Daily Archives: April 22, 2011
Bagels and BBQ . . .
My morning started about 10 am with a client phone call as soon as I got up. She was having problems with sending email. She could receive but not send. Turned out to be a corrupted message in her outbox. Deleting it fixed the problem.
Then a few minutes later, our daughter Brandi called to say Hi. She was on her way home early for Good Friday with a 3 day weekend to look forward to.
With all that taken care of, I made coffee and Jan toasted up a Jalapeno Cheese bagel and some of Miss Terry’s great homemade bread.
About 1:30 we all headed in two vehicles. Nick and Terry were going to the bank and the Post Office, and then we were meeting them at their friend Jim’s used bookstore in Lakeside called The Pinetop Book Exchange.
We first met Jim when we were here last year and love roaming through all his great used books. We spent over an hour picking out more books to read. Just what we need, more books. We’ve already got so many to read as it is.
About 3:30 we left Nick and Terry at the bookstore while Jan and I headed over the Wal-Mart. Jan wanted to get her hair done, and then we did some shopping.
At 5 pm we met Nick and Terry, and Jim and his wife Sharleen at Stolen Recipe BBQ in Lakeside. Probably the best BBQ we’ve had since we left Houston, or Famous Dave’s BBQ even.
After a great time getting to know Jim & Shar, we headed back toward the rig stopping at Home Depot and Walgreens on the way, getting home about 7:30.
I finally got back to work on the floor heaters, and finally figured out how to put them back together. So maybe I won’t have to take them apart and clean them for another 4 years.
I’ve repost some of our visit to Charleston, SC in 2009.
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Thought for the Day:
“There’s no way to rule innocent men. The only power government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren’t enough criminals, one makes them.” – Ayn Rand in Atlas Shrugged
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Plantations and Peacocks…
Posted on June 18, 2009
Today we did the Charleston tourist thing.
We started out at 10:30 am with a bus tour out to the Magnolia Plantation and Gardens.
Magnolia Plantation was established in 1676 by the Drayton family and is still owned by their descendants today.
The first house stood from 1676 till 1810 when it accidently burned down. The second house lasted until 1865 when it was burned to the ground by retreating Yankee troops.
The present house started out as a small cottage built on the old foundation and gradually added on to until the present day.
Magnolia Plantation House
The plantation originally consisted of about 2200 acres. After the Civil War the family gradually sold off land to finance the rebuilding of the plantation. Today there is about 500 acres remaining.
And amazingly family members still live on the grounds, although not in the main house, which is open to the public.
After a 1 hour walking tour through the gardens and grounds, we had a 45 minute tram ride around the plantation itself.
We finished up with a 30 minute guided tour through the house itself.
Here are a few pictures.
They have a small petting zoo on site, including ‘white’ peacocks.
White Peacock
White Peacock 2
Peacock
Live Oak
Resurrection Fern
This metal frame is all that remains of the first greenhouse built in North American circa 1690.
First Greenhouse
The View from the back porch
Baby Gator catching some rays
Mama Gator
Plantation Reflecting Pond
After we returned to Charleston about 2:45 pm, we hopped on another tour bus for a 90 minute tour of downtown Charleston.
It was interesting to find out that although the town itself dates from 1670, the oldest houses only date from the early 1700′s. This is because of several accidental fires sweeping the city in the late 1700′s and early 1800′s, the Yankees burning part of the city in 1865, and then more recently, a devastating 7.5 earthquake in 1886.
And Hurricane Hugo in 1989 didn’t help things either.
There are only about 12 houses left from the 1700′s. Nothing earlier.
At the end of our tour it was almost 4:30 pm so we decided to have dinner at a nearby restaurant both tour drivers had mentioned called Jestine’s Kitchen.
This was good ole Southern cooking at it’s finest.
We started off with an appetizer of Fried Green Tomatoes and then Jan segued into the Fried Chicken with 3 cheese macaroni & cheese and green beans. I had the Pecan Crusted Chicken Breast with mashed potatoes and collard greens.
We then topped this off with Coconut Cream Pie for Jan and I dove into Blueberry/Peach Cobbler with ice cream.
Jan had so much chicken on her plate she brought half of it home, and we each brought home half of our desserts. Mmmmmm, leftovers!!!!!
After that we waddled back to the truck and headed home.
Tomorrow a Charleston Harbor tour is on the docket. We’ll see…
fgsdfg
