South Carolina - Day 12 - in Poinsett

Poinsett State Park, Wedgefield

Monday, 22 May 2023

A pretty rural, though not uncomfortable, campground.  Pretty small so not many places for Dext and me to walk, but we did the best we could.

At one point I left for 40 minutes to take a shower, and when I got back all the cushions were off the bench seats and on Dext's bed, my book and fancy bookmark had been messed with, and the facet was off the window.

Blurred photo of that last:

That shiny stuff is me taping the brown facet
back onto the ruined frame.

To be fair, Lily's the one who destroyed that fabric frame.  But it was undoubtedly the kittens that did the other damage.  The name Marauders scarcely begins to describe their true nature.

You can sort of see out the window that spring hasn't fully arrived here in interior South Carolina.  But with so many evergreens, it wasn't exactly a bleak landscape either.

The state park said wifi was available, but I think that must have meant I could pick it up if I sat at the ranger station, because I couldn't even get a signal on my hotspot, let alone one for the state park. 

But it was a peaceful rest day, which I think we all needed.  Well, maybe the Marauders didn't, but us senior citizens did.

South Carolina - Day 11 - Ft. Moultrie, to Poinsett St. Park

Poinsett State Park, Wedgefield

Sunday, 21 May 2023

On our 2nd walk this morning at the Charleston KOA, rain started and continued.  Since I had some sightseeing and a lot of driving planned for the day, I hoped it wouldn't last.

This KOA has a lot of hydrangeas in bloom, and it's a measure of how disorganized my mind is that it took me 3 days to remember their name.  And I don't know how much longer it would have taken me if I hadn't heard someone talk about them on the radio this morning.

today's route

We started from north of Charleston, drove southeast to the coast at Sullivan's Island where Fort Moultrie is, then retraced our route north, splitting off due north after we'd left town.

We passed a school with this sign: "What do you call fake potatoes?  Imitater."  

We got stopped at a drawbridge - the Ben Sawyer Memorial Bridge over the Louis Stitler Memorial Causeway (I had plenty of time to read the signs) - and this one was the kind of drawbridge where the deck rotates, rather than lifts into the air.  Interesting to watch.

The rain stopped while we waited, which was nice.

On Sullivan's Island, the lantana were blooming - and I remembered that name right away.

I was surprised at the number of cars parked at the Fort Moultrie visitor center, especially when I watched most of the folks walk past the building and around the corner.  I thought maybe there was some attraction I didn't know about.  But I later realized there was a Catholic church divided from the visitor center by some thick trees, and these folks were going to church on a Sunday morning.

I'm glad I saw exhibits about Fort Moultrie at the state museum, because the ones here were, in my opinion, skimpy, poorly arranged, and very hard to see if you're shorter than about 6' tall (as I am).  The visitor center was so dim, most of my photos came out very blurred, because I couldn't hold the camera still enough for long enough to get the exposure.  And I couldn't even read quite a few of the informational panels because of them being so high up.  But here're the basics:

Charleston Harbor - Charleston's peninsula is the one coming in from the top left.
Fort Moultrie is marked with a red square in the upper right. 
Fort Sumter isn't even shown but would be almost a dot in the water
southeast of Ft. Moultrie and smack in the middle of the lane of boat travel.

Like I said - blurred.  The main point is
the description of the construction technique of the palmetto fort.

A model of the palmetto construction.

If you gave up on the blurriness, here's what the National Park Service says:

The first fort on Sullivan's Island was built in 1776 to prevent British naval incursions into Charleston Harbor.  The palmetto log walls readily absorbed shot and shell when nine Royal Navy warships attacked on June 28, 1776.  Colonel William Moultrie and his 400 men fought a day-long battle that ended with the heavily damaged British ships being driven from the area.  This decisive American victory galvanized the patriots' cause for independence.

 Things were different at the start of the Civil War.

And the NPS's version says:

On December 26, 1860, six days after South Carolina left the Union, Fort Moultrie's small Federal garrison abandoned the fort, moving to the unfinished but more defendable Fort Sumter.  State militia troops occupied Fort Moultrie the next day.  Confederate Fort Moultrie participated in the April 12, 1861 firing on Fort Sumter that began the American Civil War.  Heavily damaged by Federal bombardments that commenced in 1863, Fort Moultrie remained in Confederate hands until February 1865.

So South Carolina fired on Ft. Sumter because Union troops were there and looked vulnerable, I guess.

And here's a little information about WWI:

I've never seen this WWI photo before - a soldier
comforting a weeping woman. 
This scene has been repeated worldwide since
the beginning of mankind.

The NPS says during this period, new technology along with threats of submarine and aerial attacks made Ft. Moultrie's defense capability obsolete.  In 1947, the fort was decommissioned.

The visitor center also had a room and other exhibits that explained and honored the situation of Black people brought here to Charleston.

Dext and I walked out to the grave of Col. Moultrie near the water.

This sign honors Col. Moultrie.

A view of the sogginess of the land around here.

Looking the other direction, you can see all the private piers.

I'd managed to find a recycling dropoff center on Sullivan's Island, so we headed there from Ft. Moultrie.  It turned out to be several unlabeled dumpsters behind the fire station, but a parking cop came along and told me this was the right place.

A local trash facility called Trash Gurl had a sign on their truck: "Wrinkles Mean You Laughed."

Quite a few front yards had signs: "STOP: Time Shares on Sullivan."  Likely a losing battle but good luck to them.

I saw many Martin houses suspended above the marshy areas, of which there are many on this island.

Skirting Charleston, I was following - or trying to follow - Google's instructions, but both Google and South Carolina failed to identify the names of the streets I should turn on.  Well, Google didn't give me useful names and SC didn't bother posting signs in the first place.  So I ended a few miles down the wrong road, turned and tried to go back to where I thought I was supposed to be, got that wrong and wandered around for a bit and finally, in desperation, I stopped in the large parking lot at a fire station to connect to the internet and discovered that by sheer luck I'd ended on the right road.  That one didn't have the sign Google said it would have either, but it was still the right road.

A sign down the road told me to turn left for "Summary Court."  I wondered if they'd misspelled it and intended Summery Court - you know, something bright and positive.  But an internet search told me that in South Carolina a Summary Court is the equivalent of a Magistrate court that hears traffic offenses and preliminary hearings for more serious cases.

Once I got past the city suburbs, we passed very thick, very extensive woodlands.

We came to the town of Bonneau, "Where the Living is Easy."  And then there was Paxville, "A Peaceful Village," founded 1889.

And all along the way were woodlands and small towns and intermittent potholes and rough roads.

Near Manning we came to the plant for Bicycle Corporation of America.  They say they're bringing bicycle manufacturing back to the US.

There were churches in every town we passed - even the very small ones that looked like there weren't enough people to support a church.

We saw corn growing in many fields - very tall corn in some places.  And we passed strawberry farms.

At one point I slammed on my brakes to keep from hitting a wild turkey.

A sign urged "Stop Corruption in Sumter County."  I couldn't find what that was about.  In 2018 a grand jury indicted a Sumter County official for embezzlement and related crimes, though I didn't see how that came out.  In another case, the state DA declined to prosecute a Sumter county sheriff who was accused of rape because, "there is insufficient evidence to merit criminal prosecution."  In other words, he-said-she-said.  That DA might think about putting that kind of case before a jury anyway because, in these Me-Too days, juries sometimes think her word is enough, depending on what she says.  But that's not the way the system usually works, I'm sorry to say.

After I'd checked in at the office at Poinsett State Park, Dext and I walked around the lakeside area a bit.  A woman asked if I'd seen the Black Rat Snakes in a nearby boathouse, and she showed them to me.  Two of them were perched on rafters a couple of feet over my head.  She said she's originally from rural Kentucky (and her accent agreed) and learned about these snakes when she was young.  They typically wait in areas like those rafters, she said.  Online I learned that they're really beneficial critters because they eat rats (hence the name I guess) and mice and similar unwanted animals.  This trip has certainly been a learning experience for me.

South Carolina - Day 10 - in Charleston campground

Charleston KOA, Ladson

Thursday, 18 through Saturday, 20 May 2023

Over Wednesday night and into Thursday we had a lot of thunder and rain, with rain continuing intermittently all day.

Both Thursday and Friday the kittens knocked over the box of kitty litter and did their best to make a mess on the floor.  I can't figure out any way to stop them, kitty litter isn't cheap and it's not an optional item - we have to have it in this 3-cat household.  Grrr.

I spent all Thursday and into Friday working on the post for Chickamauga in Georgia (that's how far behind I am).

I heard that Jimmy Buffett, speaking of some medical problems he has, quoted Mark Twain when he said, "Challenges make life interesting, however overcoming them is what makes life meaningful."  I didn't know that Jimmy is only 76 - close to my age.

I was surprised to hear that Texas ranks #28 for most gun fatalities/person.  It ranks behind a lot of states I would have thought would know better, like Michigan, Kansas, Indiana.  New Mexico ranks #8.  Louisiana ranks #3, though Louisiana isn't one of the states where I thought they'd know better.

Speaking of Texas, my senator Ted Cruz wants to have an official investigation into Bud Light's advertising program, because Dylan Mulvaney calls herself a "girl," and that means Bud Light is marketing to minors.  I wrote him (I love that website that makes it easy for us to write to our representatives in Washington) and pointed out that Texas was packed with retirees who referred to themselves as "girls" and that I thought he should be doing the job he was elected to do.  Usually when I write I don't ask for a response - and I always get one anyway - but this time I said I do want a response (and I'm still waiting for one).

This KOA isn't as big as I expected it to be, being so close to a tourist attraction like Charleston.  It's only got about 80 campsites, which is plenty big enough, of course, but I've stayed in some with several hundred sites.  However, they charge way too much for their laundry machines and I decided to drive into the nearest small town with a laundromat.  Much easier because I could park near the door (instead of hauling my dirty laundry from my campsite down to the camp office) and I could find an available machine easily.

While we were out I stopped at a Piggly Wiggly and then came back to get directions for our next few days on the road and to work on the post for Rome.

South Carolina - Day 9 - Charleston

Charleston KOA, Ladson

Wednesday, 17 May 2023

today's route

closer view of Charleston area - note that Charleston is
actually on a narrow peninsula - see map below right

Charleston Old & Historic District

Although Google told me the various drives today would be fairly short, I guessed (correctly) that it would actually take hours, so we left Yemassee KOA by 8:30.

I passed a sign saying, "The ACE Basin - one of the Last "Great Places."  Which, of course, meant nothing to me but I wondered what great place I was missing.  The ACE Basin (Ashepoo, Combahee, Edisto Rivers) is one of the largest undeveloped estuaries on the US Atlantic coast.  A large section of it has been declared a National Wildlife Refuge.

Speaking of the Combahee River, I crossed it on the Harriet Tubman Bridge, which I thought was an odd choice of name, because I connect her with her successful work in the general Maryland area in freeing slaves.  But the bridge is aptly named because it was here that she worked with a US Army regiment of mostly freed slaves from SC plus 3 steamships to successfully liberate more than 750 enslaved people, including children.

I crossed several good-sized rivers and noticed that this area was obviously "the low country" - flat with lots of water everywhere.

Along the road I passed a sign that said: "God Recycles - He Made You From Dust."

I heard on the radio about a woman whose family had a time where naloxone was needed, and she ended up taking a class on how to use it properly.  She said with the class she was given some free doses.  She said not enough people know about this training and should check into it.  So I did look it up, using Texas as a sample area, and found it wasn't as straightforward as that sounds.  

There seem to be training modules available for organizations to use, but I couldn't see an easy list of who was using such a module.  It looked like the Red Cross might be a source, and the state has established a Texas Opioid Training Initiative, which might also be a source.  I wasn't planning to sign up or anything but do think, if I'm going to be doing community assistance of some kind, that the training might be useful.  Something to keep in mind.  Presumably all 50 states have something like this, since everybody keeps saying opioid use is rampant throughout the country.

I came to Charleston both to see what the city looks like and to run a few errands.  My first sight was a pair of drawbridges over the Ashley River.  One was built in 1926 and, when the traffic level got too high for the bridge to handle it all, a second was built alongside in 1961, using the same style, which  I appreciated.  Both bridges are now one-way.  So often when cities build companion bridges to handle increased traffic levels, the new one looks super-modern while the original one looks like an anachronism - which I've been ascribing to ego on the part of the 2nd architect.  I couldn't get a photo while I was driving and am sorry that I couldn't find any available online.  If you go, the bridges were on US-17, on the west side of Charleston.

I stopped at the bank and at a grocery store, but I was eager to see the city.

I had a list of buildings I hoped to see, and Google gave me detailed directions to each of them - and those directions became largely useless almost at once.  It turned out that Charleston is a little lax about street name signs, so I made the correct first turn off the highway and then promptly missed the 2nd turn, and then got completely lost on streets that I last saw in Philadelphia.  You know, very narrow, residential, clearly built to handle horse-and-buggy traffic and (because of the houses) never widened.  Not so much of a problem for a passenger car but I kept worrying my RV would scrape something.

And they wind around on each other, so every time I'd turn onto a different street thinking I could get back to a street on my directions, I ended up winding around in a different direction and finding yet more streets I'd never heard of.  Finally, I found a street where I could see parking was allowed and where there was room enough for my RV to pull over, and I fired up my hotspot and my computer and tried to find on Google's map of Charleston where the particular street I was on (King St. at that time) was located and how I could get anywhere else.  And that worked.  I managed to find myself, and then route myself from there back to some of the places I wanted to see, which would get me back on Google's directions, so off we went.

King Street came out at the water right by White Point Garden, shown in the photos below.  (All photos are from the internet - I was too busy concentrating on driving to be able to take pictures, but these show what I saw.)

White Point Garden is known for palmettos . . .

. . . and live oaks and weddings (clearly a perfect spot).

The garden ended by going around a corner by The Battery, which is both a specific location where an artillery battery was located for coastal defense during the Civil War, and also what's now a railed walkway along the ocean, alongside some pretty amazing houses.

A view of Battery Street.

I'd originally hoped to be able to stop at a park and nearby dog park along Battery St. but didn't even bother to try, given the driving problems I'd been having.  I'd found another dog park farther north that looked more accessible, so I continued with my driving tour.  

Speaking of tours, I saw lots of horse-drawn tours that, given the kinds of streets in Charleston, looked like a good idea.  Especially since I also saw hordes of tourists everywhere.  Charleston is a lovely city with many layers of history, and tours at the pace of a walking horse seemed about the right level for picking up information about this place.

I passed what's now called the Old Exchange and Provost Dungeon, built in 1771.  

Old Exchange Building

The city of Charleston says as a historic building, the Old Exchange Building ranks with Faneuil Hall in Boston and Independence Hall in Philadelphia, presumably because of the amount of US history that it's seen.  For instance, the British used it to house POWs during the Revolutionary War; it was a post office in the 1800s, and the postmaster had to defend a shipment of pamphlets advocating abolition from destruction by angry Charlestonians; it served as an army HQ during WWI and a USO canteen during WWII.  The Daughters of the American Revolution now operate a museum there.

Along the north side of the Exchange Building, people held public slave auctions for the first half of the 1800s.  Then the city passed an ordinance banning public auctions, so enterprising human traffickers created an area for private auctions.  One of the largest was called Ryan's Mart and included several buildings.  One of those is shown below.

Old Slave Mart Museum

This building was opened as a private auction site in 1856; the date of its closure seems unclear: some websites said it closed in 1863 when Union bombardments started, but the museum itself says there were still people being held for slavery here when Union soldiers liberated them in 1865.  The site has pens for holding both people and cattle, both to be auctioned off.  If such auctions continued for more than 50 years here in Charleston, there must have been hundreds of thousands of people passing through here to be enslaved.  And that's just in this one city.  

Time out for a rant: We weren't taught this in school when I was growing up, and with all the bizarre complaints these days about how schools shouldn't be teaching things that would make students uncomfortable, apparently today's kids won't be learning it either.  (Although these uneducated kids have learned to taunt and discriminate against their classmates who aren't like them.  But the complainers don't seem to worry about those kids being uncomfortable.)

Okay, back to our regularly scheduled programming.

Take note, by the way, of the street in that photo of the slave mart.  Those are cobblestones and there are several streets in this area paved with them.  Nobody needs speed bumps with this kind of pavement - especially for my RV which carries all my household goods and all my critters (and me).  It was a bouncy ride.

Around the corner and a block or two away I came to the French Huguenot Church.

French Huguenot Church

This church was built in 1845 in the Gothic Revival style, after 2 previous versions had been destroyed.  The French Huguenots were Calvinists, a Protestant sect that has come in and out of favor over the centuries.  King Charles II originally encouraged them to leave France for Charleston in 1680, and they were followed by many others.  This church fell into disuse in the 20th century but has been revived and now holds regular weekly services - the only French Huguenot church in the US still in regular use.

As I continued down aptly named Church St., it looked like the street dead-ended at a large church.

St. Philip's Episcopal Church

Actually, Church Street bent to the left around St. Philip's, but for a short time I wondered if Google had misled me once again.  St. Philip's was built in 1836, and the spire was completed in 1850.  Buildings around here seem to last a long time, despite 45 hurricanes making direct hits to the SC coast just since 1851 (I think that's when they started keeping records).

In this southern peninsula historic district I saw many examples of what's called the Charleston Single House.  They look like these:

What you're looking at are houses that are one room wide (hence: "Single House") and usually 3 rooms deep.  What looks like a front door in these photos is actually a door to that porch that runs along the side of the house.  The actual front door is halfway along the porch.  It typically leads to a foyer and staircase; to one side of the entry is typically the living room separated from the kitchen by an open archway; to the other side is a bedroom; the floor plan of the (typically 2) upper floors is usually similar.  This style was developed to accommodate the narrow lots that Charleston was originally platted for - and the porch (or veranda or piazza) was needed for the hot sticky weather Charlestonians enjoy.  There were whole streets of these houses which, as you can see, are very attractive.

I saw lots of blooming oleander everywhere.  I saw lots of very old areas and very rich areas and very old rich areas.  I don't even want to think about what one of those single houses costs these days.

I felt somewhat triumphant when I managed to get us through the maze of streets and out a mile or so to the Hampton Park dog park.  This was a very large dog park in a residential neighborhood, and Dext found lots of very active big dogs.  I was surprised to see him being more active this time than I've seen him in ages and hope it means he's getting back to his old self, though it was likely he just found someone he liked to play with.

While I waited, I talked to an interesting young woman who had moved here with her boyfriend from Tampa, along with her very active boxer mix.  She told me that during her junior year of college she did a year's internship in Mongolia, specifically in Ulan Bator.  I've never actually heard that name pronounced and at first didn't understand what she was saying.  I wished she could stay longer so I could find out more.

And I talked with a second young woman who was about the polar opposite.  This woman was a science major and said she'd aimed to go into occupational therapy but didn't want to do the extra degree work.  She said now she just wanted to marry a rich guy and not have to worry about that forever.  She really said that.  I couldn't help myself: I said, "It doesn't work that way.  When you're 45 he'll find some cute 25-year-old and divorce you and you'll get screwed in the divorce settlement."  She left soon after that dose of reality.  Maybe I shouldn't have said it, but I think it was likely good for her because she was looking like she seriously thought she'd hit on a solution for her life, and I'll bet she never forgets what I said.

This situation is one of the odd side effects of the women's movement of the 1970s: we now have an entire generation of women who have grown up believing they have choices in life, unlike my generation of women who thought we were all meant to get married and have babies and live happily ever after.  In fact, you may have a marriage that lasts happily forever - there are many of them - but you just can't plan your life around it.

From the dog park I found gasoline for $2.95/gallon - I like these cheap gas prices in South Carolina - and then drove 10 miles north to the KOA, where we'll stay for 3 nights.  

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.

South Carolina - Day 7 - Orangeburg, Barnwell

Barnwell State Park, Blackwell

Monday, 15 May 2023

I forgot to mention earlier that when I first called for a reservation at the Newberry KOA and said there'd be 2 adults and a dog, they asked for the names of both the 2nd adult and the dog.  Of course, there isn't a 2nd adult but I always say there is as a safety measure (since the good advice I got at the Las Vegas KOA).  But I didn't want to say that, so I told them the 2nd adult was named David (first man's name I thought of), and of course gave Dexter's name.

What a surprise when I got there and found on my handout from the office a message: "Welcome Kate, David & Dexter!"  That was along with the bubble machine and the gnomes.  An unusual place.

This morning I woke up at 1:30 when Dext set off the carbon monoxide alarm and couldn't get back to sleep.  Not the first night recently that this has happened and, over the last 4 nights, I've averaged 4 hours of sleep/night.  Not the greatest for doing a driving trip.

today's route

I took a route from the Newberry campground to Orangeburg that was as direct as a non-interstate route would allow.  Still, Google claimed that all that driving would only take me 3 hours  but I didn't believe them and left the campground before 8:30 (and wasn't surprised when the drive was actually closer to 6 hours).

At Joanna I noticed some crops starting to grow - 1' to 2' tall.

A string of industries was spread all along the road from Newberry (not marked by a highway sign) to Prosperity, where I missed a directional sign and made a 3-mile round trip in the wrong direction.

I noticed that both the Saluda River and the Little Saluda River were very full.  So were the plentiful blooming magnolias.

We passed cows and calves, horses, goats, donkeys.  South Carolina has a range of farm animals.

I saw a license plate that said "NGNEER."

I saw a sign for a product to "Kill Barn Flies."  City girl that I am, I hadn't heard of a critter called a barn fly, and the internet tells me I'm lucky.  They look like small house flies but bite and suck blood - typically from the animals that spend time in barns/stables.  They sound truly yucky and I can see why farmers wouldn't want them around.

In this area corn was 2' to 3' tall.  Farther along I passed a pecan orchard.

At the town of North, we stopped for a break in a city parking lot, with a playground at one end and a mobile clinic in the middle.  This clinic was in a fancy RV and their signs said they were in town daily to provide basic medical care.  Nobody was patronizing them while we were there, so of course I was tempted to go be a customer so they wouldn't feel unused.  But my list of ailments goes on too long for a mobile clinic, so I spared them the trouble.  

North looked like a nice old town centered around the railroad tracks.  Now most of the storefronts were empty, so the clinic may be needed because the town might no longer have a doctor.

Lots of corn growing in this region.

I saw a sign for Cimarron Outdoors For the Mobility Impaired.  They seem to be based in Lexington, SC, which is just outside Columbia, some way to the north of where we were, but maybe this area is where they come for their activities.  Which apparently consist of helping people with various types of mobility impairment go out and, with Christian fellowship, kill deer.  At least, that's what I gleaned from their website.  But most of their presence is on Facebook, which I can't access, so I may not have gotten it straight.  

At Woodland, I passed a Baptist church with a sign saying their worship service is held at 10:00 AM and a mask is required.  I was really surprised, because for 2 years the news has been full of churches proudly defying government orders to use masks in crowded places.  And South Carolina ranks as a pretty Republican state, the party of no-mask-mandates.

Orangeburg has a population of 87,000 and is called The Garden City.  I learned it also has 2 historically Black schools: Claflin University, a private school founded 1869, and South Carolina Southern University, a public land-grant school founded 1890.

I don't know if that makes it more surprising or less that this was the site of a massacre by state police during the 1960s.  I'd heard about it by accident and went looking for the historical marker I'd seen online.

Google said it stood on the road by South Carolina State University, but in fact I found it inside the college's metal fence that made it hard for me to read and impossible for me to get a photo of.  So I begged the guard at the entrance to the school if there was anywhere I could park for a short time so I could visit that monument, and she directed me to a small crowded lot where I did find a spot big enough for the RV.  Here's the historical marker.

The startling brevity - and somewhat coldblooded wording - of this sign make it clear there's a lot to this story that isn't mentioned.  After all, why would police - even in the Jim Crow South - kill and wound so many because of "tension" at the bowling alley?  The rest of the story (as Paul Harvey used to say) is found at this Wikipedia page.   https://en.wikipedia.org/Orangeburg-massacre

As I was driving away from the campus, I noticed a historical marker about the school that I'd missed earlier.  The sign and its text are found here:   https://www.hmdb.org/SCSU  That entry references another historical marker "700' away" for Claflin, so I looked that up and learned the marker for SCSU was lacking a lot of important information about the school's beginnings.   https://www.hmdb.org/Claflin-College

On the way out of town I passed a Methodist church with a sign: "Welcome Back - Preaching Only."  Do you suppose that means they won't be having any singing, for instance, which is an activity known to spread the Covid virus?  

And the real question for me was, why were 2 churches in one town acting as if Covid were still in its flood stage?  I mean, this is mid-2023 and most people decided Covid was behind us a year ago.  The current data in the US shows the weekly totals as more than 12,000 being hospitalized with Covid and more than 700 people dying.  Nothing like it used to be but, of course, still tragic for those being afflicted.  Anyway, I'm just reporting what I saw.

South Carolina has neighboring towns named Sweden, Norway and Denmark.  Denmark is the "City of Pride," they say, and the home of the annual Dogwood Fest.  Online I learned that this April was their 41st year.  They also say one of the annual activities is the "painting of the dogwoods," which sounded pretty weird to me as I thought trees don't react well to paint on their trunks.  But it turned out the city has pictures of dogwoods painted on the streets, and each year volunteers freshen them up.  Denmark is also home to Vorhees University, established in 1896.

A highway sign told me I was in the "Heritage Corridor."  Which meant nothing to me, but I learned online it's an official designation and promoted by the National Park Service.  It's a corridor that runs from the Appalachians down through Charleston to the Atlantic and contains sites important in the Revolutionary War.

Just down the road from Denmark was Blackville, and a T intersection that Google hadn't mentioned.  Luckily I guessed right, that I should turn left, but that wasn't the end of it.  Google's mileage was way off and the state park's sign was almost useless: it was a small sign that couldn't be read from the road, posted on a short concrete pillar near the entrance to the park, where the road sign read, in small letters, "State Park."  It was just lucky that I noticed that road sign, since Google had told me it was much farther down the road.

Once in the campground, I found the campsite I'd chosen online was sloped and I couldn't find a position where we could be anything more than not-too-uncomfortable.  As I saw when I went around the area, my site wasn't any worse and was actually much better than the other campsites.

The campground was tiny - I think there were only 25 campsites and there were only 7 groups of campers that night, though as it was a Monday it wasn't too surprising.  That 7, by the way, included the camp host who apparently only came on weekends, because no one ever showed up to his RV while we were there.

All that added up to almost no place for Dext and me to walk, which was a shame because we both needed it after staying in one campground for a week and then driving all day.  We just weren't used to it.  This was my first night in a South Carolina state campground, and I hoped my reservations at other parks next week would prove more comfortable.

South Carolina - Day 6 - to Columbia

Newberry/I-26/Sumter NF KOA, Kinards

Thursday, 11 May 2023

For the second night in a row, I woke up at 1:50 AM and never was able to get back to sleep.  I knew this might make highway driving today a little tricky, but without knowing what night I would be able to sleep there was no point in delaying the drive.

today's highway route

today's route through Columbia

Google said the drive into town would take just under an hour, which meant I'd have a 2-hour+ round trip on the highway.  Add to that the number of errands I wanted to run and the sights I wanted to see - well, I left the campground before 7:30.

A reporter on NPR was describing a trek he'd taken with a guide through snow in the Rockies, and said it "looks like the rebel base on the planet Hoth."  What I found interesting was that he never explained where the reference came from, just assuming anyone listening would be familiar with Star Wars.

The drive was a little boring but quite pretty, with thick extensive mixed woods on both sides of the highway.

Columbia is lucky to have some interesting murals.  One of the best known is the Tunnel Mural, and I was there early enough in the day to find a parking place on the street nearby.  This was my first sight of it.

It was incredibly realistic, and I'm not sure how to convey how disorienting it was to see it.

A closer view.

I wondered whether anyone had actually driven into it - you know, at night, if they'd been drinking.

There were several others within walking distance, so Dext and I went looking for them.  We only found one, called Main Street Mural.

But while we were walking around, I found a few other things of interest.

I couldn't for the life of me figure out what these things were.
My best guess was that this was a smoking section and
those silver things were for depositing cigarettes.
Then I saw the plaque (below).

They're sort of bongo drums, for passers-by to play.

I couldn't figure out which building the first side of the sign (left) referred to, not knowing what a barrel roof looks like.

The second side of the sign (right) is further explained in the sign below.

text enlarged below

In the larger sign, the protester's sign mentions "the blood of Lennie Glover."  He was a theology student at nearby Benedict College, a Black school, and was one of those who sat at the Woolworth's lunch counter in Greensboro.  While he sat there, a white person stabbed him.  Fortunately, he survived, though apparently the stabber wasn't caught.  The sit-ins at Columbia drug store lunch counters followed those in Greensboro.

Simon Bouie (mentioned in the sign) was one of those arrested and convicted during the sit-ins.  His case, Bouie v. City of Columbia (mentioned on the historical marker), was one of several Civil Rights protests that arrived before the US Supreme Court.  In each case, the Court overturned the convictions, citing the First and Fourteenth Amendments.

Though the students were disappointed that none of these protests resulted in the desegregation of Columbia, they still made a difference: not long after the Supreme Court rulings, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. 

Not far from these sights was the First Baptist Church, designated a historical building for more reasons than its age.

First Baptist Church
I couldn't fit any more of the church's front into the frame than this. 
You can see the plaque (above) next to the front door.

I hadn't been able to find either the Soda City Market or the accompanying mural, which Google said I'd walked right by, but I guess I didn't know what to look for.  So I went back to the RV and walked around the block to find the World's Largest First Hydrant.  And it just wasn't there.  This is what I was looking for.

But all I could find was some roughed-up pavement in the spot I thought it should be.  Later I finally found online that the fire hydrant had been removed, though I never figured out why.  You can see the size based on the building behind it.  Too bad.

The South Carolina State House was only a few blocks farther on, but I was tired of walking and drove us over there.  Sadly, I wasn't able to get my own photo of it because of all the greenery around it, which you can see in this photo I found online.

South Carolina State House
built 1875

As I headed out of downtown to run some errands, I came upon a large, attractive building labeled "Strom Thurmond Wellness and Fitness Center."

fitness center

I still can't understand that name.  Strom Thurmond was a governor of South Carolina and then elected to the US Senate, where he spent the best part of 50 years.  He was still in office for his 100th birthday, though there were questions about his mental capacity by then and he didn't live much longer.  But he was known nationally as a staunch segregationist, which he characterized as supporting states' rights.  Because he served so long, he was quite powerful, and civil rights legislation was passed in the teeth of his opposition.  So okay, he was a very long-time public servant for the white portion of South Carolina, but to me that just isn't enough to justify naming such a prominent building in the state's capital for him.  But South Carolina apparently thinks it is.

I passed the campus of the University of South Carolina - attractive campus.

Somehow my personal information got onto a list saying I was a diabetic, and now I'm getting constant phone calls from people wanting to help me out with my diabetes, and my internet displays include several ads with really ugly photos that I'm not able to get rid of, also about dealing with diabetes.  I know there are a lot of people with my name, but I'm ready to strangle the person who decided that I - me - this particular person - should be targeted with information I wouldn't want even if I were diabetic.  Grrr.

I managed to find a PetSmart, very near a liquor store where I not only found a bottle of wine but also got a lesson in South Carolina's liquor laws.  The store consisted of 2 separate stores, separated by a wall-to-wall window but no communicating door.  One side was for beer and wine, the other for beverages of a higher alcohol content.  The clerk, when I asked, said this arrangement is required by law.  If you want both kinds of alcohol, you have to exit one store and enter the other - though they don't make you pay for the items separately, which seemed odd.

From there I got lost a couple of times but finally found an off-leash dog park in a pretty residential neighborhood.  The park was down in a deep bowl, and we had to park on a fairly steep hill alongside.  The walk to get there required some serious uphill leg-stretching, which Dext dislikes even more than I do.  But it was a nice park and we met some nice people and dogs.

From there we managed to get to the state museum.  Columbia relies a lot on one-way streets for its traffic management, and that makes navigating the city difficult for a stranger, but as I say we managed.  And I found a parking spot under a tree, so leaving the kids wasn't too worrisome.

South Carolina State Museum
Originally the Columbia Mills building.

This building dates back to 1893 or so and is thought to be the first textile building in the US to be powered with electricity.  The mill operated until 1981, and the state bought the building, which was put on the National Historic Register.  They're still remodeling it for the museum's use, but most of the work seemed completed.

My one complaint was that the entrance, which you can sort of see this side of the school buses, involved several flights of steep stairs.  By the time I'd toiled my way to the top, I was pretty winded and having trouble.  This asthma, coupled with my extra weight, is sometimes making things harder on me than I'd prefer.  In fact, a guard taking a break near the entrance ran ahead of me and punched the automatic door to help me in.  Guess I looked pitiful.  But I managed to make it

This building includes a planetarium and observatory, as well as the usual exhibits on state history, science and art.  This is clearly a place where you could spend at least a day (assuming you have the energy for all 3 floors), but I didn't have that kind of time (or energy).  I decided to stick to state history for this trip, and I was especially interested in their take on slavery and the causes of the Civil War.

Here are a few of the pre-war exhibits.

In SC, "upcountry" means the northwestern
area of mountains, forests and rivers.

And the Revolutionary War began:

Fort Moultrie was built of palmetto logs, those being the most plentiful in the region.  Palmetto is a spongy tree and, unlike something sturdier like oak, it didn't split during the British bombardment.  Instead, the cannon balls tended to bounce off or embed themselves in the logs, and this was credited for the surprising American victory that day.

Two illustrations of the realities of early war:

I had no idea these armies fought at such close range -
see description below.

Gen. Nathaniel Greene's army -
see description of painting below

Americans won the Revolutionary War and South Carolinians created a complex society:

The cotton gin was created in 1793, with Eli Whitney claiming it would obviate the need for slave labor.  Instead:

text enlarged below

text enlarged below

And then there was this peculiar custom among South Carolinian gentry of dueling:

In 1832, South Carolina passed the Act of Nullification, which would allow the state to ignore any law Congress passed that SC deemed unconstitutional or damaging to its interests.  The US president disagreed:

text enlarged below right

Then came the so-called compromises:

The Missouri Compromise

The Compromise of 1850 and the
Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854

Meanwhile, Black people remained the majority population in the Southern states.

more text below

More text below sounds uncannily familiar to today's news.

With tempers flaring and dissention fanning resentment into more fuel, here came the match for the fire:

Results of the presidential election of 1860:

My photo cut off the electoral count, which produced a surprisingly different view from the popular vote:

     Abraham Lincoln        180 (more than half the electoral votes)

     John C. Breckinridge   72 (he carried all Southern states, + MD, DE)

     Stephen A. Douglas    12 (he carried only Missouri)

     John Bell                    39 (he carried only KY, TN, VA and WV)

And then secession came:

see map below

A daring escape:

the ship's pilot, Robert Smalls

The realities of war:

Blacks have always been the natural ally of
poor whites - something MLK tackled with his
Poor People's Campaign - but groups like the
KKK used violence to stop it.

The US reneged on yet another promise to
yet another oppressed group. 

South Carolina had 2 governors at once.

Post-Reconstruction's lack of success led to assuaging bruised egos with the Lost Cause mythology:

Of course the museum has several floors of other items of interest - art and settlers' tools and science (don't forget that observatory) - as I mentioned in the beginning.  But I was pooped, so I left and took Dext for a walk.

On the grounds we came across this display for Doolittle's Raiders.

This surprised me because I'd never heard of a connection between them and South Carolina, but I looked it up and found there is indeed a connection.  Here's an interesting account of that event.   https://www.scpublicradio.org/doolittle-raid-begun-in-sc

South Carolina calls itself The Palmetto State, because of the sponginess of the tree's logs protecting Fort Moultrie from the British way back in 1776.  So I've been curious which of the palms I've seen is the palmetto and figured this was at last my chance to know for sure:

a closer view

The palmetto palm - the bark looks more like
an elephant's hide than tree bark.

We walked around the grounds until we came across the children's museum and this wonderful sculpture in front.

see detail enlarged below

Shows pure joy -
at navigating the world of knowledge.

We stopped at a grocery store and headed out of town.

We passed an old building labeled "Palmetto Compress & Warehouse Co.," and I couldn't help but wonder what a compress was in this context.  Online I learned that this building, now on the historic register, was built in 1917 as a facility for compressing cotton bales.  So simple, once you know.

And I passed a business labeled "Gold Teeth Specialists," which was once again not a business I'd ever heard of.  But this time when I looked it up, all I got was a list of dentists in Columbia who implant gold teeth for clients.  I didn't know there was any reason for it to be a specialty, though apparently somebody thinks so.

A sign at a business said: "What do you get when you plant kisses?  Tulips."

On the way back north, road construction on I-26 blocked off both shoulders, leaving very narrow lanes that I had trouble navigating.  It put semis, which were going faster than the speed limit, close enough to the RV that, along with a rough road surface and strong crosswind, made it scary for me.  I was glad when we finally got past that area.

We passed lots of homesteads/plantations all over both today and everywhere in the state.

I'd decided to stop at Newberry at a BBQ place that was supposed to be good.  Newberry turned out to be a small town that looked almost like it belonged in an updated old western movie, and not many folks were out and about so I had no trouble finding a parking place.

At the BBQ place, I had a discussion with the young women (2 of them) at the front desk about whether their collard greens were good, which one of them assured me they were, so I ordered them, along with baked beans and ribs.  I suppose I should have checked what they brought me but it didn't occur to me - yet here's what I saw when I got back to our campsite:

Yep.  That's cole slaw, not collard greens.  I was really peeved - so peeved that I called the place back and complained, saying I was too far away to want to drive back but I thought they should know they've got one really unhappy customer and to be more careful when people order.

Then it turned out they didn't give me any containers of sauce, which the young women had assured me they would, and then I discovered the ribs were dry - they tasted like they'd been overcooked too many hours earlier.  So much for a chance to sample South Carolina barbecue.  What a waste of money.  And what a shame to end what had been a pleasant day like this.