SPF 100: 2025 Big Truck across the Southeast, day 9

Day 9 started early, as it was a travel day. We have a pretty decent system by now, so it doesn't take too long to go from stationary to mobile. This particular site was full hookup, so I was able to skip the dump station and handle our business locally. Since the neighbors had left yesterday, that made it easy to hook the Jeep up right at the site and be fully wheels up ready to roll.

Once on the road, we headed back through Savannah before heading north on 95. Nothing good happens on 95. Ever.

After a while on highways, the GPS had us doing some serious backroad cruising, with fields going on forever. Felt like northern Michigan.

As we snaked our way back to find our Poinsett State Park campsite, we really started getting a sense for how remote this area is. Major UP vibes from back home, except with a bunch of spanish moss. We set up camp at our site (13, very nice and level), then decided to head into town to grab a late lunch and find some A/C.

It was a cool 97 degrees as we left the campground. That's when we discovered these signs.

We later learned that we were camping right next to the USAF Poinsett Bombing and Target Range. That's comforting. As we rolled into downtown Sumter looking for a place to park, we stumbled on this JDM gem.

As we found our destination, we noticed a fair amount of lightning and some ominous clouds

A few minutes later, a gigantic downpour. If nothing else, it at least cooled things down to the mid 80s.

This place (Sumter Original Brewery) is massive. 3 floors, tons of games - who knew Sumter came to party?

After lunch, we headed back to the campground, and I asked if anyone was up for a short hike. Out of sympathy, Kimberly took me up on it. This hike started by the little park office, which held enviable hours during the week.

This was a short hike around a lake, but it proved to have some challenges.

Specifically, these challenges.

I walked face first into one of those webs, and freaked out enough to make Kimberly's watch tell her that she had experienced a hard fall. After a few more flails and a bunch of spitting to get the web off my face, that's when we originally discovered the giant yellow fella. His kind were everywhere, so instead of enjoying the hike, I was now constantly scanning across the trail, determined not to get fooled again. We probably ducked another 6 or 7 of these things and their gigantic webs. More on that later. We finished the hike, and were sweating like crazy. After the rain, the humidity had stayed at infinity, and whatever breeze there was was now gone.

We headed back to the campsite, where I had the bright idea of, since I was sweaty from hike, going for a twilight ride on unfamiliar singletrack by myself. Luckily, we were in the middle of nowhere. The ride started out great, with pretty smooth, flowy trails. Then I rounded a corner, and sure enough - our old friend.

At this point, I dismounted the bike, probably screamed, then made the Sufferin Succotash noise for a good 30 seconds, accompanied by flailing, twirling, and swatting at everything. If anyone was within earshot, you're welcome. I went back to check the web, and there was a perfect outline of my helmet about 2" below where our boy Spidey was sitting. I kept having visions of that spider landing on my face for the rest of the ride.