JoJoSiestaKey

Oh where to start??

Pat Conroy has a house on Fripp Island and I've seen him several times in Beaufort, once asleep on a park bench. I don't think his health is the best right now.

You've picked the absolute best time of year to visit the Low Country!! I miss it so much! I'm actually from Murrells Inlet but my husband and I would drive to Charleston all the time for dinner.

I miss the oyster roasts, the sunset over the salt marshes, the college football, the cooler days, the less crowded beaches with still warm water, the spectacular sunsets, the food!

You'll really love Beach Music. I'm a huge Pat Conroy fan and even named my lovely kitty Ginny Penn after a character in the book.

Bowens Island is fantastic.

If you are in the mood, drive up the McClellanville and eat at SeeWee. Low Country/Gullah/Seafood/Soul Food.

suewoo

Ah, yes JoJo! The Seewee is still in my dreams, as is the salt marsh smell!

Dickie_Gr

We arrived at Manchester airport (UK) to find that the incident in Ottawa had done little to calm the nerves of the obsessive security addicts. I haven't seen an overt show like this since the IRA were active in the 1980s. To make matters worse there was a definite homing in on all things American. We had armed guards loitering around checking queues and at the departure gates. Armed as in "going to war" compete with knee holder pistons and AR 15s just an awful sight to welcome you. There are very few flights to the US from Manchester and so we were probably given special attention.

The flights to Charlston were via Atlanta with Delta, I know some posters here have a negative view of Delta but the seats in economy were fine with plenty of space, good entertainment and the food was tasty rubber as opposed to the usual inedible stuff. The great bonus were the staff on board who all looked like they should have retired ten years ago, as a result they seemed to really love the work and had a great attention to detail and a sense of humour.

The Delta's sense of humour was a little bonkers. The safety video was more like a Monty Python sketch, some wit at head office presumably received a report from Health and Safety indicating that 1.6% of passangers watched the messages. Their idea was unPC ie have slap stick comedy on show, I loved it, my son did, my wife just thought it "made fun of an important message" but she is a "bloody" lawyer.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FZm4gqagnVs

Latest reports say 3.4% of passangers now watch it.

We landed at Atlanta the most amazing SOUTHERN welcome I have ever witnessed. I hate airports, just want to be there. This wasn't helped by my " Lost in Translation" experience in Singapore at Christmas, we seemed to live at Changi for days.

Atlanta airport is large and we had to to pick up our bags to recheck in, clear immigation and customs with a 55 minute connection time. Everyone at the airport was incredibly friendly, one of those times when every face asked where you were going what you needed to do and told you how to do it with the utmost speed. We just didn't need to think for 55 minutes.

We made the connection and landed in Charelston before sunset.

Car hire : never in 200 trips have I ever had an upgrade for anything, not even for an bicycle hire in Rome ...never. Budget had only one SUV available, we had booked a Ford Edge which was fine for us. They had a big red "thing" left, which looked like a Hummer. That's fine as we are only going into Charleston City twice. It does have Texas plates on it and in the Low Country I am beginning to feel like George Bush leading the troops in down town Kabul, which is not a good thing.

Got to the 174 bridge onto Editso Island to see the sun go down over the Intra Coastal Waterway. You can stuff the Grand Canyon, Triffle Tower and Vatican as this is one of the greatest sights on Earth. Sunset over the marshes.

The house is just as we left it two years ago with one great addition a little Jon boat to play around in.

Great news is that I am typing this at 5am, so have only got two hours jet lag.

Suewoo

The house is on Edisto Island which is far enough away from Charleston not to have the stuffiness of Kiawah but close enough to sustain restaurants and hire shops. Basically it is the epitome of The States : if you try a little harder you discover great things. Edisto is more about wildlife than cappuccino.

Sorry to all for my spelling and grammar. This will be the longest piece I have written in twenty years : very rusty.

Dickie_Gr

JoJo

We will go to SeeWee as we HAVE to go to Bull Island, the State Park breed Red Wolves there, my son is obsessed with wolves.

Anyone any suggestions for child friendly lunch / dinner in Charlston. Not too posh and not touristy, I could hear a couple on the plane raving about wanting to go to Hymans Seafood, we went last visit - just an awful, tourist trap

Have to go as it is nearly sunrise which means a walk on the beach, I love being on an East coast, have spent all my life on West coasts. Sunrise is a treat on the East.

JanetKMR

Anyone any suggestions for child friendly lunch / dinner in Charlston. Not too posh and not touristy, I could hear a couple on the plane raving about wanting to go to Hymans Seafood, we went last visit - just an awful, tourist trap
__
Hominy Grill. We have been there a few times with Miss Harper.

http://hominygrill.com/

JanetKMR

Here are three other places we have been with Harper.
On Sullivan's Island:

http://www.hometeambbq.com/

http://www.saltstation22.com/

Downtown:
http://www.nicksbarbq.com/

Dickie_Gr

Thanks Janet.

Just had a beautiful walk on the beach, flat calm other than the Atlantic swell crashing in. Incredible.

Now off to the Edisto Bluegrass festival.

http://www.edistobluegrass.com/

Set on one of the plantations, should be good fun, all the local food places have stalls there.

cwj

You might find Conroy's first book "The Water is Wide" a fun read. Also, I find this eulogy Conroy delivered at a memorial service at his alma mater an interesting example of what he can do with words: http://www.citadel.edu/root/conroy_booeulogy

emd3

Cwj, that is a wonderfully written and very entertaining eulogy. Thank you for the link.

willowjane

I will second Hominy Grill! Just fabulous. Try the Big nasty...you will love it!

willowjane

Dickie,
Oh my goodness, I forgot Taco Boy in Charleston! What a fun place that was. I loved Prince Of Tides and I thought The Water is Wide was well written. I am so glad to read your updates and pleasure with this part of the country. Please do enjoy the wonders of the area...we are about 6 hours away and I "have to" go at least once a year. The minute I smell the marshes I relax. I am sure that you understand.

emd3

I love this thread. It is my favorite in a long long time. I have only read The River is Wide, but now I am going to read Prince of Tides. I love it when a thread leads you to stretch your world and read or discover something new.

I was in Charleston for the first time on a work trip last October, a yr ago, although I was fortunate that my colleagues were friends of btwn 12 and 30 yrs. We stayed at the Wild Dunes. It was nice there, but what was really nice was driving into our work site, over the bridges over those lovely marshes. The light on the marshes in the morning and at 6 pm back out the wild dunes was just phenomenal, lovely, lovely, lovely.

JoJoSiestaKey

Hominy Grill is fantastic! If you get there on the weekend and it is brunch, Poogan's Porch is one of my longtime favorites.

You'll love SeeWee! Order whatever fish is fresh. The fishing boats are out of Bulls Bay.

Yes, I agree the sunsets over the marsh, especially this time of year are spectacular!

Love Edisto Island. I love the drive down into Edisto and I bet it was super spooky at night.

Tw Graham & Co in McClellanville is also very, very good if SeeWee is closed.

Dickie_Gr

Don't know where to start with all the action of the past few days.

We spent most of the day at the Edisto "mostly" Bluegrass festival which was a great experience. The festival was held on one of the old plantations overlooking Seabrook Island, right in the middle of the marshes. What a location for the music.

The first few bands were old style Bluegrass and probably what you would recognise as Bluegrass. I loved Mumford and Sons as a refreshing change to main stream rock/pop. The final two bands were noteworthy, The Lonesome Riverband are the international established stars of Bluegrass, the member come and go whilst being used by all the current megastars of the charts. Dan Tyminski did the vocals for Avicii's "Hey Brother".

Dickie_Gr

The final band were Hurray for the Rif Raff, lead singer Alynda Lee Segarra makes Taylor Swift look like an amateur pub singer. They were a perfect end and I expect them to be very big soon.

The festival was in aid of the Edisto Preservation Society which is rapidly secure land and covenants on land to prevent development. They are a charitable trust operated by locals who are adamant that the island will not become another Hilton Head. They now control Botany Bay plantations, which is a huge area and other lands totalling around 50% of Edisto Island. They have a very interesting museum to visit and fight to preserve the stories and customs of the island.

Edisto was one of the Carolina's cotton Sea Islands prior to the revolution. The plantations were extremely productive and huge wealth poured in the hands of the few land owners. After the civil war the area fell on harder times but farming still dominates much of the economy. Since the 1920s tourism has brought more income to the area but things still change very slowly, the locals call it Edislow time.

The huge asset of the area are the people, who are mainly retired middle income professionals and educationalists who love living on Edisto. They have all the time in the world to story tell and chat. Compared to many areas such as Kiawah where people seem more aloof, this is refreshing.

Another great asset is the State Park camp site which is on the beach and appears to have pretty good facilities. The view at sunrise is monumental.

Last couple of days we have spent fishing, kayaking the creeks and shell hunting. Kayaking at the south end of Edisto, three hours after high tide is sure to guarantee that the pods of dolphins turn up. They are not stupid and simply wait for the huge body of water to flood out of the Edisto basin, flushing out all the fish. They hang about in the same spot at this point of tide and snap up the fish. Kayaking with them should be on everyone's 50 things to do list.

Going to Bulls Island tomorrow, which is a huge remote nature reserve north of Charleston, accessible only by boat.

More birds than people, our sort of place.

JoJoSiestaKey

I used to camp at Edisto State Park all the time while I was in college. Nothing like getting three or four tents in those big sand dunes!

Charlestonians and it's surrounding islands are very big conservationsists. The ACE Basin is the largest land trust between state, federal, and private lands in the country. Driving across it during sunset, especially this time of year is a gift from God. The sunset is magnificent.

Dickie_Gr

JoJo

Thanks for reminding me, I would like to finish the rest of my report. Just been so busy on our return.

The temperatures became extreme, it was reaching 86oF which is bearing records for late October. With clear nights, the sea temperature was far higher than that of the air, the result in the absence of wind was fog.

We set off for the 9.00am Bulls Island ferry at 6:45am. This should have been at most a 90 minute journey. However,thick fog gathered over the rivers of Charleston and as a result the bridges were absolutely clogged with traffic. We missed the ferry and were really deflated.

We had the bikes in the back of the car and so decided to salvage a bad day by driving into the centre of Charleston. We parked on South Battery and cycled up to the market, round the historic district and over to the aquarium. It was a great, slow way to see the city and at all times were shown incredible respect on the road. Better than any city in the world we have experienced, having a 9 year old in our "peloton" seemed to help.

We spent the next few days hanging out at the house, fishing, crabbing and kayaking.

Kayaking throught marshes at low tide is some experience. All the wildlife seems to trust you and looks down on you. With the water levels at less than one foot, it is easy to see all the blue crabs, rays, flounder and juvenile sharks in the water.

We made it to the meeting of the Edisto marshes with the main Edisto river and again the dolphins were hanging around 2 hours after high tide to catch their lunch. Kayaked with a pod of 10 dolphins for 45 minutes, great fun.

Halloween was some experience. We discovered that the Edisto church societies and community groups put on a free bash at the local hall. We had a great time with all the usual games and were introduced to a "cake dance" which I entered far too many times. Had a huge BBQ spread and a fun halloween parade.

One issue that shone out on the night was the racial integration of the evening, there really was no feeling that racial communities live apart. This seems to be a theme of the sea islands and is genuinely warming for me to see in view of the appalling social history of some of the islands. I've had 5 trips to the South and that isn't enough to form enough of a view of how racially integrated the South has become. I have always had a feeling that in some areas there are fundamental issues. This just doesn't seem the case on Edisto, I may be wrong.

cmcfong

Pure delight to read this, Dickie.

wintersp

Pat Conroy spent years in the Atlanta area where we have a cadre of writers. Something happened at the Atlanta Journal one time that was upsetting to those who were concerned about such things, and Mr. Conroy took out a full page ad to express his views as a letter!!!.

Another time I was going to work, listening to the radio and they were interviewing Mr. Conroy. It was during the time that females were integrating the Citadel so they asked Mr. P if he thought the Citadel should remain an all male school the same as when he attended. Without a pause, he said, "Yes. Of Course it should as long as all the tax money to support the school comes only from males."

Dickie_Gr

We packed up and left the house in absolutely terrible weather on Saturday morning.

During the week we had daytime highs of 86oF which were approaching record highs for October, on the final morning it struggled to reach 44oF. It is hard to believe that anyone can deny our world climate is in a mess. This year we have visited

Phuket Thailand : record highs for January - 94oF
Perth WA : record highs for January - 106oF
Stockholm Sweden : record highs for July - 94o F
Charleston SC : near record highs for October - 86oF

Now either I should be more religious as God looks favourably down on me when I travel or there is something astray with the climate.

We sadly left Edisto Island in driving rain, crossed Charleston to visit the Red Wolf project at SeeWee which is 15 miles north of Mount Pleasant.

Red Wolves were common in the coastal plains from Texas to Washington but around the 1960s their numbers had fallen drastically. In 1987 they became one of the most endangered species on the planet. The US Fish and Wildlife service along with other agencies took the decision to round up all surviving animals in the wild in an attempt to save them. They caught around 140 and incredibly only 14 individuals could be confirmed to be genetically pure Red Wolf.

The population had suffered from hunting but mainly from the problem caused by the amorous males choosing smaller and more willing female coyotes with which to mate. The grumpy female Red Wolves were leading the species to extinction.

The various project centres around the SE have had success in their breeding programmes and have for some years released individuals into the wild. Initially this was at Bulls Island, SC but more recently at Alligator River, NC. This site looks good fun as it also has the East coast's last remaining sizeable population of black bears. We are planning a trip there maybe next year.

The Red Wolves at SeeWee are unfortunately in captivity, there is just no other option. The staff there have an immense enthusiasm for the wolves. However, they face huge budgetary cuts as apparently the wolves are not connected to terrorist activity and as a result are not worth funding. The various centres in the US which are part of this project are facing closure which will result in the loss of this animal which is quite simply the most stunning creature I have ever seen.

Some Alpha species in the wild show an overt arrogance, like lions who know they are king of their patch. The wolves are incredibly alert to any stimulus in their environment, they use a powerful sense of smell, sight and hearing to constantly access what is coming next. Just incredible to watch.