Trekker: May 08, 2005

I'm baaaack...

Hello dear friends, family, and acquaintances alike...'tis been awhile since I've chatted with you. I've been a bit delinquent, I must admit. At any rate, I've been on another road trip since we last chatted, this time to Charleston, SC.

Of all the cities in the South, the two that have appealed to me the most have been Charleston, SC, and Savannah, GA. There's a lot of history in these two cities, particularly involving the Civil War. Charleston, as you may recall, is where the war began, at Ft. Sumter. One thing Savannah is known for is being the end of General Sherman's "March to the Sea".

Several weekends ago, I took off for Charleston, to participate in its annual Festival of Houses and Gardens. Essentially, the festival allows the public to tour the old homes and gardens of historic Charleston. I must admit I fell in love with Charleston! It's a small city, situated at the confluence of two rivers, so it doesn't quite sit on the ocean. The two rivers do some mixing and merging before they hit the Atlantic. But since the city is small, you can walk just about everywhere that's worth seeing, which is what I did. I would just pick a street, wander up it, take pictures, admire the architecture. The homes which I had tickets for, were situated on the waterfront.

Since the tour wasn't scheduled until 14:00 on Sunday afternoon, I went to visit two plantations that were just outside of Charleston - Magnolia and Middleton. It was so cool to walk around the gardens, tour the homes, and envision what life must have been like a couple hundred years ago. The Middleton Plantation is quite old, with the original owner being one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. This plantation also has the distinction of having the oldest preserved gardens in America. When I first arrived and was walking around waiting for my tour to start, I wondered why the garden's design looked familiar. After reading the history, I learned that Mr. Middleton had his acres of gardens fashioned after gardens in England and Versailles, France. Ahhh, I thought, no wonder they looked familiar! While I had planned my road trip to fit the festival tour schedule, I didn't know that particular weekend was peak weekend for the azaleas in bloom. At Middleton Plantation, it has an area of its gardens known as Azalea Hillside, where there were over 30,000 azaleas in bloom. I've included a picture in my blog.

As for the homes that I toured, they were unbelievable! Since they were private residences, we couldn't take photos, but I did take some of the outside. You'd think you'd walked into a museum with some of these places. The tour guides were rambling on about 18th century this and 19th century that. And NO ONE had prints, EVERYONE had original pieces of art. The picture below of the home with the green shutters, he's an author or some sort, and very patriotic, so his home had a patriotic theme, with large busts of Washington and Jefferson, if I remember correctly, along with many other items. One home I toured was very modern in its decor. I thought I'd walked into the cover of "Better Homes and Gardens".

An interesting tidbit I discovered about the design of the homes there...walking through the neighborhoods, a lot of the homes had very sections that fronted the street, while the bulk of the structure pushed deep into the lot, which meant the porches faced the next door neighbor instead of the street. The reason for this was that back several hundred years ago when these homes were being contructed, property tax was based on how much of the property faced the street. So to avoid paying excessive property tax on these huge homes, they built them rectangular with the narrow portion fronting the street. Clever, I must say. There was a lot to see and do. Oh, since I was in the deep south, I had to partake of a typical southern meal, so I went to a restaurant recommended by the locals and had fried green tomatoes, cornbread, collard greens, and rice. Of course there was catfish, chitlins, okra, you know, all those southern delicacies, but I ordered what I could stomach...lol! There is a lot to see and visit in that area, but I crammed into one weekend as I could, I think I accomplished quite a bit. If you haven't visited Charleston, SC, I recommend it. And treat yourself to a horse-drawn carriage ride.

Nothing much going on around here. It's really starting to heat up. The afternoon rain showers are becoming more a fixture, followed by sunshine, which really steams things up...ugghhhh! Some sad news...my fish died, so I buried him by the pond. I can't do toilet flush burials, they just don't sit well with me! I know, you're laughing...but I will get another fish once the mourning period has ended.

I'll be in California at the end of this month for a family reunion, I'm looking forward to that. Hope all is well in your neck of the woods, and I'll see you in the funny papers.