Oh, what will this year bring?

Charleston Hangover

March 8, 2008 on 1:17 pm | In Travel | 2 Comments

It’s not what you think. I had one beer and one glass of wine six hours apart.

I went to Charleston and came home with a sugar hangover. And a curfew. It was a good trip.

Before I start this story, I should tell you that I’m one of those people who eat disgustingly healthy. Oh, I enjoy my daily shot of sugar but it’s usually in the form of a single square of dark chocolate. Although I used to enjoy abundant sugar, when I discovered that it was not a weapon against deployment, I drastically reduced my intake. What I didn’t realize was how accustomed my body had become to clean living. Now, on with our story . . .

I worked the week in Daytona Beach, then, with my friends Helen and Stephanie, took a little road trip to Charleston SC.

“What kind of road food should we take?” Helen asked innocently enough before we started.

Stephanie wanted Cheez Doodles, I suggested red licorice, and Helen offered to bake a pan of brownies. Sounds good enough, I thought.

We loaded into Stephanie’s car and hit Starbucks to fuel up. I ordered a skinny honey latte, no whip, and I was off to a good start to maintaining my healthy diet. But they had these mini vanilla frosted scones, three for something, and gosh, there were three of us and they were so small, maybe they were just what we needed to launch our trip.

So I ate a mini scone. Delish.

We were over the Georgia line when Stephanie asked Helen to open the cheesy puffs. I had no trouble resisting those since I don’t really like them. So far, so good.

When we neared Savannah, we broke out the brownies. They were from the Ghirardelli mix. Turtle brownies, all gooey with caramel. Delish.

What better to wash down a brownie than a red Twizzler. It’s not possible to eat less than 3 of them. Delish, delish, delish.

Just over the South Carolina border, we stopped at a “country store” which sold an amazing assortment of relishes, jams, and other things that could be compressed into a jar. I resisted the jar of coconut pecan pie filling (lord, I could eat that with a spoon!) because I wouldn’t be able to take it back on the plane without checking a bag. I did pick up a bag of fried peanuts — peanuts in the shell, deep fried and salted, you eat the whole thing, shell and all. Good roughage.

As we waited while Stephanie used the bathroom, Helen spied NeHi soda and asked me if I wanted a grape NeHi. I can’t remember the last time I saw one of those, let alone drank one, so I said sure. Feeling very Radar O’Reilly, I sipped the sickeningly sweet drink. I thought the top of my head was going to shoot through the roof of the car. But on I sipped.

By the time we reached the Francis Marion hotel, we were ready to walk. We stashed our bags at the hotel and wandered down King Street. About 4 o’clock, our bodies were screaming for something decent to eat so we settled at an outdoor bar, ordered beers, and a plate of appetizers. I have to admit sitting in the sun with friends, drinking a beer, scooping up artichoke dip was, well, delish.

Later, after a nap, we had dinner at the Swamp Fox restaurant in the hotel which was featuring a special menu in honor of the food and wine festival being held across the street. We started with a Fried Green Tomato with Fresh Goat Cheese and Red Pepper Jelly, followed up with She Crab Soup with Cream Sherry (Stephanie couldn’t finish hers and it was too good to waste so I helped her out on it). Helen and I opted for the Grilled Strip Steak served with Braised Collard Greens and a Rich Pan Gravy with Mashed Redskin Potatoes and a Grilled Marinated Tomato, while Stephanie had the Shrimp and Grits, a local specialty. The steak was delish (couldn’t finish it), the mashed potatoes and gravy divine (couldn’t finish it), and I barely got a taste of the collard greens (which I love but rarely get) because I was so focused on stuffing as much of the steak as I could into my face. My stomach hurt from so much food, and we still had dessert to go. And I am not the sort of girl who turns down dessert. Ever. Stephanie and I had the cutest little Warm Chocolate Bundt Cake with Crème Anglaise and Velvety Chocolate Sauce with Vanilla Bean Ice Cream and Helen had the apple tart. Neither Stephanie nor I could finish our cake, even with the assistance of coffee, so we boxed it up to take back to the room for later.

At this point, with our bellies grotesquely but happily distended, we decided another walk would be a good idea to aid digestion. I can’t say it helped but I’m sure it didn’t hurt. Actually, the only thing that hurt was my stomach from all that rich food.

When we woke up the next morning, we were still full, so we decided to visit the Starbucks that was conveniently located in the hotel. King Street was quiet on Sunday morning, a few headed their way to church, but mostly the street was deserted. We wandered in the opposite direction from the day before, peering in the windows of closed shops.

A raggedy man on a bicycle pedaled by and called out to us, “You girls, all dressed up and going out, better be home by 9!” Then he nodded in my direction and chided, “You, in the turquoise, you best be in by 8:30!”

We laughed and nodded, sipped our coffee, and wandered on. We passed the cupcake store (good thing that was closed), the lighting store, and the shop with the big brass bathtub in the window. When we reached the end, we turned and walked back. Not far from the hotel, the man on the bicycle rode towards us, “You girls best be getting home!” We called out that we were heading there now. “Especially you in the turquoise!” he admonished.

We found the Sweetwater Cafe for breakfast where I had my first creole shrimp omelet, with crispy hash browns and a huge lighter-than-air biscuit. It broke my heart to have to leave the biscuit with only a few bites out of it but I just couldn’t finish it.

We wandered around Market Street, and then things get a little hazy for me. The last thing I remember is stepping inside a chocolate shop that smelled so delicious and I remember resisting the chocolate, but then, there I was a few minutes later, walking down the street with a rice krispie treat dipped in caramel and drizzled with dark chocolate. Delish. So incredibly sweet and chewy that just a few bites at a time would do. (I saved half for Paul who can confirm the deliciousness of the treat!)

On the way back to Daytona Beach, we stopped at the Charleston Tea Plantation. Quite interesting and the tea was tasty, perhaps even therapeutic at that point.

The ride back to Daytona Beach is a bit of a blur. All I know is that by the time we arrived at Helen’s apartment, the leftover chocolate bundt cakes were gone, more red Twizzlers were used as chasers, and there was telltale orange cheesy dust in the backseat of Stephanie’s car.

When my alarm went off at 4:30 the next morning, I knew I was in no shape to go running. Everything hurt. Every muscle in my body, every fat cell, even parts of the human physique that I can’t name hurt. I slept in and awoke groggy. I ate a nice bowl of oatmeal but that didn’t seem to do much to cleanse my system. It was a long, achy trip back to Rochester that day. I don’t actually remember any of it except that my body hurt all over.

The next day I still felt in a fog and sluggish. I decided to go to the gym and see if running made me feel any better. I trotted along on the treadmill, sweating a slick, stinky sweat, feeling both hot and cold at the same time, and, I’m not exaggerating here, I checked my rear several times in the mirror to see if I accidentally had a cushion stuck to it. Yuck, I thought, I feel terrible, like I have a hangover, and it was then that I realized I did have a hangover. A rich food and sugar hangover. I didn’t even know you could get one of those. But I did. A two-day sugar hangover and I lived to tell the tale. And I only rue the day a little bit.

I really was surprised at how accustomed my body had become to healthy eating without me realizing it. I guess it’s a good thing — small changes add up over time until you’ve made a big change without even knowing it. I can’t say this experience will prevent me from overindulging ever again but I do think it will help me to make better choices, if only to prevent a kind of hangover I didn’t even know I could get.