Richard Turen
This five-day vacation was going to take Angela and me to a place we'd never been, a turnoff in the midst of South Carolina's Low Country, a place about as Southern as it gets.
Those of you who know me might suggest that this was a journey for a couple of catfish out of water. But I was born in the "southern" part of Brooklyn, and Angela is a true Southside Chicagoan, so it does make sense, in a way. It turned out to be one of the most impactful journeys of our lives.
But that part of the story comes much later.
We left Savannah/Hilton Head Airport, charming in a "I swear this used to be a barn" sort of way, and headed down the back roads toward our ultimate goal, a place called Palmetto Bluffs.
The long stretch of road from Georgia quickly gave way to a small sign simply announcing "South Carolina." There was no welcome station, no offering of sweet tea. Instead, there were long stretches of road lined with pine trees stooped over and raggedy, as if they had been chain-smoking since Reconstruction, and ditches or, if you prefer, bogs or ponds that might or might not house an alligator. In the Low Country, the correct answer is "probably."
Soon we started passing billboards, mostly for personal injury lawyers who looked like they had "seen things," and for funeral homes advertising "pre-need packages," which in the local vernacular translates to, "Plan ahead, sugar."
There were gas stations that had stands selling peaches. Inside, you would find boiled peanuts, fireworks and bait, often in the same aisle.
We were passing groups of egrets, herons and a few of the largest hawks I had ever seen. They all seemed to be perched on something, judging the quality of our rental car.
Pickup trucks heading in the opposite direction rode so high off the ground that they had to be cautious about drones in the area.
As I soaked up the experience, the difference of it all to us, I noticed some things I really liked. No one was in a hurry. Time seemed not so much slow as unbothered. We had been traveling for about an hour, and there were no strip malls, skyscrapers or chain restaurants. Just marshland, trees and yards with boats and kids actually playing in yards while folks of all ages sat in swings.
Just outside the outskirts of Bluffton, we saw the sign for the entrance to Palmetto Bluff.
We turned in and stopped at the guardhouse to identify ourselves as guests of the Montage Palmetto Bluff, the only resort on the grounds and our planned destination.
But it was going to take a while. The "driveway" leading to the Montage is four and a half miles long.
Within moments, we were enveloped in a natural forest, a canopy that gently welcomed us -- to what? The trees were taller here, the moss seemed thicker and the air held the intoxicating scent of pine, salt and a bit of generational wealth.
We passed deer along the side of the driveway several times. In each case, they stood still, casually observing us, as if they were waiting for an Uber pickup.
This was magical.
I felt, somehow, embraced by the environment, by the sheer beauty of it all, a beauty that stretched for several miles, and I noticed my breathing had slowed down. The serenity was only broken by Angela's words halfway down the driveway.
"We're moving here."