Charles Towne Landing

This weekend is a getaway with family. My time with them is limited, so today was "Dave Day." I could do anything I wanted and I could drag three innocent victims with me. My main goal was to try out a new camera lens. Fortunately, I opted for the first opportunity and we "discovered" Charles Towne Landing, a 650-acre property that has become a state park.  This park is home to the beginning of European habitation of the Carolinas.

This is history, so without judgment let's just acknowledge that it ain't all pretty. These folks weren't much better at life than you and I are. The difference is that we have the distinct advantage of seeing how their lives played out. On the land we walked today there was dealing with indigenous people that ended poorly for them, there was slavery, there was servitude, there was--well, there was all the stuff that history is made of. On our part, that often amounts to refined finger pointing and a conviction we'd do things much better than our predecessors. Call me skeptical.

I wish I could share with you all that we saw and learned today, but that really smacks of making you sit through the slides of my summer vacation. It's bad enough that I'm even sharing my favorite photos of today's outing.

Please do not expect a cohesive story in the following narrative. Let's be honest. What we're dealing with is a distractible man with a camera. We're just lucky I remembered to remove the lens cap.

The Visitors Center had a special on entrance fees and walking audio tours. The museum was very nicely done and informative. Imagine leaving all you know and settling in a strange land. There was a lot of planning to gather the stores required to keep people alive. There was conniving and cajoling to get people to buy into this expedition as backers or participants. And there were disappointments. One of them was learning that what grows well in Barbados does not do well in the Carolinas. On the plus side, there was timber. Timber is a lovely resource for creating containers called barrels. Barrels are a lovely resource for creating coopers.

Thanks to the marvel of the Internet, wikipedia tells us about coopers and hoopers. "Traditionally, a cooper is someone who makes wooden, staved vessels, bound together with hoops and possessing flat ends or heads. Examples of a cooper's work include but are not limited to casks, barrels, buckets, tubs, butter churns, hogsheads, firkins, tierces, rundlets, puncheons, pipes, tuns, butts, pins and breakers. Traditionally, a hooper was the man who fitted the metal hoops around the barrels or buckets that the cooper had made, essentially an assistant to the cooper. The English name Hooper is derived from that profession. With time, many Coopers took on the role of the Hooper themselves."

In the interest of full disclosure, I didn't know all that and I didn't learn it today on our trip. But it is relevant because the tools pictured here are cooper's tools. And the laughing children running down the path beside the cooper's cabin while rolling a metal ring with a stick were undoubtedly the Hooper kids.

1. Cooper's Tools

For something completely irrelevant and out of the Colonial period, I offer you picture 2. I warned you I might not stay on task, but isn't this cool? One wall of the Visitor's Center is glass panels and this is how they are held together. Isn't that spiffy? Very industrial. Apparently, they are also effective. When I left the Visitor's Center and turned around, not one panel was missing. I suppose it gets sunny down here, and probably hot, too. Neither was an issue for us today, but the panels are all tinted and create a greenish cast on whatever you're viewing through them. The important thing is that you can view things through them. That's what led us outside the center and into the tour of the grounds.

2. Whizmo Glass Holding Thingy

My first stop was a pier connecting the Visitor's Center to ... well, to land. So much of this area is marshland that we'd be a filthy, muddy mess if somebody had not created piers, raised walkways, and paved pathways. Trips to the Chesapeake islands and the Atlantic seaboard offered similar vistas. Great stretches of sea grasses and channels of open water extending up and down the coast as far as we could see.

3. Spring Abstract

One noticeable thing they have here that we have not yet had in the Mid-Atlantic is a respectable Spring. Seasons are artists and they create with whatever is available. Standing on the pier just outside the Center door, I looked down and noticed this piece of art. This lovely abstract piece is done in the media of water, pollen, and leaves. For you hay fever sufferers, my apologies. I'm afraid this is the look of things to come.



Many blooms have already fallen from plants here. A local resident told us that some plants begin blooming in January. Here in March I was just pleased to see the buds on this tree, and also to see this water feature in the background.

4. Buds and Blowing Water (Bud-geyser?)

What follows are just a few of the interesting things (to me) that I saw today. You'll see some things that have no greater meaning than that they are attractive in some way. You'll see the path along a split rail fence that leads to an Animal Forest (inhabited by specimens of local fauna). The Forest, that is. The path is inhabited by specimens of visiting fauna. You'll see said fauna. You'll see a tree that was old when the Colonies weren't even young yet. And you'll see Tim. More on him later.

Ladies and Gentlemen, The Beatles!

Today's Rain Gauge. It was.

Companions

Critter Time

The Animal Forest was put together to show people the wildlife that settlers would have encountered when they first came to the Carolinas. It included waterfowl, red wolves, river otters, whitetail deer, bison, bobcats, skunks, black bears, turkeys and turkey vultures, and even exhibits of domesticated animals--two goats, one sheep, and one pig. I took pictures of several of these. Some even turned out.

Waterfowl

Why does this remind me of two friends meeting for coffee?

Bison

I am an easy mark for stuff that just makes you scratch your head. This sign for instance.

Well that's clear.

Sometimes it's just odd juxtaposition. I saw some pretty blooms. Then I saw a posted warning.

Beauty ...

Beauty and the Beast?

Dampened Joy

The nice thing about tromping about on a rainy day is that you're likely to encounter bits of joy that wouldn't appear on sunnier days. For instance, what would be the fun of the puddle rings picture with no puddle?

Puddle Rings

And on a dry day, the pink seed pods that were scattered all along this bridge would have blown away before I saw them as confetti strewn along our path. It was a damp day, but it was worth celebrating. We nearly had the entire park to ourselves. It was quiet. The bugs stayed home for the most part. The one person we met was kind, patient, and informative (and was driving an 8-person golf cart). So why not enjoy some impromptu confetti?

Seed Pod Confetti

Spanish Moss & Barbed Wire: Bloom Where You Are Planted

Hoosier Driver?

We had walked a good distance and we were becoming uncomfortably damp when a man in a long, green cart pulled up at a nearby shuttle stop. He was wearing a Notre Dame University knit driver's cap and a windbreaker and he agreed to drive us around for the rest of our tour. He was patient and even encouraged us to listen to the remaining stops on our audio tour. This is Tim, USN-Retired.

Many of you know I am from Indiana. I'm sometimes obnoxiously forthright about that. Tim mentioned he was originally from Indiana and had visited a number of places in his Navy career. Charleston was his final port and he has stayed. I had to ask. I figured he was probably from someplace up north. Nope. Vincennes. Tim Allega is from Vincennes, Indiana, just a few miles from my childhood home. And he still has roots there--siblings in Evansville and Terre Haute. What are the odds that we'd meet somebody in Charleston, South Carolina on a rainy day with a ready golf cart to haul four sodden people through the remainder of their tour? Not overwhelmingly good, I'll tell you that. So we availed ourselves of our good fortune and Tim took good care of us.

Captain Tim

Our first stop was a log cabin. It was furnished sparsely with items settlers might have had--a blanket chest, a table, a locked trunk, and little else. There was a hammock in the loft and very little light, which I've spoiled for you by not knowing how to turn off the flash on my camera.

Log Cabin Window

770 Squire

We saw a crenelated berm with cannon pointing toward the river, a vigilant guard from a time when no trees lined the river banks and no ship could easily approach the landing. On the river we saw this replica ketch, which would have been used to move goods up and down the coast. Crewing the ketch today was this lovely lady. She's been a keeper, and so I have. And she's ever hopeful I'll turn out alright. We'll see.

Lovely Crew

The tree in the following picture is reputed to be at least 700 years old. That means it was a seedling when the Fourth Crusade began and Genghis Khan was about to invade China. You may not care about that. Certainly nobody in the vicinity of this tree at the time did. Still, it's a useful frame of reference. So, if you're feeling old, buck up. You've barely begun, my friend.

Here a While, and Not Done Yet

If you've made it this far, well done! I'll leave you with red carpet treatment of a most pleasant kind. Thank you for bearing with my rambling and reading through my prose. I'm so glad you came along with us and I wish for you many blessings and impromptu adventures of your own.

Red Carpet Treatment