No, We're Not in Florida Anymore.

I know, I've been neglecting my documentation of our travels. My creative energies are being channeled into my interior design fantasies. Apologies offered. I'll do a quick update now. This Spring and Summer are all about friends, family, and future too I guess.

Our last stop in Florida was a very stimulating one in Jacksonville, where I dashed around madly trying to visit all the furniture stores to feed my fantasies and determine which ones will be most useful when we come back to Jekyll Island in the Fall.  Jekyll is about halfway between Jacksonville and Savannah, both of which have more furniture and interior decor stores than can be found closer. Furniture Mart will be my lead provider I think, with the local Jacksonville West Elm and Ballard Design stores in supporting roles. Brunswick also has Sweats, a nice but small furniture store, which will be a great local resource.

Then we parked at Coastal Georgia RV Resort in Brunswick and spent the week gazing longingly at the construction site where our townhouse will be. We also walked the beaches on Jekyll Island every day and explored the local territory, including St. Simons Island. From the Jekyll beaches we viewed porpoises and manatee in the shallow waters, enjoyed the deep green shade of the oaks, and basked in the relaxing atmosphere of the Island. What a beautiful place Jekyll is. Even more beautiful than we remembered. We're still feeling really good about our decision to live there.

After a too short and wonderful week with our family (Hi Bob, Caroline, Catherine, Will, Sarah, Cathy, Jess and Michael!) in Mount Pleasant, SC we started making some serious headway northward.  For us that still means moving only about 2 hours on travel days, and spending a couple of days at each stop.  

In our slow and steady style we actually made it through South Carolina and North Carolina, into Tennessee, and stopped for a week at the tidy Two Rivers Landing RV Resort in Sevierville and the Great Smoky Mountains. While there, we revisited our favorite spots in the National Park, perused the hugely comprehensive Smoky Mountain Knife Works, and had a lovely visit with Rick's old friends, Bob and Barb from Louisville.

On through Tennessee, Kentucky and into Ohio, we stopped for a great visit with our new friends Barb and Phil, in Mount Vernon, OH. They were kind and generous to let us stay in their home over the Memorial Day Weekend. What a blessing it was to get a break from the crowds and expense we would have encountered in an RV park on this holiday. And Phil and Barb are just so much fun to be with. We explored all around the beautiful Ohio countryside, including Granville, where I went to college and where Rick's great grandfather was a pastor and president of a local women's college (predating Denison University, my alma mater).  Granville is still such an idyllic little town, and I think Ohio is just about the most beautiful state in the country. Thanks Phil and Barb for showing us around your home state!

After a few of more quick stops in pastoral Ohio, the northwest corner of Pennsylvania and western NY, we've landed in apple country north of the Finger Lakes for a week to catch our breath from all this hard ramblin'.  : )  Right now we're at NorWin Campground and Fruit Farm, kind of an unusual stop for us. The large campground of primarily summer homes/trailers of local folks, is surrounded on all sides by a beautiful farm, with fruit orchards, corn fields and goat pastures. Our hosts couldn't have been nicer, and found us, on short notice, a pull-through spot with an open sky so we could use our satellite. We'll get both cars serviced, clean house, do a lot of laundry and let Honey run through the orchards.

We'll be in New England very soon for some long awaited visits with many dear people who we love and have missed. Our travels will peak at Acadia National Park, then we start the long trip back south, stopping in New Hampshire and Vermont for a couple of weddings and a visit with my son Mark. Lots to look forward to.

P.S. Sorry, no photos. There is something bad going on between Picasa (Google's photo program) and Blogger (Google's blogging program). I'm not feeling hopeful about where it's going, so the future of this blog is in question. I'm very tempted to bad mouth Google, which has basically abandoned Picasa users, and may be planning the same for Blogger.

"Nights of a Thousand Candles" at Brookgreen Gardens, SC

It was the end of a busy day, especially for our niece Sarah who seems to go nonstop 24/7, taking care of three children under the age of 5. But she treated us to a glorious evening out for Christmas, despite the challenges of getting out of her house without the oldest two kids. 

Curtains of light hang from the live oak trees

With baby Will in tow, we left Mount Pleasant at 7:30 and headed 1.5 hours north on Rt. 17 through Georgetown and Pawleys Island, and got to the Gardens at about 9:15. Luckily, they extended the hours to 10:30, half an hour after their usual closing time. It turned out that an hour was really just right to see the light display. Unlike some drive-thru' Christmas lights, this is a walk through the beautiful sculpture garden that is open year round, and decorated for the holidays.

Also unlike other displays, there are no representational lights. No Santa's, no elves, no snow flakes, no reindeer, no snow castles...nothing but abstract lighting effects highlighting the natural beauty and structure of the formal gardens and their delightful sculpture collection. It is a remarkably effective approach, and such a breath of fresh air during a stereotypical image filled season.

Reflecting pools under the lights

The gardens are divided by color and form themes. Our first experience was walking through their vast ancient live oak avenues, dripping waterfalls of white lights.

Lights like Spanish moss drip from the live oaks

 Then at the suggestion of one of the omnipresent volunteer guides, we visited the multi-colored Children's Garden (even though Will was fast asleep and too young to appreciate it anyway). But we loved it.

Rick strolls sleeping Will through the Children's Garden

The colorful Children's Garden

Just a few interesting facts. There are approximately one million lights (90% LED), and 4,500 candles in the display. Forty people light and blow out the candles every night. There are 5 miles of extension cords.

Our path led through more light-wrapped live oaks...

The lights accentuate the sculpture throughout the gardens

...and on to the red and white garden where an interesting use for wine bottles lighted the ground under the red trees.

Wine bottle lights under a tree

The red and white garden

Then on to the blue garden,

The blue garden

...the reflecting pools,

...and a grand light tent over an immense reflecting pool. You can't see them well in these photos but there are sculptures in all of these reflecting pools.

A tent made of lights covering a reflecting pool

One formal garden was completely lighted with Chinese lanterns so that it felt like a Hawaiian luau.

Chinese lanterns and luminaries

By this time is was after 10:00 and most of the people were heading out because they didn't know about the extended hours I guess. We had the place almost to ourselves...

...as we finished at the giant evergreen tree. It was very peaceful.

Sarah and Rick appreciating the Holiday Tree

Thank you Sarah for a beautiful night that sparked our imaginations and our appreciation for the beauty of the holiday.  It was so worth the journey through the dark silent night.

Wishing all our readers a love and peace filled holiday with friends and family.

Boone Hall Plantation: Mount Pleasant, SC

This December we've returned to Mount Pleasant, SC to visit with family for the holidays. We're staying at the KOA, which has made some improvements since we stayed two years ago, most importanly (to us) a new dog park.  Although we've done lots of sightseeing in Mount Pleasant/Charleston in previous years, we never got to Boone Hall Plantation, one of the most popular historic destinations in the area.

The 88 live oak lined entrance to Boone Hall

The admission fee to Boone Hall covers a guided house tour, tram tour, self-guided walking tour of grounds, gardens, cotton dock and slave quarters, butterfly garden and access to the Butterfly Cafe. It easily takes at least half a day.

As we drove down the 88 tree, 3/4 mile live oak lined entrance road, we stopped  to take a picture and noted that we were standing on an old brick bridge over an unusually deep canal. Later we learned that the canal was dug during the Civil War as an effort to detain the advance of Union troops into Charleston. We also learned that the bricks had been made right at Boone Hall Plantation brickyard. 

If you love history, you'll love visiting Boone Hall. Originally a British land grant to John Boone in 1681, it has been a working plantation ever since! It's ownership has changed many times, from John Boone, to a Russian prince, to the current McRae family and others. 

The plantation house and serpentine wall

Its source of income has also changed many times: from rice, cotton, bricks and pecans to peaches, vegetables, tourism and special events.  No cotton any more due to the infestation of the boll weevil along the coast.

As we waited for the noon house tour we walked through the gardens, which were being changed over to their winter annuals. 

However, beautiful pink and white camellia bushes, unique to these semi-tropical climes, were blooming along the garden paths.  

We had just enough time to wander along the creek and visit the smokehouse.  At 250 years, the smokehouse is one of the oldest structures on the plantation.

Praise house and serpentine wall

After walking along the serpentine wall (invented by Thomas Jefferson) we headed back to the big house for the tour.

Our tour guide was entertaining and informative as she took us through the downstairs of the period antique furnished house, where no pictures were allowed. They were in the process of decorating for Christmas with hundreds of poinsettias and a couple of trees in every room, each one decorated uniquely. One was decorated completely with cotton balls right off the bush (surprisingly effective) and another with woven sweet grass ornaments.  This house is not the original Boone home; it is actually the fourth building on the site, the others having been lost to fire and or torn down for this new structure by Thomas Stone in the early 20th century designed after the traditional southern plantation style.

After the tour we made our way back to the row of brick slave cabins along the oak avenue. Typically the slave houses are placed in back where visiting guests wouldn't see them, but historians guess that this land was the only acreage on the plantation that was not farmable because it flooded regularly with salt water. So they built the slave cabins there. 

Each of about eight cabins has a display inside with either an audio or visual recording explaining the display. The first house was described as the "praise house" where slaves were allowed to worship separately from their white owners and overseers.   Music, audio description, mannequins and informative plaques explained the history of worship tradition among the slaves, as well as notable spiritual leaders of the time. Other cabins housed displays about dimensions of slave life, emancipation, archeology, agriculture, etc.

Sweet grass baskets are still a highly prized traditional craft of the local Gullah people and are sold along Rt. 17 in Mount Pleasant. Here too a local artisan sells her baskets and explains about the art form.

Sweet grass basket detail

A local historian was available to answer questions and expound on topics of his choosing outside  one of the cabins. 

These houses are not in their original condition, as they were destroyed by Hurricane Hugo in 1989. They are constructed of the same bricks, which were made in the plantation brickyard. The tile roofs replaced the original wood. 

Another building on the plantation that was seriously damaged by Hurricane Hugo is the cotton gin. As most readers will know, the cotton gin (short for engine) revolutionized cotton production by providing a fast and efficient method of processing the cotton after picking. The large buildings that house the gin are also called gins. There are still many modern gins in operation throughout the south.  This gin had been used as a gift shop and restaurant until the hurricane almost destroyed it. Now it is braced and waiting for a planned multi-million dollar renovation.

We finished our visit with a chilly open air tram tour around agricultural fields of the plantation. Our guide told us more about the history and current use of the plantation. We drove through peach orchards and strawberry fields (that will be ripe in two weeks!). Produce from the farm is sold locally to agricultural cooperatives.

As Christmas approaches our family activities intensify. We'll be visiting, dining out, shopping, having meals at one another's homes, baking cookings, and dancing. There's a nice contradance in North Charleston and one of our nieces is an avid ballroom dancer. We've promised to attend her dance if she'll attend ours, so we anticipate even more dancing and holiday fun.

Marvelous Places: Edisto Island

... and a little odd at times. Out of the ordinary at least. Perhaps it was just our luck for a few days, but Edisto Island presented itself as unusual. Maybe it was getting away from commercial development again that allowed the natural world to emerge this way. Whatever the reason, here it is.

Edisto is one of the least developed sea islands in South Carolina. Two large portions of the island have been preserved by the Edisto Beach State Park and Botany Bay Plantation. The town of Edisto Beach populates a strip between the ocean and the Edisto River and salt marshes. The homes are a mix of modest and grand, but not the high end ones like you might find on Hilton Head, which is not too far from here.  Here's Rick's favorite.

There are a few restaurants and one small Piggly Wiggly and an True Value Hardware, a couple of gas stations.  During the winter it scales way back, which suited us just fine. As we rode our bikes around town, I liked it enough to fantasize about living here, at least in the winter time.

We stayed in the State Park for three nights in site 74, with 30 amps, no sewer, and 95 feet backed up to the salt marsh and a short walk to the ocean. Our site is kind of muddy, but that only allowed us to see the evidence of what must be an army of raccoons using the puddles as wash basins.

We've seen more raccoon tracks on their well-beaten paths elsewhere in the park too, but haven't seen any in person.

The weather has been perfect for getting out on the beach, and we don't have to drive anywhere for a great walk. This has made Kona and Rick very happy.

 Edisto beach is known for its shells. We've seen lots of oyster shells, and a few whelks, usually partial, like this one.

We've caught colorful sunrises and sunsets on the beach.

And an evening rainbow-sunset combination! 

We saw this rainbow out our back window over the marsh, and then dashed over the dunes to the ocean to see the other end there!

The sillouhettes of the palms always make for a nice sunset shot.

We spent much of yesterday at Botany Bay, where we saw some of the most unusual scenery since we've left the west.  

                     Botany Bay Rd. exemplifies the lushness of the landscape around the island.

Admission is free, and a self-guided driving tour takes you through the Heritage Preserve/Wildlife Management Area (Botany Bay for short). It was created from two old plantations, the remnants of which are still visible in the roads, fields, and a few buildings, ponds and dikes.  

In Picnic Pond, we had the good fortune to see a large alligator brumating amongst the duckweed.  (OK, I'm showing off.)

This is the ice house, one of the only structures left from the Bleak Hall Plantation.

Another small structure, the gardeners shed, is partly in ruins, exposing the "tabby" of which is it constructed. This was a new one for us. Tabby is an old and very labor intensive form of concrete, with a high percentage of oyster shell. Here you can see just how much shell they used.

Visitors are welcome to leave their cars and walk around the Preserve, among the various ruins and natural features. While heading back to our car, we spotted this big guy hanging out on the gate.

The highlight of the visit to Botany Bay though, was the beach.

It's a very unusual one, with dead trees in the surf, exposed by erosion.

In some places I felt like I had stepped into Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal.

To top off our tour of unusual places, we passed the Mystery Tree on our way back to the park. It sits in the middle of a marsh, and no one knows who decorates it, but it changes with the seasons. It's decorated for Valentines Day now.

We leave Edisto tomorrow, and will stop in Woodbine, GA for the weekend, some Patriots football, and more unusual adventures.