Road Trip: The Low Country

After three days in the camper with some kind of food poisoning, DH and I finally emerged yesterday, ready to enjoy the time we have left in the low country. We're staying in Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina, just over the bridge from Charleston.

NOTE:  If you've ever watched "Naked and Afraid" on the Discovery Channel (a very strange show BTW), we could have starred in our own episode entitled, "Naked and Afraid in a Tiny Camper". But, we're better now and have been trying to make up for lost time.

Yesterday afternoon we visited Oakland Plantation here in Mt. Pleasant, SC. The land that our canpground sits on was once part of the plantation and, although the plantation is not open to the public, the owners do allow a tour guide from the campground to take campers through the plantation on a wagon.

Our wagon driver/tour guide was quite a character; at each wagon stop he'd tell a joke. He did not have a Southern accent either.  His was the Yorkshire accent of Northern England. DH and I spent time in Yorkshire in 2017 and that, along with the fact that my grandmother had the very same accent, made it easily recognizable. Our driver has lived in SC for 40 years after spending his youth in the UK. 

As we drove, he told the story of the enslaved young man who planted these trees; look how beautiful they are now!

The Oakland house, dating from 1750, is the oldest house in Mt Pleasant. Although it's smaller than many plantation houses, it is unique in that it is one of the few plantation houses that survived the civil war. Most were burned. Six slave families were living in this house toward the end of the war and, for that reason, the building was spared.

We passed the slave graveyard on the way out. Only a few of the graves have stone markers. Our guide noted that the rest were marked with either a shell or, more commonly, a cup, bowl, or plate that the deceased enslaved person used at his or her last meal. This practice can be traced back to Africa, where a wide variety of items used by the dead individual were placed on a grave. The area is now fenced off out of respect for the people interred there.

After our carriage ride, we finally made it to Red's Ice House, our favorite annual stop for shrimp, Margaritas, dolphin watching (and people watching!), and sunsets.

Red's is in the part of Mt. Pleasant known as Shem Creek, where a large fleet of shrimp boats are moored. We love to eat outside on the deck where you can see the creek and enjoy the dolphins and the sunset.


Dogs are allowed and the locals bring them to the bar with them. The dogs sit there patiently, in an odd variety of dogginess, as their masters share stories about them over a cold one.

We always order the "Killer Shrimp" - very spicy! They're served with french bread for dipping. This time we tried crab cakes as well; they were delicious. And of, course, Margaritas!

Today is our last day here in Mt. Pleasant. The weather continues to be perfect, sunny and in the low 70's. We decided to take an afternoon ride to Georgetown, SC, which is north of here, about halfway between Charleston and Myrtle Beach. It's the third oldest city in South Carolina. In her recent autobiography, Michelle Obama traced her roots to Jim Robinson, an enslaved man from Georgetown plantation; he was her great-great grandfather.

We stopped for lunch at the Big Fish (Big Tuna). 

We ate here a few years ago and really enjoyed the seafood . . . 

 and laid back low-country atmosphere.

Right inside the door, they have a parrot.

And he talks!

Because my sister insists that DH looks like Jimmy Buffet, I had to take a picture of him with the parrot. She's always kidding him that he aka Jimmy needs one, so, Joanne, this one's for you!

I ordered the She Crab Soup. It's a local Charleston favorite - hot, creamy, and delicious! The soup is named for the She-Crab, or female crab, as the orange crab roe is an ingredient in traditional she-crab soup. In case you'd like to try it, here's a local  recipe for She Crab Soup.

Tomorrow morning we're heading for Tennessee. We'll miss South Carolina with its live oaks, 

Palmettos, gorgeous islands and beaches, sunsets and seafood. 

Hopefully we'll be back next year!

Road Trip: Last Day in St. Augustine

Today is our last day in St. Augustine, Florida and the weather is perfect: sunny and warm. We spent the day in the Old Town and Lincolnville sections of St. Augustine with friends, Fred and Anne.

Our first stop was a return to La Herencia Cuban cafe on Aviles Street.. We'd been promised that the owner would be making a new batch of our favorite dessert, Tres Leches cake, by today.

This cake is very popular in Latin America, especially Mexico and Nicaragua. It'ss a yellow cake soaked in a mixture of three different types of milk: evaporated milk, sweetened condensed milk, and whole milk or heavy cream. 

It's topped off with whipped creme frosting and a marischino cherry. In case you;d like to try making your own Tres Leches, here's a recipe. Delicioso!

After enjoying our fill of Tres Leches and Cuban coffee, we wandered the narrow streets of "Old Town", the oldest part of St. Augustine, first settled in 1565.

The flowers in Old Town are beautiful; walled gardens are everywhere.

I love the Spanish architecture.

The walls, and many of the homes,  in Old Town are made from Coquina, a very hard, and very old,  material formed from crushed seashells.

This old house is also on Aviles Street. Notice that the houses are built right on the edge of the narrow streets.

It actually looks as if it belongs in New England rather than Florida.

The Lincolnville Historic District is St. Augustine's most prominent historically black neighborhood and is associated with many significant events in the city's African American history. I love the little house, each with a shady front porch, that line the streets of Lincolnville.

Lincolnville was founded in 1866 by former slaves. During the Civil Rights Movement, Lincolnville was the base for activists who worked for the end of racial segregation in schools and public facilities in St. Augustine. Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. and activists from other parts of the country came to join local activists in non-violent protests.

The residents of Lincolnville are definitely not afraid of using color on the exteriors of their homes.

Most of them are small bungalows built on small lots covered in palms and bougainvilleas.

After an afternoon in Old Town, we drove back to North Beach to enjoy dinner and the sunset from the porch at Aunt Kate's restaurant.

Aunt Kate's is situated in a grove of live oaks on the banks of the inland waterway, adjacent to the campground. 



 Just a few steps from our campsite, it's the best place to watch the sunset while enjoying local seafood, . . . 

and maybe a Margarita!

 The sunset was absolutely beautiful. Perfect way to celebrate our last night at North Beach.

Until next year, that is!

Today we're off to Tampa for the next part of our adventure.

 Hope you'll follow along!

This post is linked to:

Best of the Weekend Party T Calypso In the Country
Saturday Sparks Link Party at Pieced Pastimes

Road Trip: Monticello

We spent Tuesday at Monticello, Thomas Jefferson's home in Charlottesville, VA.

I've been looking forward to this part of our trip and reading what I could about Thomas Jefferson before we visited. Since I could never tell you about everything we learned in this blog post, I've included a lot of links that you can click on to read more.

Although Jefferson is best known as the author of the Declaration of Independence and the 3rd President of the United States, touring Monticello allowed us to see him as much more - a man of the enlightenment who designed his own home and used it as a laboratory for his interests in botany, horticulture, architecture, astronomy,  art, music, and books.

Monticello is located on "the Mountaintop" outside of Charlottesville, where Jefferson owned 5000acres. It is simply a beautiful place.

Jefferson's gardens are not in bloom yet but the cover crops are already getting green.

Collecting and disseminating seeds of choice plants was an important chapter of Jefferson's horticultural life. Many of them are still available at the Monticello shop.

At noon, we met our guide for a one-hour Slavery Tour of Monticello.

The tour took place on Mulberry Row. 

Mulberry Row was the hub of the plantation. Over time, it included more than 20 workshops, dwellings, and storage buildings where enslaved people at Monticello lived and worked.

This is the Hemings' cabin on Mulberry row. A family of up to 8 people would have lived in a cabin like this, the children sleeping on straw pallets outside or, in the winter, in the loft. The parents would share the bed and the one blanket given to the family every three years.

Nearby is the textile building on Mulberry Row. Enslaved people would work here to spin hemp or, in the winter, wool, for clothing.

Jefferson, as always, kept detailed records of their assignments and production.

At 1:30. we joined eleven other people (from Texas, Delaware, and New York) for the Sally Hemings Tour.

Sally Hemings lived from 1773 - 1835, most of those years as an enslaved woman at Monticello, although she was 3/4 white. She was actually the half-sister of Jefferson's wife, Martha. Both had the same father, John Wayles. Although Martha lived a life of leisure at Monticello, Sally, whose mother was one of John Wayles' slaves at a nearby plantation,  was enslaved.

In 1998, during major renovations at Monticello, the room believed to be that of Sally Hemings was unearthed, under the South wing of the main house adjoining the kitchen, wine cellar, and Jefferson's bedroom. Sally is thought to have borne her six children by Jefferson here. This story of the "rest" of Jefferson's life has only been openly discussed, and now memorialized at Monticello, since the geneological use of DNA in the past 20 years.

Sally Hemings' descendents are now welcomed to share their oral histories for recording as part of  Monticello's oral history project, Getting Word. The now-hundreds of descendents meet at Monticello for a reunion each Juneteenth.

Although the focus of our afternoon tour was Sally Hemings, the tour did include the interior of Jefferson's home, which he designed himself. This is Jefferson's bedroom. He died in this bed on July 4, 1827. Note how he built the bed into the area between his library and chamber.

What I found most interesting was how Jefferson, never one to waste space, built his closet in ABOVE his bed.  You can see part of a small door in the lower right corner of the photo. Behind it were narrow stairs which allowed his enslaved butler to access his clothes for him. And, being the scientist that he was, Jefferson designed the oval openings in the walls of his closet to allow air to circulate, avoiding mildew.
~photos from Monticello website; we were not allowed to take pictures inside the house.

My favorite room at Monticello was the dining room. Attached to the large dining area is the smaller "tea room" with windows on all sides providing views of the Shenandoah Valley and mountains beyond. I loved the bright yellow color and asked our guide if it was authentic. He explained that  recent research indicates that it is: archeologists found evidence of Chromium in the original paint layer.

President John F. Kennedy recognized Jefferson's accomplishments when he told a gathering of American Nobel Prize winners that they were "the greatest assemblage of talent in the White House since Jefferson had dinner there alone".

Built into each side of the fireplace in the dining room was a bottle-sized dumbwaiter so that wines could be sent up to Jefferson directly from the wine cellar as needed - another one of his clever uses of space in the house. (I wouldn't mind having one of those at 22 Applegate Lane!)

I guess I'm not the only one who loved this room; it was featured in Southern Living magazine in 2013.

Another of my favorite rooms was this octagonal bedroom, which was used for guests. James Madison and his wife, Dolley, were said to have often stayed here as their home Montpelier was only 28 miles away. Notice that Jefferson built in a closet above this bed as well.

At the end of the day, we visited the African American graveyard. Although Jefferson had about 400 slaves, only 40 graves have been discovered here. It is not yet known where the rest of his slaves were buried.

This is the view of the back side Monticello that is found on the Jefferson nickel. There is no snow on the ground here now; it's very springlike with crocus in bloom along the walkways.

I loved this visit and the sense of history that pervades Monticello. I wish we had had two days to spend there. In the late Spring and summer, the Garden Tour sounds beautiful. It hadn't started yet in March.

Today we leave Virginia and head toward St. Augustine, Florida.

We're on the road again!

This post is linked to:

Feathered Nest Friday at French Country Cottage
Happiness Is Homemade Link Party 262 at Bluesky at Home
Sundays at Home at Little Farmstead
Over the Moon Link Party at Eclectic Red Barn
Best of the Weekend Party at Calypso In the Country