Back in the Saddle in S.C.

29 Oct 09—We went into Charleston today and worked on getting our 10,000 steps again. We started at the visitors center, where we picked up a booklet titled “Charleston’s Museum Mile”, which outlines a one mile section of Charleston that includes 6 museums, 5 historic houses, too many to count churches, and a host of other interesting buildings.

We started at the Aiken-Rhett House, (Rhett was considered the father of secession)

and what was interesting to me right off the bat was not so much the house, but the houses around it. As we went on thru the day, we noticed over and over again that some of these historical sites, beautiful though they may have been, were smack dab in the middle of some otherwise rundown areas. This rundown house was 2 doors away from the Aiken-Rhett House.

And this beautiful church was directly across the street from this key store.

It seems like the city can't make up its mind what it wants to be. Anyway, we could have toured the Aiken-Rhett house, but most of it was closed to tourists, so we skipped it, and went straight to The Charleston Museum, the oldest museum in the United States. Outside the Museum was a copy of the H. L. Hunley submarine,

and inside we went from the Revolutionary War,

to the Civil War (or the War Between the States as they call it...notice how sympathetic this writing is),

to a room with old-time brides dresses.

I wasn’t terribly interested in the Revolutionary War…just read gobs about it in DC…so we skimmed most of that and concentrated on The War Between the States. Before we got to that though, there was a section on early settlement of the colonies and the land grant system that was interesting. Basically, it said that the wy the land was given in very large lots of acreage to the people of high status pretty much led to the need, as they saw it, for slaves.

Check out these numbers below.

So next we headed to the Confederacy Museum…run by the Daughters of the Confederacy, this building also serves as the entrance building to the Old City Market, which I will talk about later.

Thought this museum would be really good, but it was about to close, so we didn’t get to do the tour. We did, however, get to go in for a minute, and learned it consisted of one room of memorabilia…won’t go back tomorrow. I thought it would be a lot better than that.

Finally we hit what they call the French Quarter, and very much looking like New Orleans, we were suddenly on cobblestone roads and headed to the Old Slave Mart Museum (still another change in less than a mile of this city). To me this was the highlight of the day. They didn’t want us taking pictures for some reason, but I just had to anyway. This building was actually built to be used as a slave market…specifically for the trade of native born slaves. The international slave trade had been outlawed back in 1808 (I think), so by the time this was built only domestic slave trading was going on. The picture titled "Before the Sale", explains how they would fatten up and dye the hair of slaves about to be traded. I especially found the info interesting on the one pictured with George Washington. And we shouldn't forget that slavery wasn't exclusive to the south...see the picture of the burning at the stake.

Walking back in the direction of the Visitor Center where we parked, we browsed a bit at the Old City Market, which is actually a 6 block long series of buildings, one after the other filled with arts and crafts, hand-made to manufactured, everything from jewelry to sweatshirts to paintings to what seems to be the biggest attraction…sweetgrass baskets. These baskets were made back in the slave days, the skills to make them handed down from mother to daughter (mostly), and are still being made today. A medium sized basket can take up to 2 days to make…so needless to say they are also very expensive. I picked up what I thought was medium-sized basket and it had a price tag of $300.00! Everything you see here is small to medium.

I took a few pictures of some interesting churches…all right in the mix of the city…and most having their own graveyards. There is another walking tour just to see all the churches, so I will have to see if we have time for that at the end of the week.

South Carolina

28 Oct 09--Hit Charleston, SC late this afternoon, waiting till tomorrow to go into town. There looks like there will be some good stuff to see...Fort Sumter, where the Civil War kicked off, some plantations, etc. So I should have some better pictures than just the trees at the Famcamp!

While we are waiting for those though, I thought I would show you a couple pictures that may be of interest to my former military friends, and Christopher, seeing as he is always concerned as to where his tax dollars are going.

These 2 pictures here are the new base housing at Andrews AFB...in Maryland. There was certainly never any base housing like this when I was in.

And these are of the Dining hall and gym here in South Carolina. Chris, notice in the Dining Hall they have a large-screen TV. And this is the first base I have ever been to that actually lets retirees eat breakfast and dinner in the dining hall. They said they thnk they are the only one.

Sorry, everyone else will have to wait for the good stuff tomorrow.

Just a Quickie!

27 Oct 09--So I checked my blog for comments before I started typing, and I see that both Ellen and Fifi are pressuring me for pictures. Remember, not every day is Christmas…now that I am out of DC I will do the best I can, but there will be days, like today, that I have limited opportunities to knock your socks off. Haha

We drove to the base today, had to do some errands…commissary, post office, etc., and we were astounded by how big the base is. (I know you are all on the edge of your seats now—haha). In all honesty, I really believe that this base is bigger than Southie…I read that it is the largest Army installation by population in the country; it has approximately 43,000 military and 8000 civilians living here, and it is the home of the Green Berets and the 82nd Airborne Division. They do over 100,000 parachute jumps a year here. And they say the base supports more than 250,000 soldiers, civilians, family members, and retirees. We were driving on 2 and 3 lane highways on the base…pretty surprising.

The weather is pretty crappy though, so we didn’t do anything today except ride around and try to get info for a future visit to this area. As I said yesterday, the Famcamp is off base, about 3 miles away from the base, and is very much like what Outdoor World was in Maine when we stayed there. Very woodsie.



The only difference is that it is not anywhere near as crowded, as a matter of fact there are only 9 RV spots on the level I am at...maybe another dozen down below.

There is a big lake with a small beach where you can rent canoes and paddle boats, and you can even go hunting and fishing here. I don’t really know what you would hunt, but it does make me nervous to think what may be stalking me as I take the dogs out at night to pee. Haha

They have cabins here for rent...this one holds 10-12 people, has a kitchen and bathroom, too. Others are smaller, holding 4-6 people. I figure when we come back sometime in the summer, anyone who would like to join us for some hunting and fishing and canoeing can let us know and we will secure it. How does that sound?

On our way to Charlston SC tomorrow…we’ll be there a week…hopefully more exciting stuff there.

From Spy to North Carolina

26 Oct 09—I have been waiting since we were on the train home 3 days ago to get a response to the post about having to kill you…I can’t believe that Ellen had to threaten everyone for me to just get a response! Haha

Back on Friday we went to the Spy Museum…a lot of fun. They had stuff from as far back as the 1500s…like where was the 1st known government-sponsored spy organization established??? (In England, for Elizabeth I.) And one of the coolest things was a display from some guy in the 1500s…he developed an invisible ink that he used on eggs. He would write on the shell of an egg and you couldn’t see it, but when you cracked the egg, you could then see what he wrote on the egg itself. Pretty good for 500 years ago, huh?

They had everything there from the poisoned pens to the deadly umbrella to the camera hidden in the coat button and everything in between…everything we have seen in the movies over our lifetimes, and more. They had a good-sized section on women who were spies…there was Julie Child again, and Marlena Dietrich, and Josephine Baker. They had another section on famous spies like Aldrich Ames and the Rosenbergs. Of course there was a section on The House Un-American Activities panels in the US Senate. Anything you could think of was there.

They had 3 or 4 different tours you could pay for. We did the regular tour, but 2 others would have been the “Daytime or Nighttime I am a Spy” tours where they have you search throughout the city for things like dead drops and clues, etc. I think those would be really fun if I had a ten year old, but at 54 I am sure I would grow a little bored before the spy search was over.

We couldn’t take any pictures in the museum, and since it was all about spying I figured they had hidden cameras, so I followed the rules on this one.

Saturday we hung around the RV most of the day. We were waiting till later in the afternoon to go into the city, so we could see DC at night. That was the plan anyway. As we went downtown the skies opened up, and Boy, oh boy did it rain. We hoped it would pass, so we went into the American Indian Museum….big disappointment to me. I was expecting to see teepees and stuff…not a single one. Haha It was actually an in-depth look at 8 different tribes…but not all of them were from the US. Some were from the Carribean, others from South America…so not the Indians I was expecting. To top it off, the few pictures I did take were taken hostage by the disk in my camera that locked up…so they were lost. The day was a big bust!!!

We didn’t do anything Sunday except read the newspaper, watch some football, and pack up a few things getting ready to leave Monday morning for North Carolina.

So here we are on Monday…left DC, traveled thru Virginia and into North Carolina. Fayetteville, NC to be exact. We are at the Famcamp for the Army’s Ft Bragg…got here at just about dusk, so we haven’t been able to look around at all. We did see some cabins right where the RVs are parked, so I think they have them so you can have family, friends here and they can stay in the cabins. This place is like the place in Massachussetts, in that it is not on the base…I don’t know how far away the base is, will check it out tomorrow.

The ride here was uneventful, except for some beautiful foliage, especially in Virginia. The Famcamp here looks to be pretty “rural”….I feel very much in the woods, but hopefully the light of day will give me a better feeling. Haha Only staying 2 days before heading to South Carolina for a week, so it won’t be that bad.

International Spy Museum

23 Oct 09--Went to the International Spy Museum today...notice the attire on the lady at the Ladies Room!

As a former spy myself, if I tell you any more than that I would have to kill you, so enough said!!