Writing In The Rain

It's raining in Charleston (Mt. Pleasant, actually) and we are in the Sea Island Suds laundromat catching up on laundry and the Speedy Journal.

It's been an active couple of days--gardens, sculpture, history and architecture. On Saturday we took the bikes north to Pawley's Island and Brookgreen Gardens. Pawley's Island is know for the Pawley's Island hammocks, but they don't seem to be made on the island. Actually, nothing is made on the island as it is completely a residential, mostly vacation, community. There isn't even a store or cafe. They are all out on the highway off the island. The island is quite long and narrow so most houses are either on the Atlantic beach or on the inlet behind the island. The houses are all up on posts and it seems obvious that the island is washed over in big storms. It was a short but pleasant cruise up and down the island.

Back to Highway 17, we drove through the sprawl of strip malls and resorts to Brookgreen Gardens, about five miles further north. The New York industrialist Archer Huntington and his sculptor wife, Anna bought up four ruined plantations and converted them into a large park and garden dedicated to late-19th and early-20th century American figurative sculpture. You know the type—animals or people (mostly nude) in motion. Anna Hyatt Huntington was a well-known figurative sculptor. Much of the sculpture is outdoors with each large sculpture as the centerpiece of its own formal garden.

We first stopped for lunch at their restaurant as we were cold and hungry when we arrived. It was a rather cool and windy 40-mile ride to get there. Chili and a chicken salad croissant for Ellen and chili and cheesy grits for me. After warming up, we took a guided tour of the gardens, it was interesting, but only covered the highlights and the tour guide didn't really excite us. After the tour, we went into a couple of the buildings where the collection of smaller sculptures was on display. A short stroll back through the gardens and we headed back to Buck Hall. It was about all the walking my still sore back could take. Unfortunately, there wasn't enough time to walk through their small zoo featuring animals native to the area.

It was even cooler on Sunday, so we stored the bikes in the trailer and took Speedy into Charleston and out to Drayton Hall. Drayton Hall has been sort of a quest for us. We tried to stop on our way back from Florida two winters ago, but they were closed because some of their massive live oak trees blew over onto the drive during a storm the day before. Happily Drayton Hall was open this time.

The hall is unique. It is an 18th-century brick, Georgian-style, house built in the English style of country houses, rather than the typical southern plantation style. It was owned by the same family for seven generations from its construction until the 1970's when it was sold to the National Trust for Historic Places, which has preserved it. What makes it unique is that it was never modernized in all that time, no indoor plumbing, no wiring, no insulation, no modern finishes, only one or two coats of paint. The Trust chose to preserve it, rather than restore it, so its interior is empty and sparse, with the original paint, plaster and bare wood floors in the condition they were at the time they took over the property. They have stabilized any places that needed it, but some of the details and paints go back to the initial construction of the house.

That is not to say that it is all early-18th century in style. There were some changes to keep up with some Federalist and Victorian styles and colors as the use of rooms changed over time, but it stopped changing after the Civil War and the family fortunes declined. The family had owned over a 100,000 acres of rice plantations, all based on slave labor (now politically correctly re-termed "enslaved African" labor). Needless to say, after the war, rice production based on slaves was no longer possible and hence not economically viable.

After Drayton Hall, we headed into Charleston for a short walking tour. Being Sunday, we took advantage of free parking at the Visitor Center and hopped a free trolley that let us off right next to St. Michael's Church, probably the grandest of the early Charleston churches, complete with signers of the Constitution and a Chief Justice of the Supreme Court in its cemetery. From there we headed towards the harbor through the residential historic district. Most of the houses are extremely handsome and well-kept, many with beautiful hidden gardens (seen by peeking through the gates).

We did a stroll down Meeting Street, around the Battery at the harbor, where the big mansions are (most not as nice to our eye as the smaller houses on Meeting Street) and then up Church Street past St. Phillip's Church, the oldest congregation in Charleston, but not the oldest church, equally as impressive as St Michael's. The residential area we walked through reminded us of Beacon Hill—albeit without the hills.

We stopped at the Charleston Market, which was a vegetable and meat market, but is now mostly crafts and such. It was crowded and we weren't impressed. After that, it was a trolley back to the Visitor Center, a walk to a nearby coffee cafe, Kudu, filled with students and good coffee, then back to Buck Hall. All in all a long day.

We woke to rain this morning and figured it was a good day for laundry and topping up the larder, so we headed out to Mount Pleasant to the Sea Island Subs and Whole Foods. The laundry is done; we've picked up food and wine; stopped for lunch by the Bull Island Ferry dock and back to camp.

A walk around the campground showed us the Bird of the Day, a Brown Thrasher.

Drayton Hall and Charleston photos here