The PENguin Blog

Thursday we continued our exploration of South Carolina’s lowcountry as we went along State Route 17 South to Georgetown,   South Carolina, sometimes claimed as one of the oldest settlements in the United States, and from there to Charleston, an easy hundred or so miles.  Georgetown's Rice Museum We didn't see any exhibits on rice, but they had a nice shop More views of the town The view from the inlet On the way, however, we found ourselves at Hopsewee, a mid-18 th century rice plantation, one of the earliest extant. The view of the house as you approach it from Highway 17. This is the back of the house. The front of these houses faced, of course, the water The water The front of the house What is remarkable here is that the original house, hewn from the old growth “black” cypress which were cleared from swamps by African slaves to create the rice fields, stands intact and largely unmodified having passed through t...

We spent Wednesday in and about Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. To be honest, we had no expectations for this sprawling beach resort. We’d heard of it, of course, but did not know what to expect. And in some ways it is similar to Virginia Beach, our last stop, but mostly were you to hang about in town, which we did not do. Interestingly, part of our itinerary came from a server in one of the restaurants at the hotel where we stayed. The rest was of Sharon’s devise. We began the day at Brookview Gardens, which was pulled together out of four old low country rice plantations in the 1930s by Archer and Alma Huntington, of the railroad family. It was initially meant to showcase Alma’s sculpture but would then grow beyond that. Today it bills itself as the world’s largest sculpture garden. But what interested us most was the Lowcountry exhibits which presented lowcountry life and work on the rice plantations of the 18 th and 19 th centuries and, of course, slavery and the live...

Having spent a wonderful weekend celebrating Passover with family in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley, Monday saw us heading eastward through Virginia, destination Virginia Beach, our launch point as we head across North Carolina to Myrtle Beach. We bought lunch and drinks for tomorrow at the local Harris Teeter. We also gassed up and will buy only enough gasoline to get us out of NC. On the advice of my cousin Ron, we took backroads through the Shenandoah Valley, into the Blue Ridge mountains, where we ran across Blue Ridge Pottery. After a brief stop to buy several pieces, including one from 1990 we headed on to the Piedmont. As we drove along Highway 33, we saw a sign advertising tours of Montpelier, the home of James Madison, the father of the Constitution and our 4 th president. It was not in our plans, but we had to stop. The property was deeded to the National Trust for Historic Preservation by the DuPont family who had owned it for most of the 20 th century and is n...

We had just one full day in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and we spent it walking in nature and driving through it. The walk was a 2 ½ mile stroll up to Laurel Falls and the drive was a random ramble along the main and back roads. From there we went northwest through some of the most intense rain I have driven in to Harrisonburg, Virginia to spend Passover weekend with cousins. On Monday we will go to Virginia Beach, there to provision for the trek across North Carolina, which we hope to do with just one necessary stop for enough gas to get to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, no food, no shopping. We had hoped to do some touring in North Carolina, not this time. The walk up to the falls was relatively easy and picturesque Been playing with black and white The falls were, as you might expect, crowded. After shooting a few images I sat down on a rock bench next to someone with a big DSLR and tripod and we got to talking. Turns out she is a ...