South Carolina

My plan was to bite the bullet and spend a few days visiting Charleston. I thought if I broke the visits up with 'wild' days, I could manage a few town days. Plans mean keeping track of time, as in days, and the longer I wander the harder it is for me to track the days so I wasn't too surprised to discover it was Thursday, when I thought it might be as late as Tuesday, and I still haven't visited my avowed destination.

One of the people I talked to at Thanksgiving told me it was worth visiting McClellanville, named after its founder McClellan. Its only a few miles up the road so I did drive to visit it. The roads in the southeast deserve a word – narrow. State highways are however wide a road be, 8-9ft probably, and they have a stripe down the center. There are no shoulders though often sides are wide and level; maybe shoulder paving is a northern thing for snowplowing. Secondary roads usually have leaves & pine needles along the edges so its really hard to see if the road is wider than the one lane that is typically visible.

The road into McClellanville had a stripe and yards that came right up to its edge. In many ways it was reminiscent of rural roads in Scotland where it was easy to see how a track through a cluster of houses turned into the road through a village. Places in Scotland had hedges defining the roadway, here there are large trees draped with spanish moss that created a winding tunnel leading through the older part of town.

Its not the kind of town a tourist would typically give a glance. I saw a very busy restaurant, an art gallery and a gazebo where the road took a turn to the left and headed back to the main highway. On right there is a pair of brick posts, they are huge on driveway gateposts in these parts, and a newish road leading toward water showing behind a mowed field. Turns out the field is someone's yard and the road is a small loop driving past McMansions.

Back at the gazebo I spotted and then took another road heading to a boat dock. There I found an informational sign about rebuilding the oyster beds. Once baby oysters are spewed out it seems the little buggers prefer to anchor on a fellow oyster over anything else so the area has a recycling program for oyster shells.

While I was reading the sign I heard a car stop behind me and a voice called out a greeting. An older gentleman, he didn't tell me his name however he did tell me he is 85, and his equally old dog, Zoe, had spotted me and came to talk. In the process I learned that one of the McMansions belongs to an Australian, and the one for sale belongs to a man who has taken up with a woman who lives out of town. None of the older residents, particularly his lady friend, like houses are on the point so he is selling his. I also found out there are damnyankees, he was a teen before he learned that was really two words, who buy in and then want to change things, yankees, who are smart enough to leave, and westerners like myself who don't count. Further, if I really was interested in learning about his community I needed to visit the museum and a cemetery.

The museum was close at hand and is smaller on the inside than it looks on the outside. However the gentleman running the museum was interesting enough to be a museum on his own. There were five initial families and nearly all the locals are related to more than one of them. Talking to him about his community and its roots that are clearly alive today started giving me a sense of the south that I have seen but don't understand. He is  directly related to one of the oldest plantations in the area and his quiet pride in his ancestors is part of his character.

We talked quite a bit about blacks and plantation culture. He wanted me to understand that there was deep respect for Negro culture and knowledge in spite of them being slaves. In the best sense, at least on his family plantation, the relationship was symbiotic. If it remained patronizing in the intervening years, it really wasn't much different than the peasant–landowner relationship of Europe. And while whites don't generally invite blacks to their table, blacks don't generally invite whites either and that isn't much different than other parts of the country.

He told me nearly all the houses in town were built by a family of blacks who are known to be the best builders around and it is a matter of pride to own one of their houses. He asked if I'd noticed that blacks tended to live in clusters off a ways. That goes back to after the Civil War when they were free and now had less than nothing. Most of them had been field hands and lived in plantation housing, ate plantation provided food and wore plantation provided clothing. Plantation owners couldn't farm without the blacks and they in turn couldn't survive without the farm so in many cases the plantation owner gave land to the blacks for houses. That gave both the blacks some place to live and gave the farmer a ready supply of labor. Listening put a personal view to history that the teaching of it generally lacks.

I decided to visit the cemetery. As with most towns there is more than one however my gent had given me directions to the Presbyterian one so that is where I headed. No sooner was I parked and out of my car than another vehicle pulled in an another older gent asked if he could help me. When I explained why I was there, he nodded in satisfaction, told me I should see it in the spring with the azaleas in bloom, and drove further in.

Most cemeteries I've seen consist of long rows of stones, some with flowers and some with fancy carving, trees here and there and paved roads. This one is a bit different. I drove in on a sandy roadway with a bit of crushed rock spread over it, through brick gateposts and parked in a wide spot under a moss draped tree. There are lots of trees and bushes with groupings of stones clustered under or around them. Each cluster is like a little mini-cemetery and the stones share family names.  Some stones are two hundred years old and are hard to read. Some places have a bench.

While I wandered around looking at generations of family all buried together 'family plot' took on a different meaning. Family going back two hundred years and being buried together is hard for me to grasp. Granted my mother has stayed in one place for a long time, however her parents' families had spread out and my father's family had also spread. My uncles and aunts spread out as did my siblings and many of our children.

The more south and east I explore, the more European it feels. I find myself relating experiences and bits of information to European history rather than my own and the more that happens, the closer I think I'm moving to an understanding that keeps eluding me.

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving

I've been staying at a campground at a lake on the Georgia-South Carolina border for several days. Georgia has been in a drought since July so the lake was very low. Naturally, that meant it rained while I was there. On the other hand, while it rained I used my very quirky internet connection.  After shear persistence and dumb luck I scored my current camping spot.

Friends, I am spending the next few days on the coast of South Carolina about an hour east of Charleston. Not actually the open sea coast, rather then inter-coastal waterway. The tide rises and falls, birds bob around and very large cruisers or sailboats glide past within touching distance.

While I was driving here, I found a good public radio station issuing from someplace in the state. Buried in the chatter was some Thanksgiving food talk. Seems like sea food would have been a much more suitable Thanksgiving food than turkey. Good old Ben Franklin started pushing turkey eating while he lobbied for it as our national bird.

I did drive by a couple of roadside sellers of crab and shrimp however I chose to stick with turkey and so purchased a frozen breast. There was no cranberry in the store I shopped, instead I found mountains of fresh green beans or gallon cans of them next to quart containers of french fried onions. Sweet potatoes and collards disappeared as fast as they were refilled. Snatches of conversation circled around the meat displays; most were discussions over ham, turkey or chicken and how many they could feed with their holiday budget.

One of my grandmas could make a pot roast that tasted like it was oven baked so I thought I'd give it a try with my turkey part. It thawed nicely, nearly unfrozen and still cold enough to be safe. I dug out the cast iron fry pan and found a bit of aluminum foil for a lid. Soon sizzling sounds came from the pan as the bird began to brown. I had just settled myself outside to read while it cooked when a 'neighbor' came over.

Seems like an extended group of family and friends, about 20, gather yearly at the park to celebrate Thanksgiving. I was invited to join the group, the campground hosts who were unknown to the family were also there so I too must join them; I did.

There was several turkeys, deep fried, baked and grilled, a beef roast, stew, collards, green bean casserole, two or three different types of dressing, biscuits, a couple different gravies, sweet potatoes, white potatoes, spoon bread, unknown casseroles and another table loaded with dessert. There was no cranberry anyplace nor were there any jello salads, for a stray second I missed Minnesota.

After everyone was done eating and seconds and take-home plates offered several times, some of the older guys dug out their guitars and a family sing-along started. I heard that two of the older guys used to be in bands and that the one younger guy currently plays in one. There were the usual Jesus songs and another bunch right out of the 60s. One of the guys sang “House of the Rising Sun”, a song my kids' father used to sing. Even after all these years I could hear him singing and he did it better than what I heard today.

Now the sun is turning everything to bronze, the no-see-ums have returned for supper and the party broke up as some folks left for family obligations. My turkey is cooking since I can better keep it cooked than raw.

Its been a good day – I hope you too had a good one.

South Carolina

I've continued to follow the Mississippi south, on the Missouri side, as far as St. Louis. Mostly the roads are away from the river. Where it runs close by, there are huge ugly plants surrounding small hamlet-like towns. Those towns seem even older than the river towns I've met further north. In general they are quite similar. The highway, running on higher ground, twists through town toward the river on what appears to be the 'best' road in town. Semis use it too so corners turn into a dance of who goes first. The big trucks seem to have it figured out, us strangers are notable for our caution and the young natives simply blast through intersections..

The ugly plants have enormous piles of coal or sand piled around them, usually on the up hill side with big tunnels of metal stretched over the road and ending in tubes hanging over the river. The riverbank is fortified with edging that looks bigger than railroad ties and sometimes a barge is tied under a tube.

So picture one of these towns. There is a railroad track nearby that is heavily used – train rumbling & whistles. There is a main road snaking through your streets – constant engine growling and the sound of air brakes. Some kind of plant nearly spills into your streets – gears grinding and sometimes squealing along with dust I could taste. Tugboats and barges pass on the river close enough to talk with the crew – chugging, lots of chugging along with slapping water if the wind is right. ALL the people I saw in this one town were acting like it was normal. I know, for them it is but I keep thinking about the assault on their senses and wonder if they are uncomfortable someplace quiet.

Around St. Louis the roads became a little confusing so I turned on my GPS, still a new toy, and asked it to send me to a park in Illinois. If roads came together at a diagonal, it would send me down a side street to cut off a block or two, and then if I wanted to take a lesser road, it would keep trying to divert me back to a major one. I'm guessing most of the problems I had are user errors. And it couldn't know the ferry it told me to take was closed for the season. What I really want is google maps in a hand-held with GPS connect. Eventually it did a very good job of routing me to where I wanted to go and keeping me out of St. Louis traffic.

Once in Illinois, I had the pleasure of driving on one of the prettiest and nicest roads I've found. The stretch I was on runs along the Mississippi from Alton to Grafton and then turns north to follow the Illinois River. Its four lanes wide with the Mississippi flanking one side and the white cliffs of Illinois flanking the other. It was late afternoon on a sunny, 72 degree day. The lower cliff-side was covered with brilliant reds and browns. Not only were the trees brilliant, the steep embankment under them was blanketed with the same sizzling colors. Sunlight sparkled on the river littering it with diamond points of light and overhead the sky had that intense blue some afternoons wear.

A few miles north of Grafton I found the state park I was seeking. The guy in charge is friendly, the sites are fairly level and the showers have really hot water.

There is a bunch of great sounding stuff to do in St. Louis and I thought I might stay a few days and visit some of them. First though, I wanted to drive south to Cahokia (Caw-hoe'-key-aaa), the remains of a city of Mississippian Mound Builders. Around 1100AD, when their city was at its peak, it had a larger population than London and was about the same size as Paris. 25,000 is a lot of people living in wooden huts and building huge mounds out of dirt. Their largest mound has a more volume than the Great Pyramid and was it constructed over a period of 300 years. Basket by basket people carried dirt to build that and many other mounds; I wanted to see for myself.

Armed with directions from the guy-in-charge, I headed back toward Alton and missed my turn. The road I was on also headed south and the greater St. Louis map I have showed the road I was on would take me where I wanted to go. So I continued and found a Lewis and Clark Historic Site instead. Well, I've been enamored with their Expedition for years so I stopped. Two hours later - - -. Lewis and Clark spent the winter of 1803-1804 in the area. Since the Louisiana Purchase had not been finalized when they arrived at St. Louis, the Spanish governor would not allow them access to the Missouri River forcing them to winter and wait. Clark, a former military man, whipped the expedition men into a team and Lewis, the naturalist, spent his time gathering more information and buying supplies. They took a keel-boat and couple of tree-hollowed canoes to transport tons of goods. (And the only extra they had was some dried ink.) They “proceeded on under a jentle brease up the Missourie.” in May, 1804.

Keel-boats have always fascinated me and the reproduced one, made from following Lewis' sketchy plans, was of particular interest. Even seeing it I found it hard to visualize 20 men sleeping on board, actually on top of all those supplies. Staff is mostly volunteers who must spend their evenings browsing copies of Lewis' 13 journals. They are extremely well informed and wiling to share their knowledge with anyone. The info-guy there send me on my way with an annotated copy of the journal and new instructions for reaching Cahokia.

Fifteen minutes later I gazed at the Grand Plaza before parking at the Visitor Center. Granted I was still tired from the first stop, however I was disappointed with the informational video I saw regardless of the awards it won. The narrative is what bothered me. I think there are way too many “may have been used for” comments. Once again I spent hours in a museum this time looking for information to back up the video. I found very little that supported their assumptions.

Before leaving Minneapolis I read a book that questioned many assumptions made about other historic sites. Perhaps that book, added to my own skeptical nature, influenced my view. For one thing, they kept referring to de Soto exploring the area – as a free man he was hundreds of miles to the SW in Arkansas, and when he was here he was an Indian’s slave working as a trader and this site no longer existed. I wanted more than a throw-away comment about this site being in direct line with the earthworks outside Mexico City. I wanted more information about climatic conditions at the time this site was abandoned. And I wanted my old foot back so I could visit the wooden poled equinox calender. After another 2-3 hours looking at a very interesting museum, I was unable to do any outside walking.

When I return to check out St. Louis, Cahokia will come first.

Itchy Feet

October is half over and I have just now returned to wandering. Maybe there's a wandering gene since being condemned to wander for forty years doesn't sound bad to me. I do wander more in one day than a nomadic tribe would travel however not far by current standards.

The Corp of Engineers have many campgrounds across the country. Since they are federal, my old-person pass lets me stay for half-price. And since the Mississippi is very managed, the Corp has several camping sites along it. My first stop was at one called Blackhawk Camp in Wisconsin. Its right on the Mississippi River and is nearly deserted; both are appealing.
The park is north of Prairie du Chien and south of La Crosse. This part of the Mississippi is like the area around Red Wing, MN with lots of sloughs, meandering channels and backwaters. I can see where the water has dropped in the last month or so and grasses have started growing at the edges of the islands. Knowing how geese chow down on grasses inside Minneapolis, I see this grass and think prime feeding grounds for migrating birds. In fact, this area is a wildlife refuge. Thousands of acres that are pretty useless for much else are protected.

Even without the signs I can see hunting and fishing are prime recreation. Every 5 miles or so there is a boat launch site; each I've seen had several vehicles in it and the road traffic seems to be either semis or truck and boat. Not all the boats are for fishing, some are decorated for hunting and even plain boats are used for it. The pair of duck hunters who enthusiastically showed me their haul used a normal looking boat. I must have made the correct sounds because I left with a couple of teal for supper. They are very small birds once they are dressed out (it was harder to see just how small while they were feathered) and the hunter told me true, they are very tasty.

Now I've wandered a bit further south to the end of Iowa. I've often traveled through the state however I've rarely taken the time to explore it. Parts along the Mississippi are quite pretty and I really like the bluff area. There is a section of NE Iowa, western Wisconsin, northeast Illinois and Minnesota's bluff area that were untouched by glaciers. No glaciers but heavy glacial run-off left the area fairly rugged and quite hilly, resembling the lower western hill areas leading away from the Appalachians.

River towns are similar to each other no matter where I've seen them. Each has some really old buildings, they are generally two or three streets deep, and they can stretch for miles. The Mississippi has railroad tracks running on either side of it using the same space as the towns. One little Iowa town has tracks running down the center of Main St. Every other intersection is shut off but there are still lots of unguarded crossings. Naturally the trains blow their whistles when approaching though the trains are hard to ignore since the buildings and street vibrate when they pass through.

The towns I've been through seem poorer than those in Minnesota or Wisconsin. However they all are trying to reinvent themselves and some seem to be succeeding. In an effort to keep people handy, lots of towns and counties have campgrounds that are consistently cheaper than Iowa state parks which are several dollars cheaper than Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois or Missouri's state parks.  Reasonable camping fees and pretty scenery will get be back to visit!


Currently I am in a 'historic county' in southern Iowa. I guess that means its old. While old buildings and houses don't particularly interest me, one blurb says it's house was part of the underground railroad. Now I'm going to have to look at Iowa history since I thought this was a free area even when it was a territory. I may even decide to visit that old house.

Southern Music

Lafayette Louisiana has a Music Festival every year.  This year since I was in the south, I agreed to meet some extended family and attend with them.  In preparation I tried to find regional music on the radio.  And I did find it.  I found black southern christian rap and christian zydeco;  I also heard old-time country western and oldie local rock and roll that has a different flavor that Midwest oldie rock and roll.  None of that prepared me for the music festival.

It is billed as an international festival.  In the past, I was told, it was more Cajun, Arcadian and Creole.   We went four of the five festival days and during that time I heard Burmese drummers, Haitian rara, french rock & roll, a little zydeco and various flavors of cajun music.  Most of it was way too loud though some of it was intriguing, like the plastic pipe the rara band used as trumpets or the way flutes change cajun.  And I enjoyed seeing youngsters playing with their families.

Today, the state park in Arkansas where I am staying had a different kind of musical celebration.  Every spring they hold a one-day music festival that has traditionally been a blue-grass event.  This year they invited a variety of groups, they said, in an effort to widen their appeal.  I hadn’t planned on staying for it since they were booked however a cancellation occurred, they offered me the spot and I decided to stay on to hear what they had.  - - -
 s of the Loretta Lynn sound, a really, really terrible Dylan impersonation and lots of gospel.  Some of it was excellent music, most of it was ok and one group wasn’t very musical any more.  All of them clearly loved what they were doing.

The last group, made up mostly of retired ministers and their wives with one guy on death’s door, were interesting because of who they are.  Lots of country singers learned how to perform at church and to hear and see their musical bones laid out in front of me was intriguing.

As I sit here writing this waiting for supper to cook, I asked myself if I would do either of these events again.  No, I won’t; what I will do is make an effort to visit other events as I travel.  Music seems to be a good way to get a feel for the place I’m visiting.

Coastal Mississippi

Remember hearing about Katrina and all the news reports about New Orleans, its people and the dikes?  Do you remember hearing anything about Mississippi?  If I heard anything, it wasn’t enough to remember.  Coastal Mississippi was hammered! Nearly all the way to the Alabama border I saw signs of hurricane damage.

The area where I am staying is roughly 50 mile east of New Orleans and only about a quarter of the coastal houses have been rebuilt.  Houses off the coast, inland a half-mile or so are pretty much back on their lots.  Those houses are also much smaller and very few are set up off the ground.  Nearly all the rebuilt coastal houses are on posts, pillars or beams one and two stories above ground level.

I don’t think being two stories off the ground will help them if there is another Katrina.  First, the only houses that seemed to survive are cement or brick built and I saw few replacements that are built that solidly.  Second, water in Biloxi was 35ft high and the water was as damaging as the wind.  What difference does it make if the wind is strong enough to tear off the roof when the water pushed along by it is going to crash through your windows and flood your house?

It looks like 80% of the coastal property in my area is for sale.  Some of it has houses on it, some foundations or pillars and some are simply bare.  I talked to a woman who told me many of the residents in my area were retired and they simply couldn’t afford to rebuild.  She has a friend that lives inland.  The friend had no flood insurance since her area never expected to be flooded; in the past insurance agents didn’t even mention the idea.  That woman was flooded up to the middle of her second floor.

Since community infrastructures were also shredded some of them used storm repair as a means of rethinking and upgrading infrastructure.  Supply companies also made some changes.  It looks like power and phone lines are underground.  I see lots of streets dug up and bundles of pipe lying along side the diggings.  Roads are still being replaced along the shore in my area and it seems to be the last of shore repair.

The state park I’m staying in just reopened late last summer.  Only about ½ of its spaces are ready to be used and its swimming pool and water park is still closed.  The attendant I spoke with said they barely had 30 snowbirds over winter.

Most of the towns appear recovered.  Casinos have rebuilt, Wal-marts abound and the area is home to more Waffle Houses than McDs.  Small shops that depend on tourists are closed. Some smaller strip malls are boarded up and I saw an occasional abandoned school.

It is mile upon mile of empty house lots that have most impressed me.  Off shore lots are normal sized and normal priced I think (150x150 for $50,000) while the coastal lots are generally over an acre and sport Lake Superior prices.  Near Biloxi townhouse complexes have sprung up.  Those range from uninspired (think prefab) through garish (Italian baroque) with one or two tastefully done.

The beaches themselves are shiny white sand that is supposed to originate in the Appalachians.  Wherever it comes from the beaches are pretty.  There are scores of men keeping them picked up and groomed while others work at keeping drifting sand of the roadway.  There are strips of snow fence nailed to posts set into the sand.  The sand collects on both sides of the fencing and then more men plant sea grass to anchor the sand.  If the dunes are successful, eventually the beach will no longer be visible from the road.

Also generally not visible and still around are mosquitoes, midges and wood ticks.

bank vault

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Poverty Point

My thwarted archeological self rose to the foreground last week when I visited a place called, you guessed it, Poverty Point.  The name comes from a former plantation however an ex-plantation was not the draw.  Poverty Point is the site of ancient civilization.  By ancient I mean around 10,000 BC.  And still, a couple of stray Clovis points were not the draw.

So, why am I taken with the place, some of you may ask with a sigh of resignation?  Around 1500 BC there was a largely idle well-fed population of about 2000 people living at the Point.  I know there was much potential idleness or maybe lots of slaves even then because somebody carried 100,000s of baskets of dirt to build a series of half-circle mounds and also an enormous bird.  They leveled about 40 acres and then ‘painted’ it by hauling in differently colored dirt.
I’m not exaggerating; the archeologists who have studied the place figured it took at least 1 ½ million 40-pound baskets of dirt to build the earthworks.  That’s enough dirt to build the Great Pyramid of Egypt.  And after all the studying they still don’t know why they were built.

This is all delta land and before that was shallow sea so there aren’t what upper midwesterners would call rocks, a few pebbles maybe however no rocks.  Keep in mind the point has been farmed for 100 years.  Those farmers just plowed right over the smaller mounds and the central plaza (about as long as 3 football fields).  Even after all the farming, over 40 tons of stone have been found.  That stone is not native, its been carted in from as far north as the Great Lakes, east from the Appalachians and from northern Florida.  Most of it has been worked into useful stuff like bowls, net and throwing-stick weights or jewelry.  And after all the studying they still have no idea what the people who lived here used for trade goods.

I could bore you even more with other intriguing detail however I choose not to share.