From Mount Vernon we headed along scenic backroads to the northern entry point onto the Skyline Drive, a scenic drive through Virginia's western border. This drive runs right into theBlue Ridge Parkway, another beautiful drive that spans both Virginia and North Carolina.
We've (finally) hit the timing right on the nose, and the trees were in perfect green-ness (we've did a lot of driving in the "off" season when going across Canada in the fall). There wasn't much to do except enjoy the drive, and poke into a few small cutesy/run down (yes, it more often than not a combo of the two) towns here and there.
Cam and DJ, loving the scenery on the Blue Ridge Parkway
Our routine of late has been to stop at a nice park and cook up dinner, then hit the road for an hour or two in the lovely dusk lighting
From the end of the Blue Ridge Parkway, we drove back to the east coast and hit up Charleston, South Carolina for a couple days. The hightlight there was touring our first plantation, Drayton Hall, and seeing our first antebellum homes.
Drayton Hall was a preserved plantation home on the outskirts of Charleston. It was built in the 1800's by a rice farmer, though of course Mr. Drayton himself didn't do the farming...his 200 or so slaves did. The house itself was grand in size, and would have once upon a time been elegantly decorated (currently it's empty of furniture with the focus for tourists being on the original structure). We had an amazing hour long "lecture" in the gardens led by a professor who was discussing the lives of enslaved African Americans.
Drayton Hall
This was only the beginning of our insight into the period before the Civil War. Charleston's Slave Market Museum was inside the original city slave market and had much more to teach us. There were audio accounts of people reflecting on their time as slaves (yes, one woman remembered being sold in that very market as a 15 year old girl--chilling). We've learned heaps and here's a few things we found surprising that you might too:
-the import of slaves from Africa ended early in the 1800's and between then and emmancipation the slave trade was run American-born slaves
-it wasn't all cotton! Rice was a huge crop for plantation owners (and brought malaria to the US) as was tobacco and indigo
-if slaves were lucky, they could save enough money to "buy" themselves and then in turn try to "buy" their family members
On a lighter note (though still related to slavery, as many of the luxurious homes were summer homes for plantation owners and their families) we walked the town and saw the antebellum (pre Civial War) houses. These are exactly what you picture in the south...the big porches (always facing north-south to get the southerly wind!), rocking chairs, three stories high, and beautiful gardens.
We learned a thing or two about architecture during our tours...and what we walked away with is that they loved Greek renaissance style
The porches weren't on the front of the house like we're used to, but on the side in order to catch the lovely southern breeze
We went to The Wreck of the Richard and Charlene for "the best fried seafood in the US" (or maybe they only claimed South Carolina?) and it completely lived up to all expectations, and perhaps exceeded as well! We had oysters, grouper, crab cakes, shrimp all with sides of hush puppies, red rice, fried hominy square and slaw. YUM!
The next day we went to Beaufort, just a couple hours south of Charleston, and still on the water. Here we did a fantastic walking tour with just the two of us and our guide and got a great host of stories about the prominent antebellum homes in town. Beaufort is so typical of the south that many Hollywood films are staged here...think Forrest Gump!
One of Beaufort's highlights were the 200-300 year old Oak trees, which are protected by city law and can't be cut down
A few more hours driving on the I-95 and we reached the Florida state line.
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