Our Week in the (Hot) South

Greetings from Beautiful Beaufort!

We have had a whirlwind week. There’s way too much to cover in one post so I’ll just touch on the highlights of each day.

Monday: I already covered the morning. In the afternoon we drove over to Hilton Head just to say we’d been there. Found a little park called Mitchelville Freedom Park. It is on the site of a town called Mitchellville which was built by the slaves who were freed during the Civil War. We also walked around the ruins of Fort Howell, a Union Civil War fort. All that’s left are the earthwork walls and the moat. It gives you a good idea of what these costal forts were really like.

Tuesday: We drove to Charleston and took a carriage tour of the Old Town. It was interesting. Saw lots of churches and historical homes. Heard several stories. Not sure how true they were. I learned that Charleston is called the Holy City because of all the churches. It was a little like they were trying to see who could build the tallest steeple!  I also learned that Charleston has had 1 major earthquake, two major fires and a few hurricanes. It was also severely damaged during the War Between the States. The main thing I got from the tour was that the guide was having a difficult time controlling the horse because he was new. That was interesting. We pooped out after lunch due to the heat so we just drove around a little and then visited the Fort Sumter Visitor’s Center. The highlight of the day was dinner with my aunt Luana and my Uncle Adrian. It was so nice to see and visit with them. Our time was not long enough.

Wednesday: Our day was spent in Savannah. What a beautiful city! I just love how all the neighborhoods in the old part of town were built around gorgeous squares.  We took a hop on/hop off trolley and rode it all the way around first. Then we hopped off and toured the Historical Museum. It’s a typical smallish museum with semi old displays. I did enjoy the special exhibit on Juliette Gordon Lowe, the founder of the American Girl Scouts who is from Savannah. She was an interesting lady.  We hopped back on the trolley and hopped off again at Chatham Square.  Why? Because that’s where they filmed the bench scenes from Forrest Gump. We saw bench #4 from the movie in the museum. Ken took my picture and that’s all I’m going to say about that.  Back on and then off the trolley at St. John the Baptist Cathedral. WOW! It was gorgeous. Then the thunderstorm rolled in so we sprinted through raindrops back to the trolley after spending a few minutes in a parking garage. Dinner was at Paula Deen’s Lady and Sons. A bit of a let down but ok.

Thursday: Back to Charleston we go. We took the boat out to Fort Sumter. The fort began as a blockade fort during the War of 1812. At the beginning of the War Against the States it was a Union fort. The Confederates starved them out and took over the fort. The Union bombarded the fort down from 5 stories to the foundation and regained control. It was rebuilt and eventually turned over to the Park service. It was a very interesting place but we didn’t have enough time to see everything as they only gave us 45 minutes on the island. On the way home from Charleston we stopped by the ruins of the Old Sheldon Church, a Revolutionary War structure that was plundered and burned during the War Against the States. Beautiful!

Friday: I think we saved the best for last. I hadn’t intended to go to the beach because I figured we would be busy seeing history. However, our hosts insisted that we needed to go out to Hunting Island State Park so we did.  Oh my was it beautiful and well worth it. We took off our shoes and socks and strolled through the 84 degree water for about a quarter mile. It was fantastic. I got my beach fix. Then we climbed 167 steps to the top of the lighthouse in the 90 degree heat. From the top you could see for miles and it was degrees cooler. I could’ve spent all day there but we didn’t have appropriate beach attire and we were both feeling the heat so we threw in the towel and went back to the apartment for the afternoon. Dinner was at a cute restaurant called Wren. I had Shrimp and grits. A first for me. It was tasty.

So that was our week in the Lowcountry. We didn’t see or do everything we wanted to do so we will just have to come back some day. Tomorrow it’s off to Charlotte.

Lowcountry Day

Back in April I asked Ken where he wanted to go for vacation. After several inquiries over the course of a few weeks he said he’d like to go to Beaufort to see where the movie “The Big Chill” as filmed. That sounded good to me because I figured we could also sneak in a visit with my aunt Luana in Charleston. So, I began my usual pouring over vacation rentals and hotel ratings to find just the right place for just the right price. By the first of May I had everything planned and reserved and then didn’t think a whole lot more about it. Late last week I hustled around and booked a History/Movie tour here in Beaufort but that’s been the extent of my planning.

Our drive here was long (18+ hours) and we encountered our share of traffic and crazy drivers including a guy and a girl talking through their car windows as they were driving down the interstate in Augusta, Georgia! Of course they were taking up both lanes of traffic and couldn’t be passed. Our first day out we stopped for lunch in Little Rock so we could see Ken’s brother Don. Then we drove on to Tupelo (Siri says “TOO-pelow”) because it was halfway more or less. Because it was here, we drove over to Elvis Presley’s birthplace. There is a whole little complex built around the tiny two room shotgun house where he spent the first 14 years of his life.  It was evening so everything was closed but we were able to walk around and take pictures.  We had some trouble finding it and then had trouble finding downtown and getting back to our motel. What we discovered was that the map we were using was printed upside down and that we’d been going in the opposite direction each time.  My useless fact for the day was that Tupelo was hit by an F5 tornado in 1936 that is still ranked as one of the deadliest tornadoes in history.  At least 250 whites were killed and an unknown number of blacks. Sadly no one valued their lives enough to count. 

Sunday we drove through Mississippi, Georgia and South Carolina and arrived in Beaufort about 7:00 pm. It didn’t dawn on me until Saturday night that we would be changing over to Eastern time!  Found our little rental studio easily and collapsed. 

This morning we got up early and found a quaint cafe called Blackstones for breakfast. We had some time to kill so walked around downtown a bit. Beaufort is called Beautiful Beaufort and it is easy to see why. Many of the buildings date back to the 19th century and some as far back as the late 1700s. Stopped in at the Visitors Center for a map and then headed back to the place where we were to pick up our van tour. 

Evelene was our tour guide and is the owner of the Spirit of Old Beaufort tours. She was quite a character and was very knowledgeable about the area. She said she used to do her tours in full antebellum clothing but couldn’t do it anymore because it was too hard in the heat. Our tour mates were late to start and got lost so we got a late start. That wasn’t a problem because we weren’t on a time schedule anyway. Our tour was quite interesting. 

The Beaufort area was first claimed by the Spanish in about 1650. The French took it from Spain and then the British under King Charles took it from France. In the 1700 and 1800s slaves outnumbered whites. In 1861 at the start of the “Recent Unpleasantness” aka the Civil War the Union Army took the port of Charleston at Fort Sumter.  The whites in Beaufort feared for their lives so they fled south and east leaving behind their slaves, their homes and most of their possessions. The slaves called it The Great Skeedaddle. The next day the slaves dressed in their owners clothing and stood on the banks of the harbor waving white hankies to welcome the Union ships and forces. They became contraband but were able to work for wages. Many of the slaves were able to save enough money to buy the great homes left behind by the whites at tax sales. A few joined the Union army for the duration of the war. Some notable names who came to Beaufort during the war included Harriet Tubman. I learned later in the day that Tubman led a battle on the Combahee River that resulted in the freeing of 700 slaves!

During our tour we saw movie sites from “The Big Chill”, “Forrest Gump”, “The Great Santini” and “The Prince of Tides”, among others.  The Tidalholm house was used for the Great Santini and the Big Chill. It was for sale for 4 years with an asking price of 4 million dollars. It sold for around 1.5 mil. Apparently it needed repairs because it is undergoing major renovation. I’d like to share a photo but I am too tired to figure out how so I’ll add it to Facebook instead. 

There was more to our day but I’ll have to add it later as I’m starting to see double. Tomorrow it’s off to Charleston!