We eat Seewee...Halloween on the road (SC)

We drove to the Isle of Palms, a beach community. Isle of Palms is built like Harbor Island or Shelter Island – a thin neck leading to an island that goes some distance left and right, but in this case it is all residential.

Nothing particularly interesting, but the beach—accessed from a county park—was nice. The usual shell hunting, people watching, and horizon gazing.

A very large ghost crab stood outside his subterranean home in the dry sand about twenty feet from me. He has strong survival skills, as proved by his size and attitude. If I moved just a foot, he would dash inside.

Lunch was at a very old and rustic restaurant call Seewee about five miles north of camp on Hwy 17. Seewee is very popular with locals and knowledgeable travelers (hah!) for its low country cooking. When we arrived, three other Airstream couples were just finishing up; other fellow caravaners arrived as we were leaving.

Marcia had crab cakes, fried eggplant, and a sweet potato casserole. She loved it, but the casserole less so. I went less low-country, ordering beer-battered shrimp, coleslaw, and onion rings—yum, as Rachel Ray would say. I believe this was also my first introduction to Palmetto Ale, my beer of choice in SC. (The Palmetto palm appears on the South Carolina state flag.)

The rest of the afternoon was spent pumpkin carving for Halloween. Our entry tied for second, and although 1^st was good, Marcia slightly overestimated the sophistication of the judges in designing her entry. Our costume—Marcia’s 30-year-old fried egg and my toast & bacon—did not place, sadly.

As for bridge, the other beginners have past me by and I’m feeling nothing but frustration, so after being called “Cal” by the instructors a couple times after all these days (hey—guys can be sensitive) I decided I’d had enough and returned to the trailer to read and sulk. Mostly read.

Halloween preparations... (SC)

Aluminum at the KOA outside Charleston.

Marcia and Susan work on their entries, and the eventual winner.

We throw snake-eyes... (SC)

We took a loop trail through the swamp around Drayton Hall but we were halted by a flooded wooden walkway. Maybe a good thing. You can see a snake crossing over the left edge near the top of the photo. 

Snakes particularly but also alligators were a constant threat to slaves in the rice fields.

Drayton Hall swamp walk... (SC)

The narrow gauge railway from mining days followed this path.

Today this is a nature trail.

Drayton Hall front yard ... (SC)

In plantation days slaves cleared the forested area and planted rice in the same way rice was grown in Africa. The slaves lived just this side of where trees stand today. During the phosphate mining era the Draytons would have looked out on open mining pits in the same areas.

Early in the 20th century the pond was created and the dirt used to form the carriage turnaround, but only the mounded portions remain.

The second story portico where Marcia is standing originally had no railing, in keeping with the style of the times.  Modern day lawyers and insurance carriers apparently insisted on adding the railing.

We visit Drayton Hall, a plantation home ... (SC)

A chilly start, warming to a beautiful day.

Marcia and I drove to Drayton Hall, described as “the oldest preserved plantation house in America that is open to the public”.

Drayton Hall construction began in 1738 as the center of a successful rice plantation. During the Revolutionary War it was at times occupied by British troops and colonial troops. During the chaos of the Civil War it was severely damaged and vandalized, and overgrown with vegetation, but one of the few that wasn’t burned by advancing Union forces. The Draytons fell on hard times with the collapse of the rice economy but recovered by leasing the land for phosphate mining. Gradually they rebuilt. Later generations of Draytons used the house only on holidays and were not inclined to invest much in modernizing, so there is no indoor plumbing (at least that we could see) or a kitchen – these necessities were in separate structures.

In the 1970s conservators decide to preserve the building “as is” rather than picking an era and rebuilding to match those times. The rooms have an abandoned look – no furniture or wall hangings, and a lot of missing paint. Today with the front and rear doors open it felt like a wind tunnel.

The conservators are fortunate in that artists and early generations of the Draytons made detailed sketches of the buildings and property. Also, one slave family remained on the property for seven generations acting as caretakers, and contributed their knowledge.

As part of our tour ($13 senior), a very sharp woman described the role of blacks and black life in the Drayton Hall plantation culture. This was followed by an excellent house tour by a speed-talker named Bob, who has been involved in the Drayton Hall conservation from when it became a National Trust site, over 30 years ago. In casual comments that were minor elements of his talk, he spoke of many years ago buying a 17^th century home in Charleston, and at another time providing a special tour of Drayton Hall at the personal request of Jacquelyn Kennedy Onassis. A most unusual guide.

Sand burrs take down Frank... SC)

Frank unfortunately has a several day hospital visit but is back and fine.

His foot became infected and he went to the emergency room when vertical red lines began to appear.

Possible culprit: sand burrs, really awful things that began appearing south of Delaware and stick to everything. They are painful to step on, easily pierce skin, and are difficult to remove intact.

Inside a Charleston house ... (SC)

We wanted to see the inside of at least one house, so we chose the Calhoun Mansion, $15 per person. It is the one with the couple standing outside. Our buggy guide described it as the "oh Gawd" house because everything inside makes you go "oh Gawd".

Owned currently by a lawyer, it has a very complicated history; in fact, during WWII it housed some Navy officers, including JFK. The current owner (our guide declined to name him but suggested he is in his fifties) is rich and a collector, so the inside is over-filled with antiques from Europe, Asia, and--oh Gawd.

The owner lives on the upper floors (closed to us) and uses the lower floors until 10:00 AM, when the tours start. No photos allowed.

The garden, however, was very nice.

Doing the Charleston... (SC)

After our buggy ride Marcia and I walked around the old area admiring the architecture.

Lunch was at 82 Queen, an old house converted to a restaurant. Marcia had her long-sought she-crab soup, and loved it.  We both loved the herb-cheese biscuits. I had a low country chicken dish served on a kind of mac-n-cheese, and more mac-n-cheese in a side dish. Mine also was very good, better than it sounds.

Charleston is prone to earthquakes but since nothing is torn down you end up with some buildings with a wavy wall, as in the pink building photo.

Charleston was founded partly on the idea of religious freedom, but there was only one church, the Church of England, and it (Episcopal, post-revolution) is on Church Street. Other religions gathered in meeting places, and their (I didn't say churches) are all on Meeting Street.

The round thing that looks like a church is actually a meeting place, and is on Meeting Street. Parts of the cemetery are pre-revolution.

Old Charleston is below sea level in some spots. We experienced an extreme high tide and water suddenly started flowing up from the storm drains. We left, but I hear it actually soon surrounded their old market center, the brick structure.

And now, the Charleston buggy ride… (SC)

It was 52 degrees and even more gusty this morning as we drove for our 10 AM buggy tour of old Charleston.

Sixteen of us per buggy, four to a row, and fortunately blankets were provided. Our guide was excellent, making the cold weather only a minor nuisance. We were pulled by two mules that seemed to need little guidance, although traffic and permit restrictions cause route variations presumably only known by our guide. (Mules, as I can never remember, are the product of a male donkey going up-market with a female horse. Mules are sterile. Donkeys mating with donkeys produce donkeys.)

Old Charleston dates to the 17^th century and has a tremendous history, attacked regularly, it seems, by everybody. By law nothing older than 75 years can be torn down or significantly modified (at least on the exterior). The streets are narrow and the battery sits on Murray Street. There is nothing else you need to know.

Fire ants... (SC)

Ed treats one of many mounds of fire ants on our campsite. They swarm at you when disturbed but are much smaller than I assumed. Nevertheless, we were careful walking around, especially at night.

An uncomfortable encounter, and back to camp... (SC)

After our harbor tour several of us went to the nearby Fort Sumter Visitor Center. The flag flown during the first attack is on display, and exhibits describe the politics that led up to the start of the war.

People like Lincoln weren’t always as unambiguously anti-slavery as painted by history:

I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races - that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of making voters or jurors of Negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And in as much as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race. [1858 Lincoln-Douglas debate]

As I read this statement I was distracted by a squeak to one side. I turned and locked eyes with a Windex-wielding black cleaning woman, looking like she thought I was annoyed with her. I nodded a kind of hello and turned away feeling very uncomfortable.

We returned to camp. This group loves sweets and nothing will warm you up faster than an ice cream social, rootbeer floats for all. There was also a 20-question trivia test based on our travels, and I’m sorry to say Marcia and I didn’t do well.

Charleston Harbor boat ride.… (SC)

Cool and blustery this morning, perfect day for a Charleston boat ride.

We carpooled in with Ed and Susan, crossing a beautiful new suspension bridge.

We boarded a pontoon tour boat with our group for a look at Cooper River and the Charleston Harbor. The aircraft carrier USS Yorktown, commissioned in 1943 and now a museum ship, is here. We young people know her best as the Apollo 8 recovery ship.

Charleston Harbor is much larger than, say, San Diego Bay but the surrounding town much smaller. Charleston’s population is about 110,000 – less than Roseville. The metro population is maybe 600,000. From the harbor the views toward land are more of low-rise buildings, some dating back to the 17^th century.

Since the 1930s Old Charleston has had a rule that nothing over 75 years old gets torn down. Maybe this would be a good place to retire.

Our guide took us to a crab pot, the picture showing only a portion of the catch after only a few days. This was the first time we’ve actually seen blue crabs, famous on this seaboard.

The crabs were then tossed overboard, albeit perhaps a quarter mile from their last position of freedom. The guide said the empty shells were caused by feeding whelk.

The old island fort is Fort Sumter, which was fired upon by South Carolina forces, starting formal fighting in the Civil War. Of course, it had to be fired on again toward the end of the war, so the Union could retake it from the Confederacy. So the 1860s were tough on it. Our guide was nice but this is roughly her total commentary: “I’m not an expert on Fort Sumter, but I believe it used to be a little taller.” (She was right, we later confirmed at the Fort Sumter visitor center.)

Our boat landed us on Morris Island as countless migratory birds flew about. Marcia has done a lot of shell hunting on this trip, and this time she found long-coveted conch shells, intact. We also saw several horseshoe crabs, dead or sluggish, it was hard to decide; or perhaps it was a defense posture.

Not shown are the many dolphins that surfaced around our boat, diving before I could click the shutter. This looked great but was perhaps more exciting to the mid-states members of our caravan.

Myrtle Beach to Charleston (SC)

The south east has been in a prolonged drought so the rains have been most welcome to the locals. It rained all day yesterday and very hard from about 8 PM to midnight. No visible leaks!

This morning we moved camp from Myrtle Beach to the Mt. Pleasant/Charleston KOA. We deliberately travel in small clusters so we don’t block traffic, but at one time we were going around a bend and I could count five beautiful silver trailers in a row. Very impressive, but no photo, unfortunately.

Dead letter office? (NC)

Hunting the perfect shrimp… (SC NC SC)

Rain basically all day, growing harder at night. To clarify, the temperature drops but is still probably in the mid-70s, so it feels warm and very humid even when not raining.

Ed and Susan drove on this free day, this time to Calabash, a small coastal town just across the border into North Carolina. Calabash is famous for its shrimp, supposedly wild rather than ranched. We tested it at Ellas and found it to be superb, particularly fried; the sautéed shrimp (my order) less so. (Incidentally, so far on this trip we have always been given the choice of sweetened or unsweetened iced tea. At Ellas we were served large glasses of excellent iced tea, with a full pitcher for refills.)

Although it wasn’t raining hard, the power went out while we were eating causing us no problem, other than the minor one of having to pay with cash on leaving. Traffic lights were also out but eventually we wound our way around some back roads and took the freeway to Conway, an old county seat in inland South Carolina. The lady in the visitor center over-oriented us and we set out on a river-front walk in a light drizzle, checked out the old courthouse, a cemetery, and a couple art galleries. A nice old town with an interesting river front. It might have been fun to take the river tour.

Suck whaaat??? Myrlte Beach retail... (SC)

California fires...

Marcia hears the good news that at least as of today everybody we know in California is doing OK with the wildfires. We certainly hope that continues to be the case.

Pawleys Island, GAM#6, adult ’smores… (SC)

This was a free day, the morning taken up with Marcia doing laundry and my trying to get our WiFi to work at the campground coffee shop (1 hour free with purchase, no success).

In the afternoon we drove south a half-hour to Pawleys Island. Planters had summer homes here to escape the threat of malaria. It is now a strip of relatively modest cottages, a few dating to just prior to the Civil War. The island is a couple miles long and 100 yards to a quarter mile wide, ocean on one long side and marsh land on the other. Closely spaced wooden piers extend into the marsh, most ending in a small gazebo. Canoes or other flat bottomed boats hang from davits. Some gazebos are topped by egrets intently watching the marsh; others with fake owls, intently watching nothing. The tide is very low and no one is around, other than clusters of fishermen on the bridge connecting the island and mainland.

On the ocean side the beach is very shallow with probably a hundred yards difference between high and low tides. People are walking about enjoying the comfortable temperatures, some collecting seashells.

Pawleys Island looks like a delightful place to spend a do-nothing short vacation.

We had our final GAM tonight, organized by Marcia to cover the people missed in GAMs 1-5. Tonight we had Ed and Susan, he retired from the US Forest Service, and she from the schools. They live in Sonora (the only other Californians on the caravan) but had not previously done much camping. Then there is Ralph, who worked for several large industrial companies and is now retired, as is his wife Sylvia, an RN; they travel maybe 7-8 months a year, on their own and connecting with caravans when they can. Fred and Searcy are retired and also travel fulltime, although they each own houses in Texas; they and their spouses knew each other at least fifty years, and Fred and Searcy married about five years ago when their spouses died. Finally we have Jean who used to own a trucking company but has been full-timing for many years. His wife died and he recently met Carolyn, a widow of an Airstreamer, and they are now traveling together. Jean wears funny hats and cowboy shirts with souvenir-covered suspenders and polyester pants; although from New Jersey, earlier in the trip he would play Dixie across his CB PA each morning and evening. That has stopped, but he is now wearing a Confederate hat. This is Jean's second time on this caravan, and he plans to go again next year. Jean is always in good cheer.

After the GAM we all adjourned to a campfire social and made ‘smores. For dinner I had four, Marcia two. Airstreamers don’t usually do campfires. It was good to smell the smoke and eat the ‘smores as it reminded me of our years of camping with Andrew and Kevin and Brian and Erika. All it needed (aside from people under sixty) was a ghost story from John.

Carolina Opry - Take me H-o-o-o-m-e … (SC)

The group went to the Carolina Opry, a 1000-person theater. This is one of maybe a half-dozen theaters featuring tribute groups and country music with a bit of modern electronic flash.

The Carolina Opry had (1) a piano player comedian from England with kind of a tamed down Liberace act; (2) four whites in ghetto clothes doing a dance derivative of Stomp (which I also didn’t like); (3) a white woman belting out her best Aretha Franklin or maybe Tina Turner; (4) a mulleted singer looking at least 50 pounds heavier than his picture in the program; (5) a couple comedians that were actually pretty good if a bit corny; (6) the same comedians doing a total rip-off of the Abbot & Costello “who’s on first” routine; (7) a comedic country singing group called, I’ll admit amusingly, Run GMC; (8) a black guy singing a good black guy song of some sort with electronic assistance; (9) an emcee that also sang and acted as straight-man for the comedians; and (10) a large bloodhound that scratched and licked appropriately.

The program ended with a couple patriotic songs which brought everyone to their feet, and the firing of a confetti cannon.

Counting on stage and what I could see of the audience, there were three blacks.

At intermission several groups were acknowledged, including our group and lot of church groups, mostly Baptist.

The Carolina Opry is a Calvin Gilmore presentation, they never cease to remind you. His name and picture are everywhere, including in several puff pieces in the program. He is listed as producer and director and in the cast as “Vocals, Guitar”; the cast members are listed in the program alphabetically, formatted so that his name is at the top of the center column, and the center column is raised just a tad above the other columns. (As far as we know, Calvin was not here tonight. Probably at the bank.)

It was raining as we left. Since I drove it became my responsibility to get the truck and pick up Marcia and Ed and Susan. By the time I got back to the front of the theater, it was just pouring, and it poured most of the way to our camp.

Our trailer was a mess. The tiny bathroom fan was open and the WC area was soaked (my fault, Marcia warned me it leaks.) And during yesterday’s strong winds I manually closed the Fantastic Fan about half way, apparently disabling the rain sensor; Marcia’s art supplies and many paper items were soaked. The humidity makes it difficult to ever get things dry. The only good news: I closed the awning during the afternoon, so it was not damaged.

Brookgreen Zoo (SC)

This was taken in macro mode. The little guy is really only about 3 inches long.

The cattle in the background are supposedly descended from plantation-era stock, unaltered by modern breeding techniques.

Brookgreen Gardens sculptures (SC)

The collection is limited to sculptures by native born or naturalized United States citizens.

The sculpture at the top-left was by Anna Hyatt Huntington, the others here were not.