Ruins & More In South Carolina

We had never heard of this place but just “had” to drive to this National Park, even though it was about 2 hours away. Why? We like to see the National Parks and as a bonus, Kevin likes to get his Passport Book to Your National Parks Explorer Edition book stamped. And a double bonus comes from the board game Trekking that my parents gave us for Christmas. On the board are listed various National Parks on a map. I circled in black sharpie on the board the parks we have already visited. 😃  Congaree National Park: we had never heard of it and it didn’t come up in my searching of things to do so I was glad it is on the game board.

We took the side roads, “through the country” from Yemassee, South Carolina to the National Park. As we got closer to the park we got a few rolling hills, one farm with cows, and a good number of fields. Lots of tiny towns and tons of churches. In Bamberg, SC, we saw buildings that were partly down and the road was closed. As we drove around the detour we saw that downtown looked like a bomb had hit it. I quickly looked it up on my iPhone and yes, Jan 9, 2024, just a few months ago, there was a tornado with 125 mph wind. https://www.foxweather.com/extreme-weather/video-tornado-bamberg-south-carolina 

Congaree National Park is “bottomland forest”. There were a lot of people there on this nice day. Even saw a Class C motorhome with these words: “Kram-A-Lot-Inn” on the side. HAHA The visitor center was small. They weren’t playing the main film today but had a QR code so you could watch it on your own. The other film, showing in the lobby, was one about safety. The closed captions were on. This place gets an A! We decided to walk the boardwalk path. Because of all the rains yesterday, (see my post last week) a lot of the trails and part of the boardwalk are flooded. The boardwalk was nice: good wood, easy walking, and nice to be high off the ground and water. We didn’t go in the flooded part. Several places we saw snakes. Eeek! but nice the ones we saw were a ways a way. We enjoyed seeing the trees in the shallow water. I wondered if this was a swamp where the water stayed or moved. We looked closer and saw the water is actually moving.

Old Sheldon Church Ruins, Yemassee, SC 03/24

Old Sheldon Church Ruins. This place is beautiful! Huge old church with just the brick columns and outside brick walls remaining. Down here they like to say that it was burned by the British in the Revolutionary War, rebuilt, and then burned down by Sherman “Storming To The Sea.” Well, we read on the official sign there that recent facts have come to life and in fact, the local people TOOK stuff from inside the church to rebuild their places. We found the oldest headstone so far that we have seen – Mary Bull born 1702. She is buried at Old Sheldon Church Ruins.

Kevin said we should have a “do-over” at Charleston. (Read the post from last week about the flooding.) That sounded good. We left around 7:45 a.m. and the day was clear, sunny, and reached high 70s. Glad the flooding is done; we were able to drive right to the first stop. We went to The Charleston Visitor Center. On a display I learned about Earthquake Bolts. I see pretty shapes, for example a star, on buildings. They are actually reinforced metal rods that intersect through the walls to help keep them together. Charleston had an earthquake in 1886 that was between 6.9 and 7.3. The shock was felt clear to the Mississippi River and all along the eastern coast. “It was so severe that outside the immediate area there was speculation that the Florida peninsula had broken away from North America!” HAHA About 100 people died. Another display showed “Charleston Receipts” (<- not a typo!) a 1950 cookbook with recipes from the 1800s. How about Breakfast: Breakfast Shrimp, Lunch: Charleston Okra Soup, Dinner: Hoppin’ John. I just can’t even think about shrimp for breakfast!

The Real Hunley is 17 Inches Shorter From The Top Than This Model! Charleston, SC 03/24

We walked across the street to The Charleston Museum. Outside we saw a model of H.L. Hunley. It was used to break the Union naval blockade at Charleston and “became the first submarine in history to sink an enemy ship.” It had a spar-mounted torpedo at the front. It sank the Housatonic on Feb 17, 1864 and was never seen again until more than a century later. The Charleston Museum operated a branch called Hunley Museum from 1967 – 1979 and had this full-scale model that we see.  However, there was limited historical data available at the time and there were several differences found, once Hunley was discovered in 1995 and raised in 2000. For one thing, the Hunley is 17 inches shorter in height than this model version! The crew compartment was very cramped indeed. 

The roads are narrow here in historic downtown Charleston and we see a lot of old houses and modern condos. The houses are very narrow (visitor center said one room wide) and long. Very close together. Anyway, we drove to a place that is on top of my list – The Old Slave Mart Museum. I had read you need an hour to read everything. Well, it seems the whole world was there! No parking anywhere so we drove blocks to the public parking garage and the sign said it was full. 

We Are Sure Learning A Lot! Abraham Lincoln’s Words, Fort Sumter Visitor Center, Charleston, SC 03/24

We decided to skip this place for now and go to Fort Sumter Visitor Center. Library Square is a nice walk to the visitor center, with displays around of people who lived in the area. I had emailed this place and asked about captions. They said they didn’t have films here. Some things we learned: *The fort was built on a man-made island, had 3 tiers, and made of brick. *“For the most part, as each state seceded, local and state government remained unchanged. On the national level the mail continued between North and South…” That was a surprise to us. 

By this time, we were done there and hungry. Kevin found a restaurant called “Fleet Landing”. It was about .8 of a mile and we walked. Before 1940, the Fleet Landing was the home of Cooper River Ferry that took people across the river to towns there. That year a hurricane badly damaged the building. In 1942 the US Navy tore down the ferry building and constructed the current Fleet Landing building. The Navy used it for off-loading sailors, supplies, general maintenance, and resupplying ships. Around 1970, the Navy stopped using the building. In 2003, the current owners, Weesie & Trade Newton did extensive renovations and made it a great place to eat. We wanted local food so I order a crab cake sandwich with a side of “Carolina red rice.” I am glad I tasted it but to me it didn’t have a lot of flavor. I know, crab doesn’t have a lot of flavor anyway. The food was plated well and the sandwich had arugula, tomato and red onions. Kevin had fried shrimp and coleslaw. For him it was the same way, not a lot of flavor. I tasted the coleslaw and can’t decide what was in it. It wasn’t vinegar but it was tart. This is a very neat building and we like the history. I think their food is on high quality, we just picked local flavors that weren’t as vibrant as we like. Rated: Come Again and Try Their Burgers. Outside, right next to the restaurant that sits over the water, is an dry dock. Even saw the stairs going down.

As we continued our walk, we saw several houses that were talked about at the visitor center. You can even purchase tickets and take a tour through some of them. Always interesting to see old houses next to modern buildings.

Fort Moultrie Looking At Fort Sumter, SC 03/24

We drove across the harbor to Sullivans Island and to Fort Moultrie Visitor Center and Fort. The visitor center is across the street from the fort. We went to the visitor center; the ranger said there was one last film being shown today and it would start in 3 minutes. Whew! I knew this was closed caption from the email I had sent to Fort Sumter. We double checked with him and yes it is. This place gets an A! The film is 22 minutes long and he said was made in the 1970s. We thought it was very well done, with different “soldiers” taking us through the entire time periods starting at American Revolution. They have some displays here but with time running out we hurried outside to see the fort. The fort is much smaller than we thought. Of course they told us it doesn’t look like it did back in the day. I wanted to see Fort Sumter from here. This is one of the forts that bombed it like crazy. Yes, we could see Fort Sumter. It seemed a long ways for a cannon but they were able to hit it. Time was gone and we didn’t get to look around much but that is just fine because we saw from it what I wanted to see. 🙂  

Sometimes I get so deep into a book that I loose track of time and forget to get dinner started. That is when Kevin says he will cook and that means going out to eat. HA For dinner we went to Waffle House. As we were eating, we were using American Sign Language. I am deaf and this is how we communicate. I saw a family with 3 younger kids. The kids and parents just stared at us a lot. We get watched often but this was all-out-watching for a long time. As we were checking out, the girl probably about 6 years old and her mom came over and stood next to us. The little girl reached out and shook my shirt to get my attention. Then she signed her name to me. That was so sweet! Turns out they are learning American Sign Language and wanted to sign with me. That was so cool! I asked how they are learning and mom signed school. I thought them very brave to come over and communicate with me. So enjoyable!