Artillery Punch

As noted previously, we toddled off to a restaurant we had visited 17 years ago, famous for its "Artillery Punch" drink. We liked it then, and liked it again this time. As a service to our readers, we hereby re-print the recipe as presented by said restaurant:

Chatham Artillery Punch

1 1/2 gallons catawba wine
1/2 gallon rum
1 quart gin
1 cup Benedictine
2 quarts Maraschino cherries
1 1/2 quarts rye whiskey
1 1/2 gallons strong tea
2 1/2 pounds brown sugar
1 1/2 quarts orange juice
1 1/2 quarts lemon juice

Mix above and chill for 48 hours
before serving. Add one case
of champange when ready to
serve.

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Now, as you can see, that makes a rather large batch. However, we determined that two people, if they put their mind to it, can finish off a batch in a couple of days. One small issue we have to address is that at the end of that couple of days, the calendar said that eleven days had passed. We're not sure if the Government changed the calendar for something like leap year or daylight saving time, or whether it was some other sort of phenomonem. We may have to cook up another batch to find out.

Savannah

I've written about Savannah before. The town was lucky not to be burned in General Sherman's burning of the south at the end of the Civil War but it struggled economically when the cotton industry collapsed.

Recently, with the infusion money that came in with the Olympics in 1996, a lot of building was done on the waterfront, with a trade center built on an island across the river.

We rode the town's free shuttle down to the waterfront today to have lunch and a bit of Chatham Artillery Punch at the Shrimp Factory. We "shopped" along the River walk, past the waving girl statue. This woman waved to all boats what went by for 43 years. We took a ride across the river to the trade center on the town's "Savannah Belles" ferrys.

I like the architecture in Charleston, SC with many of their homes being built before 1800. Savannah had the advantage of being settled almost 50 years later. It is such a beautiful setting and many homes were built of solid stuff like bricks, stone, stucco. The town was laid out with 21 tree-filled sanctuary squares which are still in place today (makes traffic a bit challenging navigating around them).

There are many beautiful homes in the historic area. With the live oak trees hanging over the roadway and the Spanish Moss* hanging off the branches, it is such a romantic feel. Here are a some pictures of a couple homes we passed today.

Really think that I should have read "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil" before we got here. Will put it on my "must read" list. From what I have read it is a true-crime novel with lots of eccentric characters.

* Spanish moss was named by the French explores because the moss looked like the Spaniard explorers' beards.

Fort Sumter

Fort Sumter, in Charleston (SC) harbor, was one of several coastal fortifications begun in 1829.  It was still unfinished and unmanned in December, 1860, when South Carolina delegates voted to secede from the Federal Union.  On December 26, it was manned by the Federal army with a "force" of 85 men, who moved there from one of three other Federal fortifications around Charleston harbor -- the only one that had been manned at all.

 

By March 2,1861, seven states had seceded, and the other three former Federal installations had been taken over by the newly proclaimed Confederate States of America.  When South Carolina demanded that the Federals leave Fort Sumter on April 11 and were rebuffed, the stage was set for what would become the American Civil War.

 

At four-ten on the morning of April 12, a signal shell was fired from one of the former Federal forts -- the "shot heard 'round the world".  For the next 34 hours, the fort was pounded from three sides by superior numbers of weapons manned by superior numbers of troops.  A truce was called at 2pm on the 13th, and the fort surrendered that evening.  The morning of the 14th, the Federal commander and his 85 men boarded a ship for New York.  Incredibly, no one on either side was killed.

 

For the next two years, Charleston harbor became the focal point for war goods flowing in to the Confederates, and cotton flowing out to pay for those goods.  In April 1863, the Union army re-took one of the forts at the southern lip of the harbor, installed rifled cannons, and in July, began shelling Fort Sumter.  The fort's fifty-foot high and five-foot thick walls, which could repel round shot with minimal damage, were pulverized by the rifled shots.  By the end of the year, the fort could respond with only "harmless musketry".  Intermittent fire continued for the next year -- the Union army fired a total of seven million pounds of metal at the fort.  With Union general Sherman's army advancing on the city, the fort was abandoned by the Confederates on February 17. 1865, and on April 14, 1865, exactly four years after the Union army marched out of Fort Sumter, it was re-occupied by the Union, and the same flag taken down four years earlier was run up the flagpole.

 

Today, the fort is only a shell of its former self (pun intended).  The multi-tiered fifty-foot walls are gone -- reduced to rubble by the Union shelling.  Any remaining structures inside the walls were removed in 1899 and two huge concrete "disappearing rifle" emplacements were built there.  (Similar to those at Fort Warden in Port Townsend, for you Washington folks.)  Both of those were removed during WWII, and anti-aircraft guns installed.  (Those are gone, too.)  A lighthouse was put there in 1865, moved to facilitate the 1899 construction, and demolished in 1948, the same year the fort was transferred from the War Department to the National  Park Service.   A museum is located in the space formerly occupied by one of the disappearing rifles.  A NPS tour boat hauls tourists to the fort (for a few bucks) where one can where the walls, guns, soldier's quarters, and lighthouse USED to be. 

Christmas Lights at James Island

Wanted to get off the road over the Thanksgiving holidays so we looked for a campground to hole up in. Guess what? The weather here in South Carolina is so miserable in the summer - high humidity and temps - that folks camp more in the fall than the summer, and this wonderful campground -- James Island County Park, near Charleston -- is usually booked solid during that time.

With the weather being so mild, we didn't care if we were in the dry-camp overflow area or not, but managed to get a spot with power and water for each of the 7 nights we were there.

We were at this park 17 years ago during the first week that the campground was open. We recalled the friendly rangers and how convenient it was to get into downtown Charleston. At that time, the roads and RV sites were newly laid beach gravel, complete with beautiful whelk shells, and there was no foliage to speak of. (Of course, that was just one year after Hurricane Hugo blasted this area.) But we did remember their holiday light show.

It's just gotten bigger and better!

3 million lights on a 3 mile driving tour with many themed areas: candyland, sealand, toyland, dinosaurs, musicland, spaceland, nursery rhymes.

"Little extras" - lights high up in the trees: musical notes, stars, candycanes, autumn leaves.

Animated displays: a fire-breathing dragon, a dinosaur eating branches from a tree, chasing alligators, sharks!, a strutting peacock, a segue from the town's old bridge outline to their new suspension bridge, and marching nutcracker soldiers.

And some fun ones: santa hitting a golf ball across a field, old man winter blowing across a field lighting trees in white as the cold breath went past them, and Rudolph measuring a chimney opening and letting Santa know that there is no way he was going to get down there. (That particular display was sponsored by Weight Watchers.)

There are 5 drive-thru arches: snowflakes, icicles, Christmas bulbs.

We see on "Good Morning America's" holiday light topic that they will be visiting James Island's light show. Stay tuned.

Old Charles Towne - the original Charleston

We spent a day at the Old Charles Towne State Historic Park at the location of the original settlement of Charleston.

This was the site chosen for the first settlement in 1670 as it was a safer and more easily defended position than where Charleston is today. The town moved to the current location in 1690 to take advantage of a deeper shipping port.

Three ships were funded by a group of 8 rich fellows called the Lord Proprietors, who were given the land by the king. In return, they were expected to reap return on their investment similar to the successful plantations in Barbados using slave labor.

The Lord Proprietor's got a bit antsy when no profits were coming back in the first two years. The colonists who had expected to set up plantations had to first defend their area by building fortifications and train their own militia to protect their area from the natives, the Spanish, and the French. Then they could set about finding out what might grow best in the Carolinian climate.

The Lords expected at the very least that a trading ship full of lumber for Barbados plantations and barrel staves would have been loaded at Charles Towne in exchange for the supplies sent from England and Barbados. When nothing was returned, Charles Towne was informed that no more supplies would be forthcoming to them

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This nice park was rebuilt in 2005. On the day we visited, it was the "Colonial Trades and Harvest Festival". Costumed reenactors fired muskets and cannons, tanned hides, and dyed clothing with indigo.

There was a full scale trading ship, a native wildlife zoo, experimental crop garden, and a number of archaeological digs in process.

We especially got a kick out of the "digital dig". We first swept our hands over a 4x8 table covered with digital leaves. When the leaves were cleared away, grass remained. By continuing to sweep the table surface, we were able to "dig" a little deeper. We uncovered "digitally" a cell phone, a dollar, a watch, a toy, and a candy wrapper before digging (sweeping) deeper and digitally finding some broken pottery, a handmade nail, a thimble, and a musket ball. Don't know how that was done -- fascinating!

Anyone for Tea?

Reading of things to go see in Charleston, we found that the only tea plantation in America was nearby. Had to check that out.

The Bigelow Tea Company recently bought this farm from an "old hippie" who had been trying to make it profitable. Bigelow has built a new building housing the processing plant with a self-guided tour, viewing windows and a visitor center. We took a tour through the fields and learned some fascinating facts:

The tea bush is a camellia.

Some tea plants in Asia are 600 years old.

Tea plants are essentially a series of hedges about a foot apart. It doesn't grow well unless the temperatures are above 100! Loves high temps, high humidity, and moderate rain.

This plantation was originally set up as a research facility in the late 1800's.

Tea is harvested here by a custom-built tractor/mower that runs between the rows and cuts off the top 5" of a hedge row of these plants. In other countries, this is done manually. We were told that the tractor used here replaces about 500 individuals.

This plantation has 21 fields. Each field is cut 8-10 times in the growing season. (That top 5" of the hedge regrows that fast.) This keeps the tractor and the factory processing continually from about April to the end of October.

5000 lbs of clippings become 1000 lbs of tea.

The difference between black, oolong, and green tea is the amount of time spent fermenting (black: 50 minutes, oolong: 15 minutes, green: none).

This farm produces a black tea called " American Classic".

Don't expect to see more tea produced in America -- importing the tea is cheaper, in spite of that tractor replacing 500 workers. The Bigelow folks bought this plantation partly to have at least one American growing/processing facility, and to be able to demonstrate to Americans how it's done.

90% of the tea consumed in SC is iced. And they do drink a lot of it.

Charleston also had a "Boston Tea Party" protest on British taxes, except they kept the tea and used it to raise funds for their Revolutionary War effort.

Way down south in the land of cotton

Actually the biggest cotton growing state is Texas and South Carolina is in about 6th place. While traveling through the Pee Dee (that's a river) region we stopped in Bishopville and toured the South Carolina Cotton Museum.

This museum did a great job of describing the whole cotton process from the different types of cotton (we didn't know there was a difference) to weaving into fabric. Nice displays of textile machinery, murals and dioramas. We learned that cotton was originally found in most continents and woven cotton from 7000 years ago has been found.

I remember from my history lessons that Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin but never appreciated why it was so important. On display were boxes of pre- and post-gin cotton fiber. Before the cotton gin was invented in 1793, the fiber was pulled by hand off the tiny seeds. Each boll has 30 to 50 seeds. We had a heck of a time (never succeeded) trying to separate cotton from one seed. In the gin, circular saw blades pull the cotton fiber from the seed. This fiber is then called lint and is pressed into bales of 500 lbs.

The boll weevil made it's way into the US from Mexico in 1892 and it seems to have taken nearly 25 years before a pesticide was found to control them. Over the years, less nasty ways of control have been formulated. Underneath this HUGE boll weevil, was the last boll weevil found in South Carolina. Last: we are sure they hope. They do this by controlling the seed and a private individual may not grow cotton without getting a permit.

One acre of farmland produces 1 1/3 bales of cotton. From one bale 3000 diapers or 1200 Tshirts can be produced.

To determine value, ginned cotton is classed by color, cleanliness, and fiber strength, length and width. The 9 grades go from Middling Fair (which is the best) to Good Ordinary. Figure the saying "fair to middlin'" comes from this.

The amount of handling that cotton goes through before the finished product makes me wonder how I could ever expect to get fabric or cotton clothing for a reasonable price.

We've already harvested, baled, ginned, graded, and baled again above. Next the cotton "lint" goes to a mill where it is blended, cleaned, carded, twisted, spun, on various machines before being fed into a weaving loom to finally make fabric.

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Weird stuff: while we were in the museum today, one of the volunteers had her old single speed bike stolen. The police found it at the pawn shop where the owner had just given the "perp" $30 for it. We would have been distressed but they were laughing like that's not unusual to happen.

Last night just a few miles from us, 5 semis were hit with bullets shot from an overpass over a freeway we had been on 4 hours before.

So does anybody else have any leftover 39 cent stamps? We are still working off our old roll and need to get some 2 cent stamps. We've tried before and here we go again. The post office doesn't have any nor any 1 cent stamps. They told us to bring our 39-cent stamped envelope in and they will add the 2 cents from a meter. Egads.

Topiary Talent

Found out about these gardens in the South Carolina State visitor guide. Thank goodness they supplied an address as there is no sign to this fella's yard. We knew we were close when we started seeing sculpted shrubs in each yard.

Pearl Fryar describes himself as an "old hippie from New York City". When he moved here he became inspired to win the local "Yard of the Month" award and taught himself topiary skills. He prefers not to use boxwood but uses youpon holly, junipers and oaks among other shrubs.

Many of his plants were bought from a local nursery as damaged stock and all the rest have been raised from 1/2 gallon pots. He doesn't water or fertilize and uses pine straw to protect the plants. He's lucky to live in this mild climate.

Once the plant is sculpted he says it doesn't take much skill to keep the plant in shape, but he does keep at it by trimming each plant in his 3 acre yard about every 3 weeks.

He and his gardens have been on TV many times and he teaches classes in topiary. He delights in sharing his garden with others. We enjoyed having him guide us on a garden walkthru. He pointed out two large topiaries that will be moved to museums in the next year. Downtown Bishopville has Fryar's topiaries down it's main street.

To find out more: http://www.fryarstopiaries.com/

Greenville rocks

A lot of towns in the south that we travel through are fairly depressing with many dead factories and empty storefronts. But not Greenville, SC. We had time to do some sightseeing here. What a vital downtown!

Greenville is built around a falls where a mill was located in the 1700's. They have built a park along both sides of the river, a suspension bridge over the falls, and flowers and an amphitheater at the site of an old quarry. Lucky for us they also have city-sponsored free wifi in the park, too.

Surrounding the park and paths are 8 to 10 story condos, hotels, and businesses with restaurants on the bottom floor. We were impressed that one 100-year old multi-storied concrete storehouse was remodeled into a major company's offices. We imagine that may not have been cost effective? but the brick building looked great in that location.

We find many towns in the east have a narrow main street from horse and buggy days. Not Greenville. There was room for a wide sidewalk, trees, plantings, diagonal nose-in parking and 4 lanes of traffic.

Pretty town.

Another thing we enjoy about this area of the south is that many of the people we come in contact with are genteel and polite, friendly and helpful. Nice folk.

Attack of the Peachoid!

Love the oddities we find in our travels.

This is Gaffney, South Carolina's million gallon water tank which was built in the early 1980's.

The story goes that their public works department was working way too late one night trying to figure out how to pay for a necessary new water tank and came up with this idea. Best news of all: the local tourism bureaus paid for most of it! And,yes, they do grow peaches here - in fact South Carolina grows more than Georgia, they say.

There are now two Peachoids. Another in Alabama. Maybe we'll pass near it later on.

All the colors on the Blue Ridge Parkway

Tan, tumbleweed, sunset orange, antique brass, atomic tangerine, burnt orange, fuzzy wuzzy brown, copper, goldenrod, macaroni and cheese, mango tango, mahogany, chestnut, raw sienna, neon carrot, pine green and sky in, what else, sky blue.









With the exception of only a few spots of scarlet seen more in the New England sugar maples, all these crayon colors appeared along our Blue Ridge Parkway travels in Virginia and North Carolina.














November is a great time to ride along the ridge. Nobody's here. This year the foliage color is beautiful. On the other hand, nobody is here (including rangers) and nothing is open: visitor centers, campgrounds, and most picnic areas. No deer, either. Hunting season is open.














Loved the pastoral views, the neat farms, the contrasts of evergreens to deciduous trees. And for the last 100 miles, the major main shrub is the rhododendron (catawba) - imagine them all in bloom!














Due to road construction (in the off season) we will be detoured off the Blue Ridge at mile post 330. We've enjoyed the pace.

This is Mabry Mill in use from 1910 to 1935. The watermill powered a gristmill and a sawmill.

Monticello - "Little Mountain"

Thomas Jefferson is another statesman who gave the best part of his life helping to form the United States. He wrote his epitaph: "Author of the Declaration of American Independence, Of the Statute of Virginia for religious freedom, and Father of the University of Virginia".

He was all that and more. What we learned at Monticello was of his interest in architecture, sciences, and farming. The uniqueness of Monticello is credited to Jefferson's interest in ancient Roman architecture and styles he saw while in the diplomatic service in France.

Does Monticello look familiar? Just look on the back of a nickel.


These items in the home stand out in my mind:

A remote weather station. The weather vane with a shaft through the roofing to a compass rose mounted on the ceiling of the entry porch which allowed him to note the direction of the wind.

Triple hung windows. Each hung individually but the windows reached the floor. Pushing up the bottom two windows gave a door-sized access to the outdoors.

All-weather passageway. At basement level below the main house this walkway tied in the kitchen, stable, ice house, and stores.

The dome is the first in a home in America. Dumbwaiters to bring up meals and refreshments from the passageway. Indoor privies.

Again, like George Washington, the pull of public responsibilities did not allow him enough time for the management of his home and farms and these suffered. By the time he passed away, his heirs had to sell everything from home to furniture to slaves to satisfy the debt.

Uriah Levy bought it in 1834 and was interested in preserving it. Things got complex when the he died during the Civil War. The Confederate States seized Monticello and sold it. Ultimately, a grandson of Uriah reclaimed ownership and set about repairing restoring and preserving the property until it was bought by The Thomas Jefferson Foundation in 1923.