More Fun in Charleston

Thought for the day: All good things must come to an end. (sigh)

No matter how beautiful a day may be, the sun has to eventually set, and no matter how much fun an experience may be, it, too, must end.

So I promise this'll be the last post about our 50th anniversary trip to Charleston. Then I'll find something new to bore you with.

This last post will be about two plantations in the Charleston area. Boone Hall, located in Mt. Pleasant, has been dubbed the #1 plantation by USA Today, and called a must-see destination by many, so that was our first plantation stop. But that wasn't the only reason. I'd seen pictures of the entry to that plantation... and there's a good chance you have, too, because it's a rather iconic shot. If you saw the movie North and South, you might remember the scene with Patrick Swayze riding on horseback down that entryway road. The plantation was also featured in numerous other flicks, like The Notebook. So me being me, even though we'd already visited the mighty Angel Oak, I wanted to see this impressive line-up of live oaks in person.

Boone Hall was founded in 1681 by Englishman Major John Boone, and it was his son who planted the 88 live oaks in 1743. It took nearly two centuries for the trees to become large enough to form a canopy over the road, and this Avenue of Oaks extends for 3/4 of a mile.

A view of the canopy from the car. Believe, me, it looks a lot more impressive in person than it does in this picture.

This one was taken on foot. A little better.

 

The Avenue of Oaks offered the most concentrated grouping of live oaks on the plantation, but they weren't the only ones in sight. They were all over the place... and they were all gorgeous.

Last shot of the trees. I (ahem) tend to get carried away...

The old cotton mill (circa O-L-D) is an impressive-looking building. As you can see, it's currently undergoing some extensive restoration. 

It's kinda funny that I took a picture of THIS, but not a single photo of the plantation house. Without a doubt, it is beautiful, but what I would've really liked to capture is its interior. The furnishings are magnificent, and the sunroom-like area is fabulous. Unfortunately, taking pictures inside was a no-no. The McRae family purchased the plantation in 1955, and a year later, the family began allowing tours. Family members still live on the upper level of the home... which was not part of the tour. Although the number of farmed acreage has shrunk over time, Boone Hall remains America's oldest continuously working plantation.

A handful of original slave cabin remain, and they're all made of bricks... which were made by the slaves themselves. In fact, millions of bricks were made on the plantation, and they were used to build many important buildings in Charleston and far beyond. Ft. Sumter was constructed of bricks that were made at Boone Hall.

Each of the remaining cabins has been converted into small museums, each one telling a different chapter in the story of  African Americans. This gal in the picture told the story of the Gullah people, and her presentation included some awesome music. Man, does she ever have some pipes! And she sang a little bit of everything...

I delighted in the music of Africa, the earliest of the slave plantation songs, the transformation into Christianity and all that Christianity brought to the lives of the Africans who were forced to come to America. [Harry Belafonte]

I'm a little sorry I didn't take more pictures. I guess I was too busy taking in the experience to bother recording much of it. Sorry... how selfish of me not to think of you guys. HA! Here... maybe this short video will make up for it. (And I don't know how the sneaky fella got away with taking a couple shots inside of the house. I wish he would've gotten the darned sunroom!)                                       

                                                                Pretty cool, huh?

The other plantation we visited was the Charleston Tea Plantation... the ONLY large-scale commercial tea plantation in America. There, we toured the area where the tea is processed, sampled all kinds of their awesome teas, took a wagon ride all around the plantation, learned a ton of stuff about tea, and... came home with a whole grocery-sized bag full of teas. (Which I'm drinking my way through quite handily. I just ordered some more of their loose leaf tea from Amazon. The peach and mint are my favorites.)

This is one of the many fields of tea. See how flat the plants are on top? That's because the process of harvesting entails skimming off a couple inches of new growth at the top of the bushes. Every plant on the plantation today is the offspring of the plants originally brought to South Carolina in the 1700s, and for hundreds of years, each plant has been grown from shoots, which are nurtured in greenhouses for four years before taking their place in the fields.

This funny-looking contraption is called the Green Machine,and it was built specifically for harvesting tea. There are only a few of them in existence in the world, and each machine can do the work of 500 people. Where people would have to carefully pick the new growth leaves from each bush by hand, one at a time, this machine gently slices off that new growth and tosses it into a bin.

Did you know the three basic types of tea all come from the same plant? The difference between black, oolong, and green tea lies not in the tea, but in how long it's processed after it's picked.

SOME FUN FACTS ABOUT TEA:

• Tea-drinking dates back to 2700 B.C. Not sure how it was first discovered to be such a tasty beverage, but rumor has it that some tea leaves accidentally fell into a pot of water that was being boiled for his consumption, and Chinese Emperor Shen Nung was so pleased with the taste, he mandated that they be purposely added to his water every day after that. 
• Tea became immensely popular in China and Japan, where it was considered both health-enhancing and mystical. It wasn't introduced to the Western world until the time of Marco Polo's explorations in the 1600s.
• Tea is a member of the camellia family. Its proper name is Camellia Sinensis.
• America provided two innovations for tea: the tea bag, and iced tea. Tea bags are now popular all over the world, but iced tea? Not so much. About 85% of the tea consumed in the U.S. is iced, but it has never become popular anywhere else in the world. 
• Tea is the world's most popular beverage after water.
• Approximately 6 billion pounds of tea are produced every year, enough to provide every man, woman, and child with 200 cups per day. (I'm doing MY part... are YOU?)
• The boiling water you pour over your tea bag or loose tea releases the caffeine. To reduce the amount of caffeine by 65%, pour boiling water over your teabag or loose tea... and then dump it out and pour some fresh water on the bag or tea. Ta DA!

                                                         Gee... suddenly... I'm very thirsty...

                                    Until next time, take care of yourselves. And each other.

P.S. Many thanks to all of you who left a comment on my last post, even though I wasn't available to respond. I appreciate the heck out of it. And you. We were chilling in western North Carolina with some friends who live at the top of a mountain. Lots of fun, and after seeing bear scat up there, I won't be grumbling so much about the piles neighborhood dogs leave in our yard. And Geo? Your comment gave me cause to pause, but although your account is terrific, our Huong was most definitely trying to get a rise out of me. :)

The Birds and the Trees

Thought for the day:  ♪♫Let me tell ya 'bout the birds and the bees, and the flowers and the trees, and the moon up above, and a thing called lo-o-o-o-ove...♫♪ [from the song The Birds and the Bees by Jewel Akens]

There's one thing I can tell you most authoritatively about birds. They poop. A lot.

We'll get back to poop in a minute. (I bet you can hardly wait!) In the meantime, it's time to tell you about our awesome 50th anniversary trip. I wanted to go to the water... any water, but preferably, the ocean, somewhere we'd never been before, and someplace with lots of things we'd like to see. Oh, and not too terribly far away.

So we went to... (ta-DA)... Charleston, South Carolina. We actually stayed on Folley Island, and our room looked out over the ocean. It was absolutely perfect!

Except for those... birds.

Now, I love birds. They're beautiful, but as I mentioned before, they poop. A lot.

Some years ago, I wrote a post about how birds had mysteriously selected my poor little red car as their facility of choice for an entire summer. It was ridiculous.

I mean, we had the audacity to drive their potty away for a couple days, and when we got back home, there was a whole bunch of ticked-off birds waiting for us... lined up all across the yard with tiny bird newspapers tucked under their wings, while glaring at us and shifting their weight from foot to foot. Then, as always, they took turns sitting atop the passenger side mirror and bombing away to their heart's content.

But it was just that one summer. I dunno why, but I was very grateful when the birds moved on to some other hapless target. We don't have that little red car anymore, but I thought maybe its bright fire engine red color was the attraction.

But maybe not.

The car we took to Charleston was Smarticus' spiffy silver Challenger. It's definitely not red, but it was most definitely a target. I mean, a targeted target.

The morning after we checked into the hotel, when we went to the parking lot, there were cars, lots of cars, parked out there. But OURS was the only one speckled with copious circles of poop. All over it, like an abstract painting comprised of polka dots. The cars to the left of us? Nothing. To the right of us? Nothing. Just ours.

So either the birds love us... or they hate us. Funny thing was, we did see one another car targeted while we were there. It also happened to be a silver Dodge, and it was parked right next to us. Out of the entire parking lot, as far as we could see, just our TWO cars were bombed. Go figure. (Maybe our feathered friends are Chevy fans...?)

It's kinda hard to tell in this picture, but these are four of the brown pelicans that were pulling security duty for our hotel. Around and around the perimeter they'd fly, ever vigilant, as though checking out the grounds. Their approach would be forewarned by their ominous shadows, and then there they'd be, floating overhead.

To me, they look like distant cousins of the pterodactyls. Very cool. And they reeeeally look cool when they swoop down into the ocean to snatch a fish from the water.

Here's a better picture of them, courtesy of unsplash. Don't they look cool?

One verrrry peculiar thing about shore birds, though. They squawk. All the time, as though they're complaining non-stop. Not a single sweet song to be heard from the bunch. I ask you, living in such a gorgeous area, what in the world are they complaining about???

Enough about the birds. Now I wanta tell you about a tree. An absolutely fantastically gorgeous tree. Before we even went to our hotel to check in, Smarticus indulged me by making a small detour so we could see the Angel Oak, the largest tree east of the Mississippi. It's a live oak, and even though it's only 66.5 feet tall, it spreads out in every direction like no tree I've ever seen. Oh, I'd seen pictures of it, but they're nothing compared to seeing the real thing. Nonetheless, I'm gonna show you... what else?...some pictures of it.

    

                                                                                                                                                                  

There are lots of live oaks in and around the Charleston area, but the Angel Oak is the granddaddy of 'em all. The oldest... nearly 500 years old... and the biggest. Its trunk is 28 feet in circumference, its shade covers 17,200 square feet, and its longest branch is an astonishing 187 feet long. We did lots of fun things while we were in Charleston, but visiting this amazing tree was one of my favorite things. (And not a single bird pooped on our heads while we were there!)

I've got nothing to say about the flowers, but let me tell ya about the moon up above. 

This was the view from our balcony. (One of these days, maybe I'll figure out how to make the darned zoom function on my camera work...) The moon was full or near-full the entire time we were there. On this particular night, it was bright orange. (sigh) Just beautiful. (That string of lights is on the fishing pier.)


And finally...  a thing called love. Well, it was our fiftieth anniversary trip. (duh!) As strange as it may sound, it kinda felt like a honeymoon. So yeah, lots of warm fuzzy feelings. Life is good.

Next time, I'll tell you about some of the places we visited. The Charleston area has lots of stuff for history nerds.

By the way, in case you aren't familiar with the old song The Birds and the Bees, just for you...

                                    Until next time, take care of yourselves. And each other.

More Wonders of the World

Thought for the day:  Life is a ticket to the greatest show on earth. [Martin H. Fischer]

There is sooooo much to see in this wonderful world of ours, and just because we may never see any of these things in person is no reason for us to forego the appropriate oohing and aahing over their existence.

Snowed in? That's no excuse. Got cabin fever... and hiding from the excess heat in your area? That's no excuse, either. We can still explore. 

Vicariously.

 I've never seen one of these in person, but ever since I was a child, I've marveled at photos of giant sequoia trees that were sooooo enormous, tunnels were actually cut through them. The most famous of these trees was the Wawona tree, which was carved out in the late 1800s and felled by a storm in 1969, at the ripe old age of more than two thousand. In 2017, the Pioneer Cabin tree, 1000 years old and carved more than 100 years ago, also succumbed to a big storm. Ordinarily, these trees can be expected to live as much as 3000 years, so it makes me wonder... were their demises hastened by man's ill-conceived cutting through their trunks? Thank goodness, the practice of tunneling through the trunks of these majestic trees for our convenience is no longer practiced or condoned by the Forestry Service. [The remains of other sequoia tree tunnels are either dead or lying on the ground as ancient logs, but there are still several active redwood tree tunnels in existence, all operated by private companies.]

What's a tree's least favorite month? Sep-timberrrr, of course.

What did the tree wear to the pool party? That's an easy one. Swim trunks!

If you're not impressed by the heights nature can reach with the giant sequoia trees, how about some of the stuff man has built?

Like a carousel. As in the Guinness record book's tallest chained carousel in the world, which spins 383 feet (117 m) above Vienna, Austria.

Um, not for me. Thanks to some of the smart-ass comments made by Smarticus, whenever I see rides like this, I can't help but wonder if it was built by the lowest bidder. Besides, I'm more akin to that cat who got dizzy from just spinning in a chair. However, for the more adventurous of you, here's a peek at that carousel:

Dubai was already famous for its stunning architectural feats... like an indoor snow-skiing place right there in the middle of the desert... but the new Crescent Moon Tower, completed last year, is bound to become the United Arab Emirates' most recognizable iconic image yet. Thirty-three floors tall, the building contains a library, conference facility, a restaurants, cafes, and an observation deck. What a unique place for gazing at the sky! I wonder what it'd be like to observe the real moon or a sunrise from that deck...

What do you call a rooster that crows every morning as the sun comes up? An alarm cluck.

[image courtesy of wikipedia]

 The border between Belgium and the Netherlands is 281 miles (450 km) long, and there are no border controls... no tall fences topped with concertina wire... and no so-called big beautiful walls between these two countries. In fact, as shown in the image, one part of the border goes right through a cafe in Baarle! I wonder if you could order your meal in one country, go to the restroom in another, and then be back at the first country before your meal is served. Kinda cool, huh?

Being a bigger fan of bridges than walls, this concept really captured my imagination. And respect. I reckon you could say it's... enlightening...

What did one lightning bug say to another? Oops! Sorry...  gotta glow!

[image: AVAX news]

This amazing structure is the Wat Samphran Temple in Thailand. This 17-story cylindrical Buddhist temple might remind you of a shorter version of the Tower of Babel, except for one thing. One very big thing. The giant dragon sculpture that surrounds it.

WOW, huh? Dontcha kinda wonder what prompted this unusual architectural feature...?

Wanta get away from the maddening crowds? Enjoy a quiet meal of reeeeally fresh seafood while surrounded by the clear azure waters of the Indian Ocean? Then... talk about a getaway!... Zanzibar's Rock Restaurant could be just the place for you. This cozy eating place is literally located on a large rock, which is delightfully isolated and surrounded by water during high tide. But if you're interested, better make reservations. They only have twelve tables, so seating is limited! (I wonder if they serve chicken nuggets...HA!)


How do we know the ocean is friendly? It always waves.

What does a cloud wear under its clothes? Thunderwear!

[image: Sandra Critelli]

I dunno why, but the migration of animals has always fascinated me. In the past, I've posted about the migrations of tortoises (a very sloooooow migration, needless to say) and the migration of some adorable little red crabs. This time, golden stingrays are in the spotlight. These graceful creatures, which can be as much as seven feet wide, engage in a mass migration through the Gulf of Mexico two times a year... heading north in late spring, and back to the south in late autumn. Gee, I wonder what it'd be like to see them while... snorkeling??? Hey! No need to wonder... just look-ie here:

What's a great white shark's favorite game to play? Swallow the Leader.

[image courtesy of wikipedia]

The Banpo Bridge in South Korea is more than just a bridge. It's the world's largest fountain bridge. This moonlight rainbow fountain contains 10,000 LED nozzles and squirts 190 tons of water per minute. It contains thirty-eight water pumps and 380 nozzles per side. As you can see in this photo, people gather every evening to admire the show. With all of that water splashing, I wonder if there's a bunch of port-a-potties nearby...

Wanta glimpse at what they're seeing...?

[image: Nan Palmero]

Humans can be such blockheads. I mean, what were they thinking cutting those tunnels through those gorgeous trees...?

Anyhow, this sculpture by Czech artist David Cerny shows man's more hard-headed side. Entitled Metalmorphosis, its forty layers of polished stainless steel can rotate individually to create a wide array of possible images. (I wonder if that's meant to illustrate how messed up we can be, maybe?) Most of this sculptor's works are a bit more controversial, and have gotten him in a bit of hot water from time to time, but this one sits serenely in a cool reflective pool at the Whitehall Corporate Center in Charlotte, North Carolina.

The last item for your consideration is a sculpture by French artist Bruno Catalano. He did a series of similar sculptures for a celebration in the city of Marseilles, and each one is as unique as this one. Ever feel like something's missing, or you aren't all there? Well, Catalano's people aren't all there. Some of the sculptures seem to defy gravity, and each one is thought-provoking. (Yep, they make ya wonder.) To see more of his work, check out his website at brunocatalano.com





Well, folks, that's about it. But first... What did one volcano say to another? I lava you.

And I lava doing these kinds of posts. I hope you enjoyed it.

Until next time, take care of yourselves. And each other.

[Oops! Sorry'bout that... this post was all ready and poised to go live at 12:34 AM, as usual, but some bonehead... no need to point fingers... failed to hit that pesky "publish" button...]

Boughing to the Wonder of Trees

Thought for the day: Never say there is nothing beautiful in the world anymore. There is always something to make you wonder in the shape of a tree, the trembling of a leaf. [Albert Schweitzer]

[Thanks to Icanhascheezburger.com for permission to use this pic]

Albert Schweitzer was one of my childhood heroes, so it's good to know I have something in common with him.

I love trees. I love them for their beauty, their diversity, their tenacity, and their strength. For the fruit and nuts they provide, the blessed shelter of their shade on a hot day, and for the gift they give us of cleaner air and water.

(ahem) In the spirit of full disclosure, it is, however, possible that I may have said an unkind word or two in the past when raking up a bazillion leaves or stepping on one of those... blessed... weapons, AKA gumballs, littering our front yard. But that's beside the point. I still love trees.They're some of the longest-living and most marvelous wonders in the world.

Trees are poems that the earth writes upon the sky. [Kahlil Gebran]

Although a gentle breeze rustling through their leaves sometimes sounds suspiciously like laughter, I seriously doubt if trees have a sense of humor. Then again, maybe they do. It'd be perfectly oak-ay if they bark with laughter at us silly people for raking up their leaves, even though it isn't a very poplar job and is sometimes over-elming.

Dogwood trees would make awesome pets, dontcha think? They have a nice bark, but they wooden ever bite.

And maybe redwood trees tell tall tales.

What did the beaver say to the tree? It's been nice gnawing ya.

Oak-ay, I'll stop before I make an ash of myself and yew guys get even sycamore of me and my puns. (Even though you're kinda aspen for it... after all, it's a risk you take whenever you visit my blog.) But let's talk about some amazing trees, shall we? Cedar are lots of things to say about trees that don't include bad puns. (Sorry. Last one.) (What a releaf, huh? Oops... sorry! Oak-kay, I'm done now...)

[image courtesy of seniorark]

Even if they don't have a sense of humor, trees do communicate. When asked how many miles it was to the nearest town, look how the helpful tree in this picture responded.

Okay, so that's a lie. But trees really do communicate. For example, when a willow tree is attacked by webworms, it emits a chemical that warns other willows, which triggers them to produce more tannin so their leaves are harder for those worms to digest, thus protecting them from infestation.

[image courtesy of wikipedia]

Giant sequoias earned that name. Some of them are more than thirty stories tall and greater than 82 feet in diameter.

In 2006, scientists discovered a coast redwood that was 379 feet tall, which they estimated to be 700 to 800 years old. They named it Hyperion, but to this day, they've never revealed its exact location. Why? They're afraid it'd cause such an influx of tourists, it could upset the ecosystem.

So essentially, what may be the tallest tree in the world... is in hiding.

As soon as a redwood is cut down or burned, it sends up a crowd of eager, hopeful shoots, which, if allowed to grow, would in a few decades attain a height of a hundred feet, and the strongest of them would finally become giants as great as the original tree. [John Muir]

[image courtesy of Leonard Chapel]

And redwoods aren't the only ones. From this fallen tree, supine on the forest floor, grow four new trees... living examples of hope and resiliency.

A few minutes ago, every tree was excited, bowing to the roaring storm, waving, swirling, tossing their branches in glorious enthusiasm like worship. But though to the outer ear these trees are now silent, their songs never cease. [John Muir]

[image courtesy of wikipedia]

Some bristlewood pines, as shown in the photo above, are believed to be the oldest trees in the world, and at nearly 5000 years old, the one named Methuselah has been deemed the oldest. But in 1964, a grad student, in pursuit of his research project, got permission from the Forestry Department to cut down one of these trees in the Great Basin National Park in Nevada. It turned out that the tree was over 4950 years old, and at the time, Methuselah was only 4803. So sadly, the student not only found the oldest tree in the world; he killed it. The tree was later named Prometheus, and a cross section of its trunk is on display at the park's visitor center... as well at some other research centers around the country.

[credit: Beatriz Verdugo, UA News]

This seven-foot cross section of Prometheus hangs on the wall of the University of Arizona's Laboratory of Tree Ring Research.

Most people know that tree rings reveal the age of a tree, but they also provide information about environmental changes, which is what the student researcher was studying.

You've probably heard that most moss grows on the shadier side of trees, which means in the northern hemisphere, it's more abundant on the northern side of trees, and in the southern hemisphere, on the south. This knowledge can come in handy when someone gets lost in the woods. Also, the tree rings can reveal directional info, as well. I'm not suggesting you fell a tree, but if you look at a stump, the thickest rings will appear on the sunny side of the stump. (i.e. on the southern side in the northern hemisphere, and the northern side in the southern hemisphere.) Then again, you could be like me. Discerning which direction is north doesn't necessarily mean I'd know which way to go.

[image courtesy of seniorark]

That's why I prefer to rely on helpful trees like this one.


(Actually, I rely on Smarticus. That man has an uncanny sense of direction.)

[source: wikipwedia]

Our back yard used to be graced with a gorgeous live oak tree. Our whole family loved that tree.  Unfortunately, it was struck by a mighty bolt of lightning about thirty years ago, and the tree lost.

It was a massive tree, and a fantastic tree for climbing, but it wasn't as huge as this tree. This live oak tree is the famous Angel Oak, located near Charleston, South Carolina.

[source: wikimedia commons]

These gnarly moss-covered trees look positively primordial, don't they? They're antarctic beech trees, mostly native to Chile and Argentina.

[source: wikipedia]

The ta primh temple in Angkor, Cambodia was built in the late 12th to early 13th centuries, and it was later abandoned in the 15th century. As more centuries passed, the jungle crept closer and closer and merged more and more with the buildings. This century, efforts have been made to conserve and restore the temple, but as much as possible, workers are retaining the eerie marriage between buildings and trees.

[source: wikimedia commons]

These windswept trees of New Zealand withstand incredibly strong and inhospitable winds. But they don't give up. Their growth patterns adapt to the conditions.

[source: wikimedia commons]

This amazing tree, dubbed the Tree of Life, lives in Olympic National Park, Washington. It seems to defy the laws of gravity and the all expectations for what a tree needs to survive. But survive it does.

[credit: Leonard Chapel]

As does this one... still clinging to life, against all odds.

[credit: Leonard Chapel]

And this one... growing out the third floor window of an abandoned building.

[credit: Leonard Chapel]

Beauty and strength rising from a rock.

[credit: Leonard Chapel]

How is this even possible?

Must be something akin to sheer determination and a stubborn refusal to give up. If it had a motto, it would be, Where there is life, there is  hope.

[credit: Leonard Chapel]

How about that? Evidently, some trees are music lovers, too. (I sure hope nobody thinks about Chopin that tree down...)

[credit: Leonard Chapel]

Wow! This palm tree is quite the non-conformist. And another example of doggedly rising above adversity. There's evidence of trauma there, but that tree is still standing tall.

Okay, I'm pining to share more pictures with you, but this post is getting too long, so I'd better leaf.

If you share my love of trees, you might enjoy the book Remarkable Trees of the World, by Thomas Parkenham. It's chock full of fascinating information and breathtaking photographs. Best present my big brother ever gave me!

                                   Hey! Whattaya know? Trees DO have a sense of humor!

                                   Until next time, take care of yourselves. And each other.
                                                        Pssst! May the forest be with you. 

The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing that stands in the way. Some see nature all ridicule and deformity... and some scarce see nature at all. But to the eyes of the man of imagination, nature is imagination itself. [William Blake]

Just a side branch reminder: Every comment you make on my blog this month earns you a chance to win a signed copy of my newest book. Mention it on your blog, and earn another two chances.

{P.S. ALF says the book is... outta this world!)