{"product_id":"my-paddle-to-the-sea-eleven-days-on-the-river-of-the-carolinas-9780820344201","title":"My Paddle to the Sea: Eleven Days on the River of the Carolinas","description":"\u003cp\u003eThree months after a family vacation in Costa Rica ends in tragedy when two fellow rafters die on the flooded Rio Reventaz n, John Lane sets out with friends from his own backyard in upcountry South Carolina to calm his nerves and to paddle to the sea. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eLike Huck Finn, Lane sees a river journey as a portal to change, but unlike Twain's character, Lane isn't escaping. He's getting intimate with the river that flows right past his home in the Spartanburg suburbs. Lane's three­hundred-mile float trip takes him down the Broad River and into Lake Marion before continuing down the Santee River. Along the way Lane recounts local history and spars with streamside literary presences such as\u003ci\u003e Mind of the South\u003c\/i\u003e author W. J. Cash; Henry Savage, author of the Rivers of America Series volume on the Santee; novelist and Pulitzer Prize-winner Julia Peterkin; early explorer John Lawson; and poet and outdoor writer Archibald Rutledge. Lane ponders the sites of old cotton mills; abandoned locks, canals, and bridges; ghost towns fallen into decay a century before; Indian mounds; American Revolutionary and Civil War battle sites; nuclear power plants; and boat landings. Along the way he encounters a cast of characters Twain himself would envy--perplexed fishermen, catfish clean­ers, river rats, and a trio of drug-addled drifters on a lonely boat dock a day's paddle from the sea. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eBy the time Lane and his companions finally approach the ocean about forty miles north of Charleston they have to fight the tide and set a furious pace. Through it all, paddle stroke by paddle stroke, Lane is reminded why life and rivers have always been wedded together.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJOHN LANE is professor emeritus of environmental studies at Wofford College. A 2014 inductee into the South Carolina Academy of Authors, his books include \u003ci\u003eCircling Home\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eMy Paddle to the Sea\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eCoyote Settles the South\u003c\/i\u003e (all Georgia). He is also coeditor of \u003ci\u003eThe Woods Stretched for Miles: New Nature Writing from the South\u003c\/i\u003e (also Georgia), and he has published numerous volumes of poetry, essays, and novels. \u003ci\u003eComing into Animal Presence\u003c\/i\u003e is his most recent work. He lives in Spartanburg, South Carolina.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"University of Georgia Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50492155658514,"sku":"9780820344201","price":17.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_ba90467d-2deb-4a76-b954-9ec776d5eb2e.jpg?v=1730573798","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/my-paddle-to-the-sea-eleven-days-on-the-river-of-the-carolinas-9780820344201","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}