Plantation Day

Saturday, May 14, 2011

We love to go to the different plantations in the south, they all have such an interesting past and beautiful gardens. The gardens are always beautiful and green. The second plantation in South Carolina we were able to go to was Magnolia Gardens, it was Easter weekend so there was a lot of people there. We saw some more alligators and they had a lot of cute little bridges.





The Second plantation of the day was Drayton Hall, one of the most extravagant homes for the 1700’s. The foundation that owns the plantation decided that instead of restoring the house they would just maintain it an repair the house as needed. The house had numerous hand carved molding at the corners of the ceilings, even some of the ceilings were carved, it was amazing.




Plantation number three was Boone Hall another very pretty plantation not as old as most of the other plantations. One of the best features of the plantation was a long line of live oak trees lining the drive to the plantation house. Another interesting feature was the cabins that belonged to the slaves back in antebellum era.




Our very last stop of the day was to go to Folly Beach, it was a great day filled with beautiful sites all around.




More of the Low Country

Our new place near Charleston, had a beach two blocks away that is on Seabrook Island 30 minutes south of Charleston. We went for bike rides almost every day, on our many bike rides we stopped at the beach. It was slightly too cold to go for a swim in the ocean so we just walked along the beach. We had lots of fun riding our bikes and walking on the beach.


Our fist Saturday, we headed to Middleton Place one of the many plantations in South Carolina. It was owned by Arthur Middleton, one of the men that signed the Declaration of Independence. The gardens in Middleton Place were gorgeous. If anyone decides to go to South Carolina, definitely stop and look around Middleton Place. We even saw some alligators on the plantation, scary but cool.


After our visit to Middleton Place, we went to Patriots Point which has housed the aircraft carrier the USS Yorktown. We have never been on a Navy ship before, it was really neat to see what an actual carrier looks like. They had a recipe for cookies that made 10,000 chocolate chip cookies in one day, wow I would not want to be the one that got stuck making those haha.

At patriots point they also housed an old submarine, we thought the hallways and doors on the aircraft carrier was small in the submarine they were tiny. The living quarters were really small and the bunks were stacked right on top of one another.


To end the day we headed to Fort Moultrie, a very old fort that dates back to the revolutionary war. Not a whole lot to see there but it was really cool to see something that old. They had lots of powder magazines, they held all the gun power so you can imagine all precautions they took to protect those, one included building a 8 foot thick wall right in front of one of the powder magazines.



South Carolina the Low Country

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Here we are in South Carolina and let me tell you it is beautiful! We love it here! Still hotter than a June bride, but we loved the look of the state. South Carolina looked and felt as if we were in a tropical jungle. The drive from Georgia was short so that was extremely nice. We like our cute little apartment that sits right on a golf course.


Our first order of business was to take a boat tour off the shores of Charleston. We saw all kinds of things from a distance but a great way to get an overview of Charleston. We got a great deal on the boat tour combined with a horse carriage tour on Groupon, gotta love the savings. Were able to get some great photos of Fort Sumter, the site where the civil war started. There was an old airplane carrier called the Yorktown that we'll visit later.


After the boat tour, you guessed it, we took our horse carriage tour in downtown Charleston. We were pulled by two mules. They took us through the part of the city that had all the old houses. Charleston has a design of house that we have never seen before, the design was called a Single house. The reason it is called a single house was because the house was a single room wide and long. Charleston is known as the Holy City because it was the first to allow religious freedoms. We definitely saw a ton of churches.


After our horse and buggy tour we decided we would walk around downtown Charleston and take some pictures. There were these really pretty flowers all over the place I'm not sure what they are, but there were bushes of them everywhere.


The last thing to do was to head over to Battery Park, where the Soldiers of the Civil and Revolutionary wars defended Charleston's shores. Battery Park had some old cannons lined up to defend Charleston, which was fun. Lining the park was some million dollar houses, the saying goes in Charleston the best place to live is South Of Broad Street, Chalestonian's affectionately call the people who live in those houses S.O.B.'s, we thought that was pretty funny.