Georgia on my mind

November 14
Saturday

Finally in a new state, Georgia.
 Headed to Helen, a little town that was recommended as a must see since it looks "just like a European village".

Driving thru the beautiful back country roads to Helen, I came across the
Old Sautee Store which has been open and doing business continuously since 1872.

In that time it has been owned by only three families.
It had for sale everything a general store should. I bought cheese.

The little faux Swiss village of Helen, GA turned out to be a disappointment.

It did look a little like a Swiss village if you've never been to Switzerland.

The town fathers remade its image in the 1960s to attract tourists who were coming to Northeastern Georgia for the mountains and lakes.


A bigger disappointment was the Civil War Reenactment I had come to see was actually last weekend. The tourist info I had was a misprint. Darn.

On to Atlanta. As I approach the modern skyline I remind myself there won't be much of the Old South here since General Sherman burned most of it in his march to the sea in 1864.

Thank goodness Margaret Mitchell's home still stands, even if it is in the midst of downtown office buildings now.

She wrote Gone With The Wind in one of the apartments of this home in 1935.

This is the rear of the home where Margaret and her husband lived as newlyweds in the bottom left apartment for several years.

She had been a reporter for the local newspaper and when she broke her ankle, began writing GWTW, her first complete novel.

For inspiration she drew on all the stories about the Civil Was she had heard as a child growing up every time her family got together. It wasn't until she reached adulthood that she found out the Civil Was was not a recent event. Her family referred to it as tho it happened yesterday.

The tiny living room of the two room apartment was where she worked on the classic.

After their wedding the reception was held here for 60 people. The guests must have been sitting on each other's laps.

There was no dining room so the couple ate in the bedroom next to the tiny kitchen.

Her husband was an editor with the newspaper where she had been employed.





The building also contains a museum telling of the making of the movie
and its premier in Atlanta in 1940, the biggest event in Atlanta before or since.
Martin Luther King's father was a pastor here and organized a choir to perform at the premier. Martin Luther King Jr as a child can be seen in one of the old photos in the front row of the choir.
Many local African Americans were not pleased with the stereotype of their race in the movie.

Friend and neighbor from the Villages,  Jim, flew in to ride along with me this week.
We travel married style; I drive and he holds the map and we fight about it. Just to be clear, he gets a motel room and I sleep in the Doodle. This would be a friendship trip, no romance. I only had to remind Jim a few times.

We saw the Stone Mountain Monument to the Confederate heroes:
President Jefferson Davis, Generals Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson.


The carving surface of the monument is one and one half acres
and is so large a man could fit in the mouth of one of the horses.

Our first night we had pizza for dinner and the waitress said the motel we had reserved was known for prostitutes. We should have told her we were from California and didn't have very high standards. It was late so we stayed anyway and it was fine. I slept well in the Doodle in the parking lot and Jim only had someone knock on his door in the middle of the night once.

Driving south we stopped for lunch at Greenville in a local cafe.
 The waitress asked "kin ah hep yew?" Love the local accents. We are starting to "Yes, Ma'am and Yes Sir" each other. Someone said "Cheat yet?" I thought
no this is not a romantic trip. He was saying "Did you eat yet?"


    In Warm Springs we toured the FDR museum and the Little White House where he died in 1945. The only thing missing in the museum was any mention of Lucy Mercer.

The warm mineral springs where FDR came to get relief from polio have been drained and not used since the 60s.
He did a great deal for the people of the town with electricity and other progressive help.

On to the beautiful old city of Savannah. Founded in 1733, it was laid out in a grid pattern with 22 squares in the 2 and 1/2 mile historic district, the largest in the country.

This fountain at Forsythe Park was ordered from a catalog and assembled on the spot in 1858.


Most Southerners have few kind words for General Sherman but will grudgingly admit he showed some class when he spared the city of Savannah and presented it to Abraham Lincoln as a Christmas present effectively ending the Civil War, or the "Recent Unpleasantness" as some of the more genteel Southern ladies refer to it.

After the trolley ride to orient ourselves we got off and found ourselves wandering for hours thru the brick paths and trickling fountains in the parks that are surrounded with 200 year old homes so close to the city center.

This is the Mercer home on Monterey Square, the site of the real life murder in the best seller and movie "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil".

In all of Savannah there are more than 1,000 historic homes, most still lived in as homes. Many of the homeowners give their addresses not by street numbers, but by the genealogy of ownership, the Barrow House or the Juliet Gordon Low House, the founder of the Girl Scouts.

In the Ships of the Sea Marine Museum on River Street we found a spectacular collection of scale model replicas of sailing ships and a collection of scrimshaw and other nautical items.  Jim got lots of ideas for the ship model he is building.

You can't be in Savannah without  enjoying the Southern hospitality of Mrs. Wilkes Dining Room.

At our communal table we visited with folks from Michigan and Florida while passing around plates of 23 different dishes of every Southern food ever created, all of it amazing and some of it not even fried.

We were smitten with Savannah but pressed on South toward the barrier islands of the Low Country.

On St. Simon Island we wandered out to the pier and watched crabs being caught, took a tour and had lunch.  Another Shrimp and Grits dish for me. I'm addicted.

On Jekyll Island we visited the Georgia Sea Turtle Center and watched a procedure to attach a weight pouch to this turtle. They all had names. Joan had sustained an injury which caused her to swim almost perpendicular so a weight was being attached to the top rear of her shell to allow her to swim horizontally. Now the other turtles won't make fun of her.
 

The Indigo Coastal Shanty is a little joint on Brunswick Island where we went for dessert after dinner.

I  heard from a woman at the Turtle Center that the Georgia Peach Pound Cake here was absolutely orgasmic. The pound cake is griddled in butter, topped with a giant scoop of vanilla bean ice cream, with bourbon caramel sauce and pecans. It would probably kill me but I was willing to take the chance. It took 3 days to finish.

Heading South to St. Augustine we toured the old fort of Castillo San Marcos of 1672, where we watched the canons being fired and heard of the siege where 1200 townspeople and 300 soldiers were camped out for 3 months holding off the British.

We met another celebrity.

Almost didn't recognize Kramer out of NYC.

Did some people watching while waiting for our
tour trolley.

And of course the obligatory visit to the Fountain of Youth, a tourist trap too irresistible to pass up.
If this doesn't work, there's always the $20K face lift.

This beautiful old city is smaller than we had imagined, even the historic area was quite compact.

It's known for a lot of firsts:
the first Catholic parish the Cathedral of St Augustine from 1565
the first wax museum, etc

It is also known apparently for at least one last,
 there is a Howard Johnson's here which is practically extinct.



Took Jim to the airport and I'm off to see the rest of Florida.  It was good having him along this week.
I do get tired of the sound of my own voice.

Paper Hand Puppet Intervention

November 11
Wednesday

The fun of traveling is coming across the unexpected. 

I knew I would be staying at the North Carolina Fairgrounds but didn't know it would be next to this horse training complex.

I was in Raleigh to see a performance, the last of the season, of the Paper Hand Puppet Theater Intervention  at

North Carolina State University.

It was an evening  performance so I went onto campus to scope out the parking situation.
Public parking lots were across campus from the theater but I did find spots next to the theater reserved for employees but only until 5 pm.

Wandered around their Student Union which is beautiful with a giant fireplace in the lounge area.

Back on campus at 5 pm, I was headed to the cafeteria when I came across a Stone Soup Supper fund raiser for the Campus Ministry which feeds the urban poor.

Twelve upscale local restaurants had samples of their best soups.

For my $25 donation I had a wonderful supper.

As an added thank you we each were able to choose a ceramic bowl from a huge table of beautiful donated bowls from the Art Dept.

A short block to the Thompson Theater on this warm night with the campus filled with young people out and about.

I felt totally safe and reminded myself I should do this more often in college towns.

The characters in Paper Hand Puppet Intervention each have their own personality.

This is the Tough Guy and he was, too. The characters were all acted out by creator Donovan.

He told stories, mimed his parts and even played the drums for our entertainment.

This owl scared the two rabbits and the mouse played by kids from the audience.
But in the end he only wanted to be their friend.

The old man was hilarious without saying a word.

A giant owl hovered over the audience.

Donovan explained how he and his staff create the characters.

They play all over the country. If you have a chance to see them, do.
It was great fun.

Leaving Raleigh headed for Georgia, I was startled driving on the freeway to see out of the corner of my eye this giant peach.  Even more weird was the fact that I had just seen it last night on an episode of House of Cards which I am binge watching streaming on Netflix on my laptop.
It was the episode where Francis had to return to his home district in Gaffney, NC for a problem when a young woman is killed after being distracted by the giant peach.

So there really is a Gaffney.  I pulled off the highway to find out more about how the locals feel about
the show.  The restaurant near the giant peach had a bar so that is where I headed. The only person at the bar said he'd never seen the show and the bartender said he "didn't mind it".  I decided not to go any further by asking them how they felt about being made to look like a bunch of country bumpkins.
It just reminds me of James and the Giant Peach or Gaffney and the Giant Peach.

Traveling Solo

November 13
Friday

 It occurs to me on this Friday the 13th that there are many conversations I don't have while
traveling alone:

I don't care, what do you want to do?
No, you decide.
But we just ate.
It's my turn to pick this time.
No, I don't know how much farther to the next town.
We don't need gas yet.
Yes, I filled it up at the last place.
 I checked the tires.
We'll change the radio station as soon as I hear the rest of this story.
No I don't know where there might be a Bocce court. Google it.
Let's have the windows open for awhile for some fresh air.
No, I don't think that was a coyote back there. It was a dog.
I'm sure it was not a cow.
The weather report didn't call for a hurricane today.
Where do you think you left it?
No, it's not too late to go back. Better than buying a new one.
It's too early to stop.
Really we can drive at least another hour.
Where do you want to eat?
No, I picked last time.
etc

Boone Plantation near Charleston, SC

November 10
Tuesday

You can't be in the South without seeing at least one plantation.  

That is what the old South is all about.

And it must have an entry of old Oak trees hung with Spanish moss.

Boone Plantation just north of Charleston qualified, so here I am.

It is the most photographed of all the plantations and has been in a number of movies and on TV.

Heck, Wheel of Fortune even did a show from here.

The 3/4 mile long row of Avenue of Oaks was planted in 1743 by the son of the original owner. Today the Spanish moss swaying gently in the breeze from the Oaks is world famous.

Approaching the house off to the left is a row of slave cabins and on the right side of the road is a pasture of thoroughbred horses, one of which sired Secretariat back in the day.

The original plantation was begun in 1683 by Major John Boone, an Englishman who built a modest frame home on the property which later burned down. Another larger second home was built which was destroyed by a hurricane. The third home was a 3,000 sq ft frame farm house which had been neglected for 100 years. So in 1935 it was torn down to build the present 10,000 sq ft Federal Colonial Georgian style home we see today. 

Particularly attractive are the two shade structures for tourists in front, don't you agree?

It is on the National Historic Register as the oldest working plantation in America, continuously growing crops like rice, indigo and cotton for the last 300 years on 735 acres today.

We toured the home which is owned by a family that lives there so couldn't see the upstairs and no photos allowed.

From there we went out to the slave quarters which was the more interesting part of the tour.

These cabins are the original on the site and are built of bricks which were made on the plantation, one of their many businesses. Bricks made here were used to build Fort Sumter.

The defective bricks were used for these slave quarters.

These cabins were for the house slaves or slaves with particular skills so they had better living conditions. Field slaves lived in log cabins near the fields. Those cabins  didn't survive the last 200 years.

In 1860 there were 4 million slaves in the South.  4 million! They could have had an uprising and taken over.  Wish they had.  They tried a few times unsuccessfully.

Each cabin had a recording for information on different aspects of the life of slaves on the plantation.

This woman is weaving traditional baskets made of sweet grass.

She learned the skill from her grandmother.

This is one of the oldest traditional African art forms passed from generation to generation in the U.S.

The baskets were used to separate the rice from its cover. When the rice was tossed in the air the shell came off and the heavier rice kernels settled in the bottom of the basket.

Inside the carpenter's cabin was furniture that he 

had made and probably made furniture for the other cabins as well.

They all had wood floors as opposed to the field hand log cabins which had dirt floors.

Inside one of the cabins was a history of the slave trade in Charleston showing all of the ships that came in between 1711- 1858.

This very detailed record showed the name of the ship, where it came from, how many slaves embarked, and how many disembarked. They lost around 20% of their slaves on the trip due to terrible conditions on the ships.

The Anti-Slavery Act was passed in 1805 making it illegal to bring slaves from Africa, but they could be brought in from other places.

 In the mid 1800s  Charleston was the third largest city in the US due to the cotton industry and slaves.

This original cotton gin on the property was falling apart and needed to be propped up.

It had been used as a tourist restaurant and gift shop but recently closed.

At one of the slave cabins we heard a wonderful Gullah black history presentation by an older woman named Gloria who told stories, sang songs and told her family history. Her grandmother died at 117 and had been a slave.

For one of the stories she told the Brer Rabbit Uncle Remus story and asked for volunteers.  So I was the Tar Baby.  Fun!  

I remember hearing the story as a kid and now I got to be part of it as Gloria told the story in  her wonderful southern Negro accent. Gullah is a language combining African and English.

The Boone Plantation was one of the first in the area to teach their slaves to read and write.

According to our guide they were treated  better than most here but still regarded as property.

Low Country of South Carolina

November 7
Saturday

Very foggy driving down to the Low Country Islands south of Charleston.

It's very swampy with Spanish Moss hanging from the trees.

By the time I reached Beaufort it was sunny and beautiful.

Another of my favorite authors, Pat Conroy, lives in Beaufort, South Carolina and the town recently celebrated his 70th birthday with a big party.

B

Some of the scenes from his book Prince of Tides

which was made into a movie, were filmed in Beaufort, including this old arsenal which is now the Visitor Center. The ladies at the center found me a place for a pedi and an oil change. Not at the same place.

The Arsenal stood in as George Carlin's swanky Greenwich Village apartment in the movie.

Went across to Lady Island for my pedi and oil change and on the way back crossed over this bridge

 that Forrest Gump ran across in the movie.

Back in Beaufort, the main street was mostly shops, a notch above tourist, but still...

thought about a bike or horse drawn carriage ride thru the mansion neighborhood but opted for a walking tour so I could stop where I wanted.

Beautiful antebellum houses behind big oak trees hanging with Spanish moss.

This home from 1853 was featured in the movie 

The Big Chill.

   

The neighboring town of Bluffton

had a reputation of being

"the last true coastal town of the South" from a 1986 article.

Today it still has some of its quirkiness but every authentic building in town is now a shop for tourists. Darn.

 Spent the night in a Hilton Head Island RV Park right on the water.

                                 With its own boat dock and restaurant, it is the most expensive rv place I've stayed at $75.

In 2004 the average home price here on Hilton Head  was $800K. 

It is beautiful but even in November, very humid.

But I also had one of the best meals I've had so far at the restaurant.

It was Shrimp and Grits, a popular dish here in the South.

 Barbequed shrimp are around the edges of the plate of creamy grits with a roasted poblano pepper sauce and sausage in the center. I'm bringing home a jar of the sauce to try it at home.

Yummm!

Leaving the Low Country Islands,

 I headed for Aiken, SC. in the center of the state away from the coast.

Every retirement magazine has ads for Cedar Creek, a retirement community like the Villages with golf course and all the amenities.

The golf course was beautiful, the Club House small, and only one swimming pool and a few tennis courts.  This single family home was for sale for $350K on its half acre lot.  But it wasn't as homey as the Villages.  I saw no one driving thru, a ghost town.