South Carolina - Day 8 - to Barnwell, Beaufort, Yemassee

Point South/I-95/Yemassee KOA, Yemassee

Tuesday, 16 May 2023

When I was at Newberry making reservations for the month, I made them online to save time.  I thought I'd reserved 2 nights in Barnwell State Park, so I'd arrive at Yemassee on Wednesday.  At the last minute, I checked the email confirmations all the campground had sent and discovered I'd only reserved 1 night at Barnwell, leaving me with nowhere to stay on Tuesday (today).  So quick like a bunny I called Yemassee KOA, explained the problem, and asked if I could move my reservation from Wednesday to Tuesday, and then called up Charleston KOA to explain my dilemma and asked if I could extend my stay there by adding Wednesday on the front of it.  Thank goodness they rescued me from my mistake.

And one night at Barnwell told me I'd gotten off lucky.  That campsite just didn't even pretend to be comfortable, and the tiny campground left us no place to walk, so we were all relieved to get back on the road.

today's route

The town of Barnwell was only 7 miles down the road from last night's state park, and I wanted to go there to see an unusual and very old sundial.  

When I got to Barnwell, "Home of the Warhorses" (presumably the local school mascot), and parked at the town square, I saw signs telling me that 3 days earlier had been the annual Sundial Festival.  And a good time was had by all, I'm sure.

The town square was attractive, with lots of trees and memorials.  Dext and I walked around it and located the local Masonic Lodge.

Then we crossed the street to the county courthouse and the sundial.

See closer views of each of these elements below.

This sundial (below) is more than 150 years old, but I suppose it still works fine - not that there're any moving parts to go out of whack.  Nonetheless, I couldn't figure out what time it was showing.

I don't know exactly what time I took this photo, but I know we drove away from the town square at 9:45 AM, meaning on this sunny day we should be able to see the time as between 9:00 and 10:00.  I'm sorry that I don't see it at all.

A little explanation - and sadly, a misspelling/typo.

If you look carefully at the photo of the courthouse etc. above, you can see a long dark plaque just below the sundial.  I've enlarged it in 2 sections here, explaining that the sundial survived the Civil War and a courthouse fire and still only needed a new coat of paint.

And this next is my favorite part.  The little girl is looking quietly at the sundial while the little boy is bored and playing on the flowerbed.

Barnwell County Courthouse

side 1 of marker

side 2 of marker

I found this on one side of the courthouse.
See enlargement below.

A memorial to the soldiers of the
Revolutionary War.

Driving out of town, I found myself on a narrow road passing some guys standing around talking near the road.  I was so busy watching them to be sure they didn't suddenly step out in front of me that it wasn't until I was past them that I realized they were standing at a long produce stand with a sign saying, "Old Time Field Peas."  There really wasn't any room for me to stop, even if I'd seen it in time, but I was sorry to have to pass it up.

And if you're a little shaky, as I was, on just what field peas are, here's what Southern Living says about them.   https://www.southernliving.com/field-peas

Farther along the drive, I passed a peach stand but, once again, I didn't see it until I was too far past to be able to stop.  And these roads I was driving were too narrow to do anything on besides keep driving ahead.

I came to Kline, "Little Town Doing Big Things."  Kline's population in the last census was 178, so they got the "little" part right, though I don't know about the rest of it.

At one point I found enough room beside the road to pull over and let the line of vehicles behind me go by, only to discover that one of them was a truck transporting what was either a very large storage shed or a small barn.  I was barely able to pull a little farther off the road to keep from getting sideswiped by a barn.  Weird.

Another time I found myself in a procession: a filled logging truck, another barn, an escort vehicle, a Lexus LX470 hatchback, and me.  Nothing boring about the makeup of the traffic around here.

Between Allendale and Fairfax, which are only 5 miles apart, we passed a building labeled "akpa" with a sign saying "organic pesticides."  The "akpa" apparently stands for Association of Korean Physicists in America and online I found a company called AKPA Chemicals Inc., which is what I suppose this facility is.

I passed the town of Gifford, where they were advertising their annual "June Festival."  They say online that it's a celebration of the day "residents first learned of the Emancipation Proclamation," and they call it June Festival, not Juneteenth, and they celebrate it as early as late May, but not June 19th.  But of course enslaved people in South Carolina heard about it long before those in Texas, who had to wait for a ship to come around after the Civil War was ended, since their owners didn't want to tell them they'd been declared free.

Near the town of Estill, where I came across my 2nd lumberyard for the day, I got behind a guy who was obviously on his phone: he was going 48-55 mph in a 55 mph zone.  And driving me crazy because even I drive 55 on these roads.  After a while (too long for my patience), he obviously hung up because he speeded up to 55-60 mph.  People really need to stay off their phones when they're driving.

I passed a home with a name: "Aching Acres."

Many places along the drive I passed bodies of water with waterlilies blooming like crazy.  Very pretty.

And we came to the town of Hardeeville (really) where we made a beeline for their dog park.  It wasn't at all where Google said it would be and was hidden behind some other park facilities.  But we did find it, and it turned out to be a very nice new dog park with 3 areas: for large, small and senior dogs.  I was sorry that nobody else showed up, though we were there at lunchtime which I've found is a good time to see people's dogs.  Actually, one other person with her dog did come, and though the dog was about Dext's size, the woman took the dog into a different section.  When I told her Dext was friendly, she said her dog had emotional problems and didn't do well with other dogs.  A shame.

South Carolina has a town called Sun City.

I crossed several very large, full rivers.  The Chechessee River, for instance, looked like it was big enough to be headed to sea - and when I looked at a map, I saw that the bridge was probably less than a mile from the Atlantic.

By the time we got to Beaufort (pronounced BEW fert), I was picking up Georgia Public Radio, which I prefer to South Carolina's programming.  Beaufort has huge magnolia trees and looks very Southern with heavy Spanish moss and very old large houses facing the water.  It's where The Big Chill was filmed.  I saw a sign saying: "Discovered 1514, Founded 1711, Enjoy It Today."

I was aiming for Waterfront Park, and I found it - and also found the parking lot (where they wanted me to pay for parking) packed with loads of tourists and their tour buses.  Not any place that I wanted to stick around in, regardless of how nice the park was purported to be.  And I consoled myself with thinking it hadn't been all that long since Dext had the dog park to walk in. 

I came to the turn for Parris Island and the Marine Corps Air Station.  

All day I saw lots of blooming mimosas - and it's taken me 3 hours to remember their name.  That's what I get for spending so much time up north, I guess.

Outside the town of Lobeco I passed a road named "Polite Family Drive."

And after a full day of driving, we finally came to the Yemassee KOA.  I was really tired because I'd expected a rest stop in Beaufort - actually, I'd expected that today would be a rest day in Barnwell State Park, so the whole day has thrown me off.

This KOA used gravel that's rough, not rounded, and Dext found it hard on his feet.  He got tired of the dog park after a few minutes (not a very big one) and hated to walk around the campground because of the rocks, but we really had no alternative.

This campground offered to deliver pizza to the campsites, and I was so tired that I took them up on it.  Our campsite wasn't particularly level, and I'm really getting tired of dealing with sloping campsites over and over.  Remember, that last site I was moved to in Newberry was so sloped the staff propped the RV up on stacks of blocks.  Then there was Barnwell State Park with no level sites, and now this place.

Suddenly after supper a fly showed up in the cabin, so of course the kittens chased it around.  They dislodged Lily, who was sitting in the front window, and I think they got it.  Two 3/4-grown cats staring at a trapped, likely injured fly must have been terrifying for the fly.  I actually felt sorry for it.

Speaking of 3/4-grown kittens:

I took this to show how big the kittens are getting.
That's Jimmy lying on the stool - but see below.

This is Jimmy, on that same stool, right after I got him.

Back then, Jimmy weighed .8 pound; now, 7 months later, he weighs about 7 times that.  But, you know - kids grow like weeds.