Charleston
No posting for a while. Hasn’t been much really noteworthy.
Yesterday we arrived in Charleston area. Spent the afternoon visiting a couple of quilt stores, several sweet grass basket makers, and Charles Pinckney NHS.
Sweet grass basket making is a craft/skill/art form that came from Africa with the slaves and has been handed down for generations. It seems to be pretty specific to this area. Have not seen it anywhere else. Some pretty amazing basketry.
Charles Pinckney was a contributor to the drafting of the US Constitution and signed the final document. His family had seven plantations in the area. The NHS is on one of them. House contains displays on Pinckney, some insights on drafting of Constitution, plantation life, and archeology.
Today we visited Fort Sumter. Half hour boat ride from visitor center to island. Time filled by very good narrative by ranger on history of fort before, during, and after the Civil War. Approaching the fort is a bit underwhelming. Nothing at all like pictures one sees of event that led to start of the Civil War. Fort originally was a very imposing structure with 50’ walls bristling with canon ports. War and time were not kind to the fort. Walls are now one story high and even then one wall is replaced with wood. The layout of the fort is intact and there are many descriptive and interpretive signs as well as a museum.
Fort Sumter
Raising flag
Flag over Fort Sumter
Charleston as seen through Fort Sumter gun port.
Tourist
Center of picture is shell casing imbedded in inside of outer wall. Shell cleared wall on other side and stuck inside far wall.
Fort Sumter as it looked prior to Civil War.
Longest cable supported bridge in country. Cool to drive over.
USS Yorktown. Highly decorated in WW II. Last mission – retrieving Apollo VIII capsule.
We toured historic Charleston on foot and by car. Wandered the Historic Market, walked the cobblestone streets of the French Quarter, saw many old churches and interesting old cemeteries, old buildings, and several quirky points of interest.
Very thin house
On the way back to carbus we detoured to see Angel Oak. Wow!
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