Betty in the Wild: The Less-Deep South

I know Betty will disagree - politely - but I like superhighways.  Of course, the lesser byways of my native land are more likely to be lined with strip malls (pawn shop, hot-tub store (I'm serious; lots of hot-tub stores in the USA), nail salon, mini-food mart and not the kind where one receives proposals over the tinned goods) than with thatched pubs and white-clapboard churches.  That makes the major roads, which are most often lined with grasses and trees, seem quite attractive.  Nonetheless, I was a bit daunted by the thought of 1,000 miles on Route 95... but a few judicious exits made the trip a pleasure.

As, for instance, a stop at the Santee Wildlife Refuge in more-or-less Summerton, South Carolina, where there are endangered alligators (saw a skull at the visitor center, probably from a gator killed by a poacher, but no live critters, which is just fine with me; what ugly animals they are) and a burial mound that both Brits and Yanks used as a fort back in the Disturbance-in-the-Colonies days.  By that time, the local Santee tribe had little use for it, as contact with Europeans had reduced their numbers from 3,000 to fewer than 500.  The tribe was extirpated by 1800.

Not quite the Acropolis, but the site of a notable American victory over British forces in... oh.  Sorry.

Just to prove we're still in the South.  Note commendable lack of alligators slithering from the mud, much as an over-indulged little sister might, or the imp of jealousy operating on an over-imaginative fiancee who catches sight of a pretty cousin kissing her fiance.

In Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina, I accidentally purchased a gardenia that will not thrive in northern Virginia, and skidded into a u-turn when I saw this picturesque church.  Why?

Give you hint:  not because it's picturesque.

Get it?  Get it?!?

Finally, in Richmond, Virginia, once the capital of the confederacy, I perused the statuary, much as Beatrice did in Copenhagen.  Except hers was a mermaid and mine was mostly soldiers, statesmen and allegories.

Then I had lunch at an old-world Italian place, followed by what Beatrice would call pancakes by way of a sweet.  The restaurant pictured here, and I, call them crepes.