November 26-30 - 2017 Hardeeville, South Carolina

We used 2 days to see Savannah, Georgia. Monday and Wednesday (27 and 29). It is not the oldest city in the US. It is not the largest, or richest, or most historic. It is, however, a very charming city, that distinguishes itself (adskiller sig) from most others, by the layout of the town.

It is built up around 16 squares (plazaer/torve). Each of the squares has its own “personality” – some have statues or monuments. Some have fountains. Some are just peaceful green spaces, with benches and huge moss-covered trees. We saw 10 of the squares.

 

Surrounding the squares, the streets are filled with old houses – most of them very nicely kept. The biggest ones are built around the squares. Here are a few examples….

Savannah is located on a large river, and it has a large port (havn). The old warehouses down on River Street are renovated, and serve as restaurants and shops now. It is a nice area, and we had good weather (Wednesday it was 78F/24C), so we spent some time by the waterfront.

Between the main part of the old town and the river, there is a big difference in level (niveau). There is a very interesting solution to this problem. From the upper level, there are bridges built to the first story (2. sal) of the warehouses. On the lower level, the ground story (1. sal) you enter the building at ground level. To get from a sidewalk on the upper level to one on the lower level, you have to go down stairs. There are a couple of places, where there is a hill for vehicles to drive down.

 

 

 

We saw a beautiful church (one of the few Catholic cathedrals we have seen on the east coast).

St. John the Baptist Cathedral

One of the attractions in Savannah is Bonaventure cemetery. Of coarse we had to see it😊 Lots of old graves. Lots of trees covered with moss (called Spanish moss, that grows in tropical regions). Not like the overgrown cemetery, we saw yesterday, or the manicured one we saw at Arlington. A place like no other, we have seen.    

Written by Mary

 

November 26-30 - 2017 Hardeeville, South Carolina

We left Chattanooga, Tennessee on November 18th, heading for Atlanta, Georgia !! (Only 120 miles/190 km southeast). We took a little detour (1250 miles/2000 km), because we have an important appointment in Atlanta on December 3rd !!

Sunday we moved from St. Augustine, Florida to Hardeeville, South Carolina (190 miles/300 km).
We are about 15 miles/25 km north of Savannah, Georgia.

Tuesday, we drove up to Charleston. Charleston was founded in 1670, and is therefore one of the older cities in the US. Once again, we were met with revolutionary and civil war history.

The Exhange was built in 1771, and has played an important role in South Carolina history. Decisions such as South Carolina's first constitution (1776)(grundlov), the adaption of the US constitution (1788) were made here.
Slave trade took place here. It was used as a prison during the revolutionary war. Etc. etc.

The Exchange

The dungeon /fængsel

 

 

Charleston had their own Tea Party in 1773-74, with some of the tea being confiscated, some dumped in the harbor. But the incidents went more “peacefully” than in Boston, and that is probably why it is not as well known.
As for the civil war, this is where the first battle took place. On April 12, 1861 confederate artillery opened fire on Fort Sumter, which is placed right in the middle of the entry (indsejlingen) to Charleston harbor. South Carolina was also the first state to secede (løsrive sig) from the Union (December 1860).

We learned (we learn something new EVERY day 😊) that Charleston was at some point the wealthiest city in the US. Because of slave trade and cotton, we thought for sure. No! Because of a big production and export of rice and of indigo dye (tekstilfarve, i dag bedst kendt fra den blå farve i cowboybukser).

It was not until later that slave trade and cotton became a very important factor in the Charleston economy. 40% of all slaves that came to the US passed through the Charleston harbor and slave markets.

The wealth from that time is obvious, when you walk around in the streets. The number of BIG colonial and Victorian mansions is incredible. They just keep coming, street after street.

Rainbow Row



29 East Battery (built 1856) For sale for $3.850.000/ ca. DKK 25.000.000

Once again we came across the fact that graves are never cancelled in the US.
We found a narrow walk that lead into a graveyard right downtown.
Like walking in a jungle, and actually very nice.
But it is also obvious what happens when there are no longer relatives around to weed (luge) the gravesite! 😊

We had great expectations about our visit to Charleston. Turned out that it exceeded our expectations (overgik vore forventninger).

Written by JJ

P.S.
Every town and city tries to have an oldest of something 😊
We saw this sign while walking around:

The oldest liquor store in the US

November 24-25 - 2017 St. Augustine, Florida

There are many places, that claim to be “the oldest” this and that in the USA. We came to St. Augustine to see “the oldest continuously inhabited settlement” (ældste sted, som har været konstant beboet). We visited the old part of the city today (Friday).

Ponce de Leon

Ponce de Leon came to the St. Augusta area in 1513. He was (according to ledgend) in search of “the fountain of youth” (kilden til evig ungdom) and gold. He claimed Florida for Spain. The French had landed 40 miles (60 km) north of St. Augustine before him, but the Spanish drove them out. In 1565, Spain sent 700 soldiers and colonists to St. Augustine, to establish a settlement. Since then, people have lived in the city. (Not old in European standards, but just about as old as you get in the US.)

The Spanish colony was in danger of starvation, and was constantly under attack from the French, the native Indians, and pirates. To help protect the Spanish interests in the area, the queen of Spain ordered a fort built. The construction of Castillo de San Marcos began in 1672, making it one of the oldest standing structures in the USA.

 

The fort is built out of “coquina” - a type of stone that is made of sea shells. This type of stone is not brittle (skør), and does not crumble (smulre) under cannon fire. That makes it very suitable for building – especially a fort. The fort, along with many other buildings and walls in the town, that were built with coquina, are still standing today.

 

We saw “the oldest wooden school house in the US”.

And “the oldest house in town”.

This house was built in 1702, after a fire, that burned down the
former house. It had been there since 1650.

I even went to church in “the oldest Christian parish (sogn)” in North America. (Unfortunately the church wasn’t very old.)

The architecture in St. Augusta is much different, than what we have seen so far. There is a lot of Spanish influence here. A few examples…

 

 

 

And there are LOTS of palmtrees😊

On Saturday, we went shopping and went to a flea market (krammermarked), that is neighbor to our camping ground. Bought a few things, and had fun looking.

Written by Mary

November 22-23 - 2017 St. Augustine, Florida

Wednesday (22nd) we moved from Marianna to St. Augustine on the Atlantic coast of Florida (250 miles/400km). We are going to spend Thanksgiving here.
Thanksgiving is the biggest “holiday” in the US. (Christmas is big too, but that is mostly for Christians 😊).
The tradition of Thanksgiving started in 1621, when the pilgrims in Plymouth, Massachusetts celebrated their first harvest by having a big feast and sharing it with the native Indians. Almost 250 years later President Lincoln made it a national holiday. (We learned in Jamestown, Virginia that they claim to have had the first Thanksgiving the year before. We are not buying that though 😊).
In modern time, Thanksgiving is mainly about getting together with family (the biggest day of travel of the year), food, shopping and football.

We tried to live up to that.

Wednesday night the weather was great (70F/20C), so we went shopping and found some exciting things to bring home. We have had great weather most of our trip, but it has not been perfect all the time. There have been exceptions. Thanksgiving (Thursday) day was definitely an exception! The rain woke us up at 5 AM, and then it rained continuously for 12 hours. We got 2½” (65 mm).

So we continued our Thanksgiving shopping online from the camper! 😊.

Around noon we started watching Thanksgiving football. Especially interesting because the Vikings were playing (in Detroit against the Lions). A very exciting game - with the right result!! 😊

After the game we went to a restaurant for a traditional turkey dinner.
(Mary usually spends a full day (and more) preparing food for Thanksgiving. This was a bit easier 😊)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On the way back, we stopped at a Walmart for a few things. It was open, but most of the store was blocked by hundreds of people and store employees that were guarding the good offers, that were going to be released in about half an hour (at 6PM (18.00)) BLACK FRIDAY!
We decided to get out of there before all hell broke lose! On the way out, we noticed a patrol car from the Sheriffs office. We didn’t ask him, but we are pretty sure he was there to step in if people started fighting over the good deals 😊.

We had a good Thanksgiving. We did 3 out of 4. We missed the part about family and we missed our families. Many will say that we only have ourselves to blame for that 😊.

Written by JJ