May 19 - 24, 2007 Savannah to Charleston

On May 19 we and about a million other people visited Savannah. We took a bus tour in an open air bus. Savannah has 6 “preservation districts” but the only ones I heard mentioned were the Historic district, the Colonial district and the Victorian district. They all looked pretty much the same to me… Just across the street from the regulated historic district, since the restrictions do not apply there, someone had painted their house a bright pink with purple and other bright colors. Most of the original buildings of Savannah were destroyed by fires or the big earthquake of 1886.

In 1732 James Ogelthorpe was given a charter by the King of England to start a colony between Charleston and St. Augustine. England wanted a buffer zone to protect the very important colony of Charleston from the Catholic Spanish in Florida. While still in England, Ogelthorpe drew up a plan for the city streets, 24 parks and locations for the important buildings. When the colonists arrived in 1733, they started building the city right away. The city has either kept up or renovated 22 of these original parks. For some of them they had to purchase the land, remove the buildings and recreate the parks. They will never recreate the other two parks because there are City buildings built on them!

When the Charter was granted, there were Four Prohibitions included:
n -- There were NO Catholics allowed in the colony. (The Catholic Spanish in Florida were the enemy.)
n -- There was to be NO hard liquor. Wine and ale were allowed.
n -- There were NO lawyers allowed. (This wasn’t really practical since legal work was required…)
n -- There were NO slaves allowed. (This was not practical when it came to running the plantations and growing the crops. The way the colonists solved this problem was to “rent” slaves from their South Carolina neighbors just across the river.)

The City is very proud of the fact that Juliette Gordon Low, the women who started Girl Scouts, was born and raised in Savannah.

Savannah calls itself the “third most haunted city in America” after Charleston and New Orleans. (However, Google calls it the 5th most haunted city after New Orleans, Galveston, Gettysburg, Key West, Savannah and then Charleston…)

On Sunday, May 20, we drove out to Tybee Island to see the Fort, the beach and have a picnic lunch. It was a very interesting little barrier island. There was a lighthouse just off the beach, public parking near the lighthouse and the beach, and a small restaurant just off of the parking lot. The fortifications of the fort were spread out along the shoreline.

We just dropped into Fort Pulaski on the drive back to the mainland from Tybee Island and it was a great stop! We heard a lot about how the Yankees had landed on Tybee Island after the Confederates had taken up positions upriver one mile in the best fort ever built, Fort Pulaski. The Confederates felt safe because smooth bore cannon could only fire about 700 yards, 1000 yards maximum. What the Confederates DIDN’T know was that the Union Army had rifled cannon. The Union offered the Confederates a chance to surrender, which they did not do. Therefore the Union began to shell the fort from a mile away and the new rifled shot began to bore through Fort Pulaski’s heavily reinforced walls. By noon the second day, the rifled shots had opened a hole into the Fort and a shot landed very close to the ammunition room. Confederate Commander Olmstead surrendered the Fort after only 36 hours of battle.

It was neat that we saw the fortifications on Tybee Island first and then toured Fort Pulaski. While we were there they had a musket firing demonstration. The Ranger gave an excellent talk and an excellent presentation. It was especially fun since we only turned in there to see what it looked like and had absolutely no expectations!

After leaving Fort Pulaski, we headed to Hilton Head Island just to see it. Incredible! Anyone coming to Port Aransas from Hilton Head (like Becky Corder did) would be in shock. The island is COVERED in huge trees. They come together to form arches over most of the roads. However, the south end of the island is privately owned. If you don’t live there they charge you $5 to get in. Then you can drive down to the lighthouse built especially for tourists and spend you money in the shops around the lighthouse, also built especially for tourists! The boats at dock there would take you breath away. You can even go sailing on the prior America’s Cup boat, the Stars and Stripes.

On Monday, May 21, we drove to John’s Island, just southwest of Charleston. On Tuesday we went to the Middleton Plantation. The plantation was used for rice farming for quite a while after the owner was given a bag of rice by a ship captain and was told to plant it and see if it would grow. When it grew very well, Mr. Middleton imported slaves who knew the rice growing business and it worked very well until the salt water from too many hurricanes flooded the fields and ruined them for rice growing. They mined phosphate from the river for a while, but that too ended. In the early 1900’s the plantation was inherited by the husband of the last owner with the stipulation that if he remarried the plantation went instead to a distant cousin. He remarried, and the distnt cousin and his wife inherited the plantation. They were living with his parents in Charleston and were thrilled with being given a house…until they saw it. It was in a terrible state of disrepair and the wife lamented “We’ve been left a white elephant!” They did work on it, but now it is owned by a non-profit corporation that has house tours, guided tours describing the rice growing, garden tours and craftsmen of the period working in the outbuildings.

On Wednesday we went to the only tea plantation in North America. They actually grow the tea, cut the new growth off the top of the hedge-like plants, “wither” the leaves for 18 hours so that the leaves lose 20% of their moisture, grind the leaves to a pulp-like texture, fluff up that pulp and lay it 2” on a “drying bed”. It then dries naturally for 50 minutes before going into a dryer that uses heat to further dry it for 25 minutes. The dried tea leaf is then sifted through 2 different sifting hoppers to remove any twigs or debris. Then a machine that uses static electricity further removes any debris from the tea leaves. After this last purification, the little tiny tea particles are put in plastic tubs and shipped to Bigelow Tea Factory and put into tea bags and packaged as American Classic Tea. That American Classic Tea is the tea served in the white house. We spent about 3 hours watching the entire process from picking to packing. Most people spend about 25 minutes there…

Then we drove to Kiawa Island. They were having the Senior PGA Tour there. We took some pictures of some good looking houses…

On Thursday we toured Charleston. This time we took a bus tour where last time we had a walking tour. The walking tour was better. We covered a little more ground with the bus tour, but you didn’t feel as much a part of the history as you did with the walking tour. I won’t tell anyone the history of Charleston, because we have all been here and heard it! There is one interesting tidbit of information: When the Union forces recaptured Fort Sumner, the Union commanders wanted to have a ceremony to celebrate. They really wanted President Lincoln to come down the “rededicate” the Fort. However, Lincoln’s advisers decided that the trip would be too dangerous so Lincoln stayed in Washington and went to a nice safe theater to see a play…

We are in a wonderful campground that has just enough trees and just enough open space. It is a great place for a big rig.

Photos will be coming shortly!