Wanderings

Since I wrote last I have done some South Carolina traveling north and south. We spent one afternoon tooling up 17 with Jim and Vicki with no real destination since we started too late to go to Brookgreen Garden. We stopped outside of McClellanville at Hampton Plantation just before a big thunderstorm. This is a state historical site because it is an old rice plantation and former home of several prominent lowcountry families -- Rutledges, Horrys and Pinckneys. Families of freed slaves continued to live there for several generations after emancipation. There is a huge oak tree there that was slated to be cut down, but as he was passing through, George Washington suggested they leave it, so it grows on. It hosts lots of resurrection fern that was furled out and lush the day we saw it. We got chased away by a hard and fast thunderstorm which was a daily occurance around that time.

Closer to Georgetown we took a left on a dirt toad and determined we were on the King's Highway -- the original route 61 that went between Charleston and Boston back in the day. We stopped at St. James Santee Parish -- established in 1706 at the request of the French Huguenots, it was the 2nd parish in this area for the Church of England with the first being St. Philips,in downtown Charleston. The present building was built in 1768. (Vicki was once a Charleston tour guide.) The interior is very plain with beautiful pine worn smooth to the touch. The cemetery had many very old graves -- one was for an "overseer" -- but also some rather recent ones. One from the 80s, I believe, was for a journalist in Charleston with the inscription: "Raise a toast for Jack" -- or something along those lines.

I spent a day in Florence at an engineering day camp for middle school students (don't ask) and in the following week visited another in Aiken. The group in Florence was in a chemistry lab, doing all kinds of acid/base experiments that get dramatic results -- color changes, smoke, popping noises. All 12 year olds think dry ice is pretty darn amazing. I stopped by the Farmers Market and bought some peaches before I got back on I95.

The group in Aiken was building Lego robots. Each group had a box of parts and a booklet with the assembly steps illustrated. It reminded me of putting together a bookcase, but smaller and harder. I think some of the kids were loving it and some were pretty stymied by it.

I can't believe I have lived here this long and not made it to Aiken yet. What a pretty place, once you finally get there. I think "the haves" in Aiken live the gracious southern life. The "have-nots", not so much. The land started to roll as soon as I drove into the county. I checked out the downtown area and a residential neighborhood right behind it where a lot of yard crews were sprucing things up for the weekend. I didn't really see anything "horsey" so I guess we have to go again.

Driving along, I enjoyed the changing landscape. In some places it looked so overgrown and wild I could just imagine Francis Marion himself slogging through the swamp. In other places, lantana, crype myrtle and palm trees were profuse and gave the view a more inhibited look. Houses were old and big, with wide porches and big magnolia trees in the yards. It was the the picture of southern rural summertime beauty.

We are determined to overcome our enertia and get out and see a bit more of what is within a day's drive of us. We want to go to Congaree, but it's gonna be pretty hot at the swamp these days. I think a drink on the beach at Edisto would fill the bill, today.

Mom's Garden Spot

This is the view my Mom has created for herself (and for her neighbors) at Glenaire, the retirement community in Cary where she moved over a year ago. The wooded area out her back door was one of the selling points on this particular apartment -- and to get it, she probably moved sooner after Dad's death than she would have liked.

But, as things turned out, we are glad she moved when she did. It is good to have that big transition behind her and the house sold easily just before the economy completely collapsed last year. She has really transformed this little glade from underbrush completely overgrowing the azaleas and camellias that were there -- to this pretty little area where the plants have room to breathe and flowers offer spots of color as well. She has always had a green thumb.

Spoleto on the Cheap

I don't have much this week.

Duncan and I did Spoleto on the cheap this year by volunteering to usher and we will definitely do that again -- as we have realized many locals do every year. You don't have much control over what you see, so your experience is a little random, but that's sort of the point of Spoleto, anyway.

We ushered for Don John -- very interesting staging, but overall, a bit dark and gritty for our tastes, and Good Cop Bad Cop, which was a lot of fun. We took tickets at the Finale at Middleton Plantation Sunday night and that turned out to be a really nice experience. People went all out with the picnic dinners -- some carted in dollies with tables, chairs, china, silver candelabras, table linens, flower arrangements and cooler after cooler of food. (We took a blanket and chicken from the Colonel.) The program included no introductions, no speeches, no thanking the sponsors, no previews of next year. Just beautiful music for more than an hour and spectacular fireworks.

Otherwise, I have a new "client" for writing services and several projects stretching into the summer. Today is Debbie and Wilson's 25th anniversary -- a well earned milestone for them. The plan was to be on a walking tour in France. I wish it were so.