A Visit to Ft. Sumter

On Memorial Day W and I were interested in going to see Ft. Sumter, and the chance to go on a ferry ride to get there sounded pretty appealing as well. Above is a view of the fort from Charleston. It does not appear very big at all.

View from the top of the fort, all of the crumbling brick walls are original.

It took about a half hour to get there by ferry, and we had about 45 minutes at the fort to tour around. We opted not to listen to the tour guide since it was very hot and crowded, W said he would rather walk around and see and read things for himself.

The building materials for some walls included local shells  

W said seeing the original cannons was his favorite part of our tour

W is a little young to know very much about the Civil War, although we have learned a bit about slavery and the underground railroad this year. We picked out a book about Children in the Civil War which shares some of the lesser known stories of children affected by that war, and it is a good introduction of this part of American History for younger children. 

W enjoying the book on the return Ferry ride

ten turkeys

Taking a break from our trip recaps, I wanted to share a photo I snapped of a mama turkey and many of her little ones (we counted eight in this photo but there was a straggler that didn't make it in the picture). W first spotted her in the yard so we loved seeing all the baby turkeys. Click on the photo to see it larger and see how many babies you can spot.

Middleton Place

While visiting the South we just had to visit a Plantation, so we went to Middleton Place. No relation to the newest British Princess that we know of. Near the entrance there is a large rectangle reflecting pool where a couple of swans reside. 

The “big house” had damage during the Civil War, and was rebuilt only to burn in a fire a decade or so later, so there are piles of crumbling brick but the surrounding gardens were kept up and there are nice walking paths leading to secret gardens and too many varieties of plants to count. Some of the gardens showcase beautiful statues which were donations to the plantation in later years. Along some of the paths bamboo was growing. It is a great climate for it, where rice used to be the primary crop.  

The hydrangeas were in bloom and we saw cranes and turtles as well as a couple of baby alligators. They also had several farm animals on the grounds, a safe distance from the alligators. Spanish moss hung from many of the trees.

look closely... is that a log or an alligator?

We visited the chapel which was built for the slaves and open to the entire community. It was extremely small and it was moving to think of the people that were so grateful for that meager space to worship. There is an area where a house was built during reconstruction for former slaves to live and it is fascinating to think about how the way of life in the region changed so dramatically during their lifetimes. 

Overall we would recommend visiting Middleton Place to learn not only about the history of plantation life but to get lost in the beautiful marriage of European inspired gardens and the nature of the low country.

South Carolina Low Country

On our recent trip to South Carolina, we visited the city of Charleston and walked around downtown, visited plantations, and of course went to the beach. The late May weather this year was hot, even for SC. I found it comforting that even the locals were complaining of the heat & humidity. Folly beach was beautiful and the kids had a great time. The water was so much warmer than up north! There are Palmetto trees everywhere. The Magnolia trees were still blooming while we were in Charleston, we were excited to get to see them throughout the city.

Charleston downtown is worth a day to walk around and explore. There are no high-rise buildings but lots of cute antique-looking houses and shops (our favorite was the Rainbow Row of houses). You know you are in the historic districts when you are passed by horse-drawn carriages of tourists. The boys cooled off at a water splash fountain at the beautiful water-front park.

feeling refreshed!

During our stay we visited the Charleston Tea Plantation, the only tea plantation in the United States. They have a small factory video tour which was very informative; W enjoyed it way more than we thought he would since he is not even a tea drinker yet. Charleston has the perfect climate for growing tea, and you get to see the machinery that they use to process it. We all agreed that if you happened to be in this area, going here in combination with somewhere else would be worth your while. But it is kind of far from most other places, so would not be a standalone day trip. We ate at The Fat Hen (my favorite meal of the trip food-wise, C could have behaved better, but I loved the BBQ Duck sandwich.) We also visited the Angel Oak tree, which is amazing to see in person.

3/4 of us!

More on our SC trip including a visit to a plantation and Fort Sumter coming soon! :)

Traveling with kiddos

Our recent family vacation was too jam packed to fit into one post, so we will break it down into categories to write about the different places we visited. But before we get to that, as I upload our many photos to winkflash, I wanted to write a bit about traveling with young kids, and how that part of the adventure went.

Starting off, we had a 2 day road trip to SC with an overnight stop in Virginia. Then after a few days in SC, a day in the car back to VA, and the following day to PA for another few days at a B&B. On the final leg of the trip we went from PA (stopping in CT for our niece's birthday party) and back to NH. Yes, this was a bit of a challenge with a 6 year-old and 2 year-old. We didn’t wind up bringing a DVD player for the car ride and we actually survived.  We listened to CDs of their favorite band, the Imagination Movers (thank you guys for the sanity!) I cannot recommend this group highly enough, they are the real deal. Jacob knew a couple of their songs but this trip got him acquainted with their catalog, lol. I am hoping W is still into them as much next year when their concert tour comes around again, W and I saw them a couple months ago in Worcester MA, and next time we’ll bring C too. 

W did some of his homeschool workbooks, and C enjoyed stickers and Color Wonder books although most of those marker caps have disappeared somewhere into the void. We brought several books and a few wooden trains & a couple of Cars cars which helped mix things up. I also have a Kids Mode app on my droidx phone which came in mighty handy at some restaurants in SC and PA. 

With gas prices rising we decided not to rent a larger vehicle for the trip, so our trusty Toyota Corolla held up but it was difficult keeping the back seat organized and involved a clean-out every couple of days of the trip.

One major thing I would do differently: pack lighter! Especially when limited to a small-ish car trunk. I had packed light jackets, sweatshirts and too many long pants but the weather was unseasonably hot even during the Pennsylvania leg of the trip. I know I couldn't foresee this, but probably one sweatshirt/jacket per kid would have been sufficient and assume older children can get a couple wears out of jeans, etc. Also, when planning to stay somewhere more than one night it would be possible to do laundry even though I know it's not the most glamorous thing to do on vacation (many hotels and b&b’s offer coin laundry areas).

Another tip I hopefully will remember for next time is to bring a cooler and start off with enough snacks for day 1, not the whole week (smushed granola bars aren’t appealing to anyone).  We ate out for almost every meal which is very unusual for us. C consumed not much besides chocolate milk and applesauce for much of the trip, so his sytem was a bit.. uh.. thrown off so we were happy when he ate anything. I tried not to stress out over this, afterall, vacation is just temporary. Utilize the rest stops as much as possible, besides the bathroom breaks most of them have a place to run around and stretch your legs. The kids cheered whenever we got to one and W said they were one of his favorite parts of the trip. ;)

Having GPS on our phones was also extremely useful, this was the first long trip that we used this for and boy it made a difference. After this, our 3 hour trek to the White Mountains next month will seem like a breeze! Stay tuned to the blog for recaps of our trip and photos coming soon.