Created Equal.
We left James Island County Park with excitement about our next destination, a unique Hipcamp about halfway between Charleston and Dreher Island. If you aren’t familiar with it, Hipcamp is sort of like Airbnb for the great outdoors — regular landowners list a patch of their property, and you pitch up, park, or plop your camper down for a night or a week. Some Hipcamp rentals offer even more with yurts and even cabins. Its a great app and I highly recommend it, notwithstanding the story I am about to share. Hipcamp, at its best is magic: private land, no neighbors, a farmer who waves at you from the porch. At its worst — well, we were about to find out.
The listing in St. Matthews had us at "cute little bit of farmland," and it sealed the deal with "right by a fishing pond." Richard and I pictured ourselves reeling in fresh fish for supper and grilling it up lakeside as the sun went down. We packed our fishing poles before we'd even finished reading the reviews. Romantic notions will get you every time, right? And those notions flew right out the window as soon as we turned into the “picturesque farmland campground” where we were to spend the next two nights.
As we drove down the tiny dirt road perched beside that lovely picturesque pond, we looked to the left to see camper after camper lined up, and not the kind of campers that move around much. Old, weathered, sagging in the middle campers that tell you that rig has been parked in the same spot for years, not nights. All of a sudden, this wasn't the quaint little farmstead with occasional guests — it was somebody's permanent neighborhood, and we'd driven straight into the middle of it. Although we did indeed have an invitation, it felt like a party we didn’t really feel comfortable attending. The septic situation didn't help matters either: instead of proper hookups, each site had a length of PVC pipe running along the top of the ground, doing its best impression of septic disposal. The electrical boxes were a mismatched lineup, none of which looked like they'd passed an inspection anytime this decade. It all looked not-so-reliable, and honestly (for lack of a better term) janky, Not that we are snobby but we were concerned about harm coming to our rig by plugging in.
We didn't hesitate or even think about unhitching. We just turned that camper right back around and pointed ourselves toward the exit. Once we were safely down the road, I pulled up the app and requested a refund for our scheduled stay, half expecting a fight. About a week later, a full refund landed back in our account, no argument. Small mercies.
As we wound our way back to civilization, I opened the RV Life App, searched for nearby campgrounds and came up with a new plan. Sesquicentennial State Park in Columbia was just a little over an hour up the road, had a site with full hookups available for the next few nights. We pointed the truck in that direction, grateful for a booking that actually looked like what it said it was and happy that it, too, had a lake. Maybe we would have fish for dinner after all.
So, the day decided it had one more thing in store for us. We were less than 20 minutes down the road and had barely made it on the ramp to I-26 when a loud sound came from under the hood — the kind your whole body understands before your brain catches up - a sound that says “something is terribly wrong.” Richard pressed the gas, and the engine let out a roar, he eased off, and the roar disappeared. He tried again — gas, roar, ease off, silence — like the truck was begging for help. A sound that said, “Go no further until you fix me.” So, we looked at each other and, at the same time said, “Pull over.”
For the next hour, we sat with hazards blinking and talked to the Good Sam agent. She located us by the compass coordinates on my IPhone -very cool trick, I had no knowledge of prior. Apparently, there’s not many companies that have the equipment and/or qualified drivers to tow that kind of load. We waited, watched cars and trucks fly by, and from time to time, talked to the Good Sam lady. We got hungry, so I went in the camper and made chicken sandwiches for our lunch - just like we had pulled over for a roadside picnic. So much time passed and the outlook for a tow truck became so bleak, we actually discussed how we were going to handle spending the night at our front-row interstate campsite.
Three and a half hours later, just before the bottom fell out, the rare being arrived to our rescue. One of the most colorful people I have met in my life, Jimmy the tow truck driver. There was a certain energy to him — the kind that immediately brought the movie “Talladega Nights” to mind. I want to be clear: the man knew what he was doing, or at least seemed to, and I was grateful down to my bones to see that truck pull up behind us. But there was drama to be had, and Jimmy was gonna make it dramatic. It seemed like a genuine clip from a comedy, from beginning to end. Never mind our current state of trauma - especially after spending the better part of three hours on the edge of a very busy interstate with cars flying by and for the most part, nobody in the world capable of coming to our rescue.
And then it rained. Torrentially. Quite dramatically, amidst the sideways rain, the dogs and I were asked to get out of the truck and stand off to the side. Which we did — obediently, the way you do when a professional tells you something and you assume it's for a good reason. What Jimmy failed to mention was that it indeed was for good reason. So there we stood: me, Simon, and Prudence, ankle-deep in roadside mud, getting absolutely soaked, for a solid thirty minutes. It wasn't until Richard glanced over and clocked what was happening that he called us back into the camper. Turns out standing in the rain had never actually been necessary. The longer the afternoon wore on, the clearer it became that Jimmy liked the show as much as the work.
Drama and comedy aside, the man got the job done. He loaded the truck onto the bed of the tow rig and hitched our camper - newly and permanently christened "Biggie" for the occasion — on behind it, and off we went toward Columbia. We rolled into Sesquicentennial State Park just before quarter to eight, right as the sky opened up for round two of the day's rain. Jimmy backed us into our site like it was nothing, wished us well, and disappeared back into whatever adventure came next for him.
Wet, rattled, and thoroughly done with the day — but safe, and parked, and together. And that's exactly where we stayed for the next few days, letting Sesquicentennial do what a good state park does best: absolutely nothing, in the best possible way.
