A stately home in Charleston, where we are until Thursday when Rick, Cheryl, and I fly home. I'm trying to finish this blog before Brian arrives here from Columbia, the capital, which is 90 minutes away in the center of the state. Therefore, I'm going to be brief for the 16 pictures.
We have a very hot day for March 22, 88 degrees!! We toured the museum today and two old homes. One was restored to its 1808 grandeur, while the other was left in a "preserved" state of decay. It was still very interesting to see how they lived and how the slaves lived.
One characteristic of many Charleston homes is shown in the picture above, namely, the false front door that actually opens to a side porch. They do this to help catch the breezes flowing through the homes. During the hot months they spend a lot of time on the porches, at both levels of the home.
With this picture we return to Savannah, where I was when I last posted a blog. We had played through St Pat's Day, but not yet toured the city's highlights. The town truly is beautiful with its live oaks with Spanish moss, its 16 squares, charming old homes, and waterfront history. Isn't this boulevard pretty with the parkway down the middle?
Here's where Forrest Gump's bench was in the movie. They relocated the actual bench (a Hollywood prop) to the local museum and we got to see it there later. Do you fans of the movie recognize this spot? Janet and I are going to watch the movie later this week so I can see this and a few other spots we saw where that movie was filmed.
They built this statue to honor a woman who waved at every arriving and departing ship for much of her life. Legend says she was always hoping her love would return, but he never did and she died of a broken heart. This statue faces the river where we did see many a huge ocean liner pass during our few days there.
A few feet away was the Olympic Torch from the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, because they held the yachting events here. Just up on the bluff was an old tavern (now a restaurant where Cheryl and Rick ate dinner) that had a secret tunnel down to the wharf. If a guy got too drunk, they'd whisk him down and throw him on a departing ship so he'd wake up in the navy. This happened to a city policeman and it was two years before he got home.
Springtime! We got to see so many blooming trees and flowers. They have 16 city squares in the downtown area, as laid out by Britain's General Oglethorpe in 1732.
We had a long, nice day of seeing the city on a narrated bus tour, and then walking back to places to see in more detail. Such as the cemetery, which stopped taking new "customers" in 1853! The tour guide said that while the Union forces were occupying the town (and not destroying it, luckily), the soldiers got their laughs messing with the gravestones by making the birth and death dates nonsensical; for example, the person would have died before he was born, or born before his parents were. Weren't they funny? groan...
Cheryl was driving the boat only long enough for me to snap this picture!! We were on our way from Savannah to Beaufort, South Carolina. Most of the traveling was through winding expanses of marshland, as it had been in Georgia.
We arrived in Beaufort late in the afternoon in a strong wind (what else is new?) and at extremely low tide - 1.5 feet below normal low. The tidal swing was greater than usual, linked to the extra full moon we were having. The total tide was 11.5 feet!!! We had just enough water to tie to a city dock. When we returned after walking the town, the dock had risen five feet and the sailboat behind us, which had been sitting in mud, had re-floated and was gone.
Beaufort was loaded with beautiful stately homes, all decorated with moss-laden live oak trees, spring flowers, and ivy. The town is a National Historic site. We walked up and down most of old town to admire the homes on a warm Sunday afternoon. One Africa-American Baptist church from 1863 was where they filmed Bubba's funeral in Forrest Gump.
Look at this oak tree!! They have been one of my lasting memories from the South, so formidable and draped with the moss, adding a special beauty to every scene.
At the St Helena's Episcopal Church, with its ancient cemetery encircling it, we realized many families have forgotten who won the "War of Northern Aggression", as they call it here. Can you see all five Confederate flags in the picture? There were hundreds of them in the cemetery.
Isn't it nice that they spare the live oak trees? You get to drive right under this bridge on one of the residential streets in Beaufort. In another spot, the huge oak was left in the road, and cars had to just make their way around it! Cool!
When we arrived in town, as I mentioned, it was extremely low tide. This picture is from when we were leaving the next morning, at extremely high tide (11.5 feet higher). Notice that the green channel marker is almost under water! The day before, we passed this same marker and it was sitting on dry land. A boat with a family of kids was beached and they were running around on the island. With tides like this, it makes the tidal currents extremely strong and swift. At the same engine rpm, my speed would alternate between 4.5 mph and 10 mph depending on where I was. Amazing!
This picture is meant to show you how long people's docks are at their waterfront homes, so that their boats can be in deep-enough water. It would be exercise in itself just to hike to your boat, about 200 yards out across the marsh. We have passed long docks like this for days on end out here in the "low country". One guy, however, got creative. He turned his dock into a driving range and putting green. I imagined the marshes across the river were chock full of golf balls from his drives over the years. (His huge backyard also was a mini golf course.)
We arrived in Charleston yesterday about noon and docked at their HUGE city marina. We had time to take a narrated city tour. This town, like Savannah and Beaufort, is remarkably beautiful. It helps to be springtime. This picture is along the "battery", their 300-yr-old waterfront with stately homes and parks. When Fort Sumter was bombarded from all sides at the start of the Civil War, the townsfolk viewed it from here as if it were a show.
Here are, from right to left, Debbie, daughter Grace, and John Beahm. What a great visit and dinner we had with them! Debbie grew up down the Hawthorne street from Janet Amuchastegui, and they have remained friends all these years (these FEW years! lol). Sister Janet knows Debbie too, since they were the same HHS graduating class, and they've been Facebook friends. Debbie and John have been married 42 years, he being the cousin of Debbie's and Janet A's best friend. They lived most of their married lives in Washington, D.C., but have followed Grace, a newspaper photographer, here to Charleston 7 yrs ago.
We had Happy Hour visiting on Breaking Away, with three separate and lively conversations going at once, and then moved across the river to an appropriately named restaurant, California Dreaming. The fun and multiple conversations continued all evening there too! So great to share old and new friendships. If only the two Janets could have been here too.
The Beahms brought me this fresh pineapple. Legend has it that sailors in port would display the top of a pineapple in their home window to show they were back from their voyages to exotic locations. They were quick to point out, though, that it most probably was designed to signal to the lonely wife's suitors that hubby was home and they'd need to wait until he sailed again to return for a visit.
So this morning I cut the top off the pineapple and displayed it in Breaking Away's window (it was fabulous to eat too!). However, it will make sense only if I now take it home with me and display it in Janet's window so her many boyfriends will stay away. lol
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