Another test

This is to determine if anyone is getting the emails for my blog. If you see this, check my last post before this one.

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A test

Let's try this again...

 

Those of you who have signed up to get email of my posts have not been getting them. This post is to let you know that I think I have found the problem and fixed it.

Hopefully you will get this post. I will delete it in a few days and add my final post of this trip.

If one of you can let me know that you get this -- that would be good.

 

 

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Georgia -- the Low Country

Saturday 6/27 & Sunday 6/28/15

Most of Saturday was a driving day from Charleston to Savannah, but we did get in a late afternoon trolley tour. This tour oriented us to the town and what we might like to spend more time exploring.

Sunday has been the exploring day. We got back on the "hop on hop off" trolley and walked some of the historical areas of town. I did not get a lot of photos as there was not much I wanted a photo of. I had thought that Savannah would be my favorite city, but it turns out that I like Charleston better.

 

90 minute trolley tour through the Historic District

 

A highlight we could not pass up ... founded in 1919, it is "one of the top ice cream shops in the world".

 

I found these buried trash bins for pet waste interesting

Savannah is known for its "squares" -- there are many throughout the historic district. These each have a monument in the middle to commemorate someone -- a president, a founder, a native American chief, etc. -- and have benches to sit, relax and enjoy. On one of the steets bordering a square is the house known from the book and movie "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil". There was no good advantage point to take a photo. Too bad this home is known for a murder!

Johnny Mercer is memorialized -- "Moon River", "Zip-a-dee-doo-dah", "Baby It's Cold Outside", "On the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe" are a few of his songs.

 

Johnny Mercer

We visitied the Pirate House, associated with maritime history, and is now a restaurant with a gift shop upstairs where we could visit with a pirate!

 

 

 

Arrrrgh!!!

River Street is a district of shops, restaurants and water views as well as where one can take a river tour.

 

We had to walk down these treacherous steps to get to River Street

 

Treacherous steps

 

Susan, you go first...

 

Safely on River Street

 

People and shops on River Street

 

River Boat tour leaving the dock

We enjoyed a "Low Country Boil" dinner at one of the River Street's many restaurants. Shrimp, sausage, potatoes and corn on the cob boiled in Old Bay seasoning. This was a highlight for us here in Savannah, and we plan to recreate this meal at home (I hope). Sometimes crab is included with the shrimp, so we will most likely add the delectable crustacean.

/During our trolley tour I learned a couple more things about trees. The Live Oak Tree (recall it is "live oak" because it is green all year round) is Georgia's state tree.

The Spanish Moss that hangs from the tree (recall this is an air plant, not a parasite) is neither Spanish nor a moss, but I do not remember why it is called this ;'-). Spanish Moss was used in those historic days to stuff pillows and matresses -- seemed like a great use for this soft, abundant plant. However -- the plant is full of chiggers and caused much itching so was not such a good mattress filler. When one woman heard this from the tour guide, she screeched and threw out the Spanish Moss she had collected as a memento! You have heard the saying "good night, sleep tight, don't let the bed bugs bite". This is how and why that saying was started.

 

A reminder of Spanish Moss, and a better look at the resurrection fern I wrote about earlier.

 

Tomorrow we drive to Atlanta and prepare to fly home the next day.

 

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Boone Plantation

Friday, June 26, 2015

What a luxury to have a relaxing morning! Since our Harbor Cruise was cancelled for the funeral today, we did not have any early morning activitiy plan. For the first time while here, we drove the car to the Boone Plantation.

 

The entry drive to the Plantation is lined with live oak. "Live" because they are green year round.

The Spanish Moss that hangs from the live oak is an air plant and not a parasite, so does not damage the trees. Along the limbs of the trees, "resurrection" ferns grow. They are brown and look dead when dried out, but the moment it rains they are resurrected to green and healthy.

 

We took the trolley tour through the plantation but not much to see.

We saw where cotton grew during that era (where the slaves worked twelve hours a day), but is now a farming area for produce that is sold from there. After the cotton business was done with, thousands of pecan trees were planted. Those trees have shallow roots, and were easily blown down in several hurricanes, now there are very few left.

 

I don't know what this plant is, but I found it interesting.

After touring the grounds we explored Slave Street.

 

 

 

Only the top helpful slaves had these houses

The slaves that were more craftsmen -- carpenters, brick makers, and other such trades lived in the brick houses that were fairly near the "Big House". As spartan as they were, they were much nicer than the field hands' homes of wood with no windows and one room way out in the fields.

 

Slaves could not attend church, so they held services in one of the houses

 

A bed on one side of the unpartitioned room and a kitchen/sitting/living room on the other, with a fireplace on the wall between

The most interesting part of our visit to Boone was the story teller whose name I do not remember. She gave a live presentation of teh evolution and development of teh "Gullah Culture" here in the Lowcountry.

 

The stage is set

 

She begins by dedicating this performance to the nine people who were killed last week

 

She talks, sings and animates life as it developed over the decades

 

We took the tour of the antebellum style mansion built in 1936. We found the tour to be nothing special.

We treated ourselves to ice cream at the Butterfly Cafe and did a short visit of the butterfly garden there. Then it was time to drive back to town.

 

The bridge on Route 17 is eye catching and very pretty

A HOT HOT HOT HUMID DAY! Wish I could do what these kids were doing...

"Swimming" in the fountain

Back in town we walked to dinner and on a side spur ran into this cooling activity for kids "of all ages". There has to be some way of cooling off in the heat!

Tomorrow we head for Savannah, GA.

 

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Carriage ride, walking, and ghosts

Thursday, June 25, 2015

We were up early to grab breakfast before our 9:00 "Trot & Walk" tour.

 

At the corner cafe we had complimentary beignets (I think we called these doughboys back home) before our breakfast arrived

On our tour, first we would "trot" with the horse pulling our carriage through the streets of town, then we would walk with our same guide along streets we had not trotted through. We learned a lot of history and saw much of Charleston.

Horses get ready to work

 

Our horse "Facebook" awaits our boarding

 

 

Facebook knows the route quite well, and with the help of our guide, Graham, we meander down historic streets

 

The Anglican Church -- which leans three degrees

 

The leaning church of Charleston

Dock Street Theatre continues to offer stage plays

 

Ornate frontage of the Dock Street Theatre

There are several "cobble stone" streets in Charleston. There is no stone in Charleston so whatever is here has to be brought in. These old streets are made of stone that had been used as ballast for the old ships that came into port.

 

Being in Charleston brings the reality of how it was "back then", and with it comes some sadness about that era

Near the water there are homes that have been refurbished and are painted in many colors. The street is known as Rainbow Row.

 

Hard to get a good shot of the colorful houses

 

We walked along what is know as the "sea wall" that makes a promenade for us.

 

 

 

As part of the city "code", all shutters on houses must be in working order. This to preserve the authenticity of the city. The house in the next photo shows two kinds of shutters. The lower floor has "batten" shutters to protect the inside from, dust, dirt and other debris from the street. The upper floors have "vent" shutters that allow air flow when the are ... shut. If you can enlarge the photo (some of you on iPad can), you will see a "rope" carving around the entry doorway. This indicates that the resident is or was a sea captain.

 

Batten & Vent shutters

 

Couldn't resist this pink house

 

 

Those round plates on the wall of the building are earthquake "screws" (for lack of a better word)

Those plates are attached to a rod that goes under the floor all the way to the other side of the building. Each year they turn these plates something like a tenth of a turn to keep them tightened "enough". Somehow this helps protect the building from imploding in an earthquake. Charleston had a 7.3 earthquake some time in the 1800s (I think), and now takes precautions against damage from another one happening.

 

A little house amongst the big

A full day with a lot of history! But, we had one more tour to do.

After dinner we joined a "Ghost Tour" with a walk down alleyways and along graveyards, and stories about duels, suicides, unexplained sightings of "dead" people, and long ago pirate looting and killings.

 

Tomorrow's agenda is yet to be decided. We are about ten blocks from where Roof shot and killed nine people in the church a week ago. Tomorrow President Obama is arriving for one of the funerals. Streets and many attractions will be closed for the day. Though this adds a little disappointment for us to miss an attraction or two, both Susan and I are in agreement with the city basically closing down in honor of those lost, and our little inconvenience seems a way of participating in that honoring.

 

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