We have another long drive ahead of us. It will take about 9 hours to get to Durango and our AirBNB for the night. We got an early start and then started driving. And driving and driving. There wasn’t much to see along the way, mainly just fields. As we got closer to Colorado we did start to see more mountains. We decided to pass through Clayton, New Mexico on the way. This was the place were my grandmother was raised. It was your typical small town, there and gone in the blink of an eye. We did get to see the mountains that the locals call “rabbit ears” because they look like rabbit ears.
After we finished our little hike, we continued on the drive. It was a long drive to Durango, but we did eventually make it. However, we regretted not stopping for dinner because by the time we got to the room and got settled, all of the restaurants had closed or were closing soon. But we weren’t super hungry so we decided to pass on food for the night.
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Today Mom and I are starting our trip to Colorado. We were originally supposed to be going on an Alaskan cruise but the cruise line cancelled it because Canada was still closed. I’ve heard that it is planning on reopening next week, so I guess it is a good thing the cruise got cancelled. We debated going to New Orleans, but I’m glad we held off on that because there has been a huge increase in cases of covid due to the new delta variant and New Orleans is one of the hot spots.
Mom was off today so she drove up from San Antonio to Dallas. I had originally planned on taking off, but I had some unexpected issues with a client so I ended up working until noon when I snuck out. We went and picked up the rental car from Enterprise and then we hit the road. Since we were leaving a noon, we knew we wouldn’t make it all the way to Colorado, but we wanted to get a least a little bit down the road to brake up the long drive. We drove about 5.5 hours and made it to Borger, which is close to Amarillo. And then we called it a night. Today is sadly going to be my last day of traveling. I’ll be sleeping in my own bed tonight. To start my last day, I went to Vicksburg National Military Park. The town of Vicksburg was very important to both the North and the South. Whoever controlled Vicksburg controlled the lower half of the Mississippi River. While the South held it, they could move supplies and hold the Confederacy together. If the North controlled it, the Southern states of Texas, Arkansas, and most of Louisiana would be cut off. In October 1862, the Union turned its attention to capturing Vicksburg in order to control all of the Mississippi River. They tried different attacks, but eventually realized that only a siege would be successful. In the Spring of 1863, they start surrounding the town. As the months pass, there were several battles as the Union army kept getting closer and closer to the city. The formal siege began on May 18 and lasted until July 4 when Vicksburg officially surrendered.
My next stop as I got close to the boarder was Emerald Mound. Emerald Mound is the second-largest Mississippian Period ceremonial mound in the U.S., surpassed by only Monk’s Mound in Cahokia. It was built and used between the years 1200 C.E. and 1730 C.E. It is 35 feet high and covers 8 acres. Archaeologists believe the mounds were the setting for elaborate civic processions, ceremonial dances, and religious rituals. It is still used by the local Native Americans in ceremonies today.
Next, I crossed over the border into Louisiana to go to Natchez National Historical Park. The park is made up of 3 sites: Melrose, William Johnson House, and Fort Rosalie. Melrose I have actually been to before but they had reduced hours due to covid so I couldn’t go there. And the William Johnson was known as the “Barber of Natchez” so I wasn’t very interested in him. I decided to go to Fort Rosalie, but there really wasn’t much to see. When I talked to the lady at the visitor center, she told me they were in a legal battle for years over the land. That finally ended at the end of 2019, and before construction or anything could be done covid hit and it halted everything.
As I drove to the first mound, you could barely see the ridges. The central construction consists of 6 rows of concentric ridges. The ridges form a C-shape divided into sections by 4 aisles. It is thought that the ridges served as foundations for dwellings but little evidence of this has been found.
After I finished my driving tour I decided to drive home. It was about a 5 hour drive, so it took a while, but I arrived home at about 10pm so at least I could sleep in my own bed for the night and not pay for another hotel room. Since I arrived late, I’ll have to return my rental car tomorrow. I had an amazing 3-week adventure and though I’m glad to be home I can’t wait for my next one.
After I finished walking around I decided to walk to the Freedom Rides Museum since I still had plenty of time left on the clock for my parking. It didn’t take as long as I thought it would to see the White House and the Capitol building. Along the way I passed by Dexter Avenue King Memorial Baptist Church, which was only a few blocks from the Capitol. This was the place that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was the pastor from 1954 to 1960. This is also where he directed the Montgomery Bus Boycott.
I finished in Montgomery a lot earlier than I had expected, so I decided to continue on to Jackson, Mississippi. The only thing I had planned on seeing here was the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum. Since I got there about an hour before they closed, they allowed me to enter for free. The museum is massive and it is actually 2 museums.
They also had more recent displays, talking about plantations and the Civil War. They didn’t go into a ton of detail about this, probably because the Civil Rights Museum does. It also had displays covering all the way up until today. Since I didn’t have a lot of time, I had to rush through them and I didn’t get to read everything. But it must take hours to go through everything for those museums! Since this was my only stop in Jackson, I continued across the state to my hotel for the night.
My first stop for the day is the Ocmulgee Mounds National Historic Park. I have actually been to several mound sites, like Cahokia. I didn’t realize that the Mississippian civilization stretched all the way to Georgia. Archaeologists know that the town was abandoned as early as 1100 CE, but they do not know why. They also know that the descendants of these people eventually became known as the Muscogee or Creek Indians.
By the time I finished going through the museum it was time to watch the movie and learn about Andersonville National Historic Site. What I learned was not good. It was a Confederate prisoner of war camp. Basically the land was turned into a huge outdoor jail. Prisoners had to make due with what they came in with to make tents. At the beginning of the war there were prisoner exchanges, so the North and South would exchange prisoners. The problem was these soldiers returned to duty and the North felt they prolonged the war, so they put a halt to them. As the war drug on, food supplies became scarce as the men were away at war and could not till the fields and the North raided into the South burning fields and destroying what crops were planted. At the same time, camps like Andersonville became more and more crowded as they reached and exceeded double the capacity that they were supposed to hold. Rations became scarce for the guards, let alone the prisoners. There was a water supply, but as more and more prisoners joined the camp it became dirty and was insufficient for the amount of people shoved together. Thousands died and were buried in unmarked graves on the grounds until the war finally ended and they were freed. Sadly, this was normal for prisoner of war camps on both the Union and Confederate side. However, Andersonville was the largest Confederate POW camp and got the reputation as one of the worst. After the war ended, Captain Henry Wirz was tried for war crimes and executed. The only good thing to come from Andersonville is that it sparked the formation of the Red Cross. One of the prisoners was Dorence Atwater, and after the war he returned to Andersonville with Clara Barton. Atwater had kept a secret list of the nearly 13,000 POWs that died at Andersonville and where they were buried. Barton was already known as the “Angel of the Battlefield” for her help with the wounded after battle and with her work of gathering medical supplies. When she visited Andersonville she helped Atwater identify all of the graves put grave markers on them. Afterwards, she traveled to Europe and helped found an international medical disaster organization which would eventually become the American Red Cross that we know of today. It is amazing how one event can change a person’s life forever, and continue to impact people today.
My first stop for the day was at Fort Frederica. Since I didn’t know anything about the fort, I watched the NPS video first. In the 1700s, both Spain and England claimed the land between St. Augustine and Charleston; the state that is now Georgia. With Spanish power in North America waning, England decided found a colony on this disputed territory. Led by James Oglethorpe (who eventually settled on Cumberland Island), colonists built a fort. The town was named for Frederick, the king’s only son. Under Oglethorpe’s direction, the colonists built the fort and then the town around it. Over the years, the colonists grew for a couple hundred to a town of over 500 people. In 1742, the Spanish decided it was time to reclaim their land. Spanish commander Manuel de Montiano, governor of Florida, decided to destroy Frederica and lay waste the coast up to South Carolina. Spanish ships carrying 2,000 men landed a few miles up the inland passage by Fort Frederica. Oglethrope retreated to the fort, and when 200 Spaniards advanced up the military road Oglethrope routed the column with a fierce attack. Learning of the repulse, Montiano sent several hundred men to cover the retreat but they ran into a British ambush. Legend has it that the marsh ran red with blood, when in reality only a few men died. However, the battle was called the Battle of Bloody Marsh and was the last Spanish invasion north of Florida. It also spelled the eventual decline of the town. With the threat from Spain gone, the British disbanded the military that was stationed there. Without the support of several hundred soldiers’ pay, the town fell in decline and is now a ruin.
After Isaiah died, the family’s wealth declined with no income coming in and Isaiah’s widow had to sell off their belongings and eventually the house in order to get by. The next owners owned it for 109 years until the house was in decline. It was going to be demolished until the Historic Savannah Foundation bought it.
A couple of blocks from the Davenport house was the Owens-Thomas House & Slave Quarters. This was my next stop, but when I got there the next tour didn’t start for another 45 minutes. So I bought my ticket and then went walked a couple of blocks down to Subway to eat some lunch while I waited. By the time I got back it was time to start my tour. Instead of having a tour guide, they have an audio guide. You scan a QR Code with your phone and then you can listen to each area as you walk through the house.
After I finished walking around I went back to my car and drove to Fort Pulaski for my last stop of the day. Fort Pulaski was a Civil War era fort, and it was considered unbreachable. So it was a shock when the Confederate commander was forced to surrender it. By April 1861, 11 Southern states had left the Union and were at war with the North. By November, Fort Pulaski was under attack as the North tightened the blockades around Southern ports. While the Confederates controlled Fort Pulaski, the North controlled the batteries around it on Tybee Island. However, the Confederates weren’t concerned because they were being bombared by ammunition from a mile away. What they didn’t know was that the North was using 10 experimental rifled canons, which began to bore through Pulaski’s walls. After 30 hours of bombardment, Confederate commander Colonel Charles Olmstead surrendered when the holes threated the main powder magazine.
I had a plan for the day. My first stop was going to be Cumberland Island, and then I was going to drive up the coast of Georgia to hit the other National Parks. However, when I was looking up where Cumberland Island was I quickly realized that wasn’t going to happen. The only way to get to Cumberland Island is by ferry, and today there was only 1 ferry going to the island and 1 coming back. If you miss the ferry you are stuck on the island. So I quickly changed my plans to spend the whole day on the island. I didn’t reserve a ferry ticket ahead of time, so I was on the standby list. I waited until the boat was going to head to the island and I guess some people didn’t show up so I was able to go. While I was waiting in line, I looked up what I could do since I was going to spend all day there and I decided to sign up for the tour of the island. Before the boat left, I ran back to my car for my umbrella since the day was overcast. On my way back I saw a sign right where I was parked saying that there was a 2 hour limit or my car would be towed. I panicked, but there was nothing I could do. The ferry was minutes from leaving and if I missed it I couldn’t catch another one. I literally had no time to move my car. I hope no one notices…
When we got to the island I went and joined my group for the tour. They had a van, so we all loaded up in there for our tour of the island. I quickly found out that apparently this was a famous island, and there were several books written about it. The guide would ask a question and everyone knew the answer except me. The island was originally settled by the Spanish, but was eventually abandoned due to pirate attacks. English general James Oglethorpe arrived in 1733 and established a hunting lodge on the island. A fort was built to defend the English settlements north of Spanish Florida. After the English defeated the Spanish in 1742 the forts were no longer needed and were abandoned. Later it was divided into parcels with different owners. Nathanael Greene, a Revolutionary War hero, ended up founding most of southern Cumberland Island. After he died, his widow Catharine Greene, inherited it. She remarried Phineas Miller 10 years later and they built a huge mansion on the island that they called Dungeness and was the site of many social galas. The Millers were the first major planters on the island and they owned over 200 slaves. They employed a man named Eli Whitney, who invented the cotton gin with their financial help in 1793. Catharine Green was also friends with General “Lighthorse” Harry Lee, who was the father of Robert E. Lee, and she took him in when he was ill. He ended up dying on the island and was buried here until he was reinterred at Lexington, Virginia in 1913.
On our way, our guide told us about how the island became a National Park. In the late 1950s, some members of the Carnegie family invited the National Park Service to the island to assess its suitability as a National Seashore. Plans were underway to declare it as a National Seashore. This was complicated in 1968 when several Carnegie descendants sold 3,000 acres to real estate developer Charles Fraser, who wanted to develop it as park of Hilton Head Island. The remaining Carnegie and Candler descendants didn’t want their island to become developed, so they banded together with politicians, activities, and non-profit organizations to stop it. They helped push a bill through Congress to establish Cumberland Island as a National Seashore and all of the owners of the island sold to the federal government. However, several of the owner still wanted access to the islands and their private retreats, so they created property rights. Each of the owners have separate agreements with the NPS. Basically, they own their houses and the land for a set number of years and after the term is up the NPS will own it. It is complicated because each family had different lawyers and they all negotiated for different terms.
The other famous owners on this island where the Carnegies. In the late 1880s, Thomas Carnegie, brother of steel magnate Andrew Carnegie, and his wife Lucy bought land on Cumberland for a winter retreat. In 1884, they started building a mansion on the site of Dungeness. Thomas ended up dying before the mansion was finished, but Lucy and their 9 children continued living on the island. Before it became a national park, the Carnegies owned 90% of the island. According to our guide, Lucy was a helicopter mom and wanted to remain in control of her children. To do this, she promised she would build them their own homes as long as they lived on the island. Several of her children took her up on the offer and there are 3 other mansions on the island now. One of them was Greyfield, which was built for Margaret Carnegie Ricketson and her husband Oliver Ricketson. It is now known as Greyfield Inn, and is an inn for the wealthy. It costs about $400 a night for a room and you have to stay for a minimum of 3 nights. I didn’t get a picture of it, but we passed by it on our way to the northern part of the island. The Stafford Planation is still privately owned by members of the Carnegie family. The one that we were able to visit was Plum Orchard, which was built for Thomas M. Carnegie and his wife Margaret Copley Thaw. This is the only mansion built on the northern part of the island by the Carnegies, and it was because Margaret and Lucy did not get along. Margaret wanted to be as far as possible from her. Margaret also wanted everything she had to be better than Lucy’s. So she had an extra wing built at Plum Orchard so it would be bigger than Lucy’s house. And when Lucy got an ice maker, Margaret also had to have one but it had to be bigger. After Thomas died, Margaret ended up remarrying and moving to Kenya.
After the ranger session, the ferry arrive and I returned back to the mainland. The ferry was a lot more crowded, so there were several people inside the cabin. Apparently the mask mandate is flexible, because I saw several people not wearing them inside. We got back after 6pm and I went straight to my car to make sure it was still there. And it was! I even walked around it to make sure I didn’t get a boot, and luckily it didn’t so I was able to continue on my way to my hotel for the night.
After I finished walking around I went to Fort Moultrie. This was one of the forts that fired on Fort Sumter in the first battle of the Civil War. However, the displays were more about the 171-year history of Fort Moultrie. It was named in honor of William Moultrie, who defended Charleston from the British in 1776 at this spot. But not for long, as the British returned in 1780 and were successful in capturing Charleston. After the American Revolution, the fort was abandoned and neglected until war broke out between England and France in 1793. Congress authorized the First American System of nationwide coastal fortifications and a second Fort Moultrie was built. Fort Moultrie was later modernized in the 1870s and again as technology changed during WWI and WWII.
After walking around the fort I drove to Charles Pinckney National Historic Site. I had never heard of Charles Pinckney, but he was a man who dedicated his live to public service. He was an officer during the American Revolution, but spent most of the time imprisoned with the other American officers after the British took Charleston. After the war, Pinckney was one of the South Caroline delegates at the Constitutional Convention where he was an active participant and many of his ideas were incorporated into the Constitution. In 1800, he became the ambassador to Spain and helped facilitation the acquisition of Louisiana from France.
My plan for today was to go to Atalaya Castle and Brookgreen Gardens on Murrells Inlet, but it was raining a lot and both are outdoor activities. I had already been to several gardens on my trip and I didn’t really know anything about the castle so I decided to head to Charleston instead where I hope they have better weather. When I got to Charleston it was gloomy, but there was no rain so my chance paid off. I went started with Magnolia Planation and Gardens. There were actually a lot of people there today. It has one of the most beautiful plantation gardens in the area. Since I had time, I paid for the gardens and a tour of the house.
We got through the different rooms on the second floor. The family continued to marry well and they accumulated a lot of wealth. With this, they were able to buy houses in Charleston and in other areas. They kept the gardens open to the public, but they didn’t like the lack of privacy. Tourists kept coming up to the plantation house and peaked in the windows, so they eventually moved out and opened the house to tours. They kept all of their furnishing in place though, so we could see the furnishings of the time in the bedrooms, dining rooms, and sitting rooms. The house is still owned by the descendants of the Drayton family, though no one has lived in the house for years.
Since I cut out 2 stops out of my itinerary this morning, I was way ahead of schedule. I was supposed to go to Fort Sumter tomorrow, but I decided to go now since I didn’t want to deal with the weekend crowds. I’m glad I did. I didn’t realize the fort was on an island, so the only way to get there is by ferry on a tour. The tour takes 3 hours, which is a lot longer than I had planned for.
The upper level was cool because you could see were the cannon were placed around the island. This was considered an excellent place for the fort because no enemy could sneak up on you since it was on an island. And with Fort Moultrie, Fort Wagner, and other batteries located on land, this created an impassible defense for Charleston. However, this ended up being bad for the Union soldiers stationed here when the Civil War broke out. When South Caroline succeeded from the union in 1860, they felt they should have control of all of the forts in the area. However, Fort Moultrie was garrisoned by Major Robert Anderson and was loyal to the Union. He concluded that Fort Moultrie was indefensible and secretly moved his garrison to Fort Sumter. This would protect him from a sneak attack by land, but guns on all sides surrounded him. South Carolina demanded he turn over the fort, but the U.S. government ordered him not to. As the weeks passed, Fort Sumter became the focal point of tensions between the North and South. On April 11, 1861, Major Anderson was ordered to surrender or the Confederates would open fire on the fort. He refused, and an hour later the first shots of the Civil War were fired.
Since I’m ahead of schedule today, and will probably only spend 1 night in Charleston instead of 2 I decided to go to the Old Charleston Jail as my last stop for today. The Old Jail is considered the most haunted building in Charleston and I can see why. The tours run every 30 minutes. I had booked a later tour because I didn’t know how long it would take the ferry to get back and my travel time, but I actually arrived before the tour prior to mine was leaving. Since I was only 1 additional person, they let me join that tour.
Throughout the tour our guide told us stories of the different ghosts that still inhabit the building. There was the guy that was insane that liked to growl and hurt women. According to our guide he pushed one of the female tour guides down the stairs. There was also Lavinia Fisher, who has been reported as the first female serial killer in the U.S. She and her husband would invite lone travelers to the Six Mile Wayfarer House. They would then drug their tea and kill them, keeping their possessions. They both claimed they were innocent up until they were hanged. Lavinia still haunts the halls, and our tour guide said that he had seen her and heard her many times. Our last stop was in one of the lower jail cells. For this one, the tour guide turned out the electrical lights and his flashlight so we could see what it used to be like before they installed electricity. It was pitch dark. While it was dark he told us one more story about an experience one of the guides had here when it was dark. The guide was alone and he pissed off one of the ghosts. The ghost told him to “leave” and put a hand on his shoulder. When he got outside there was a burn mark in the shape of a hand in that exact spot. He researched the legends of the prisoners and there was a legend of a warden that died in the prison that liked to burn prisoners. He was so hated that his fellow guards are actually the ones that killed him. Right as our guide got to the point of the story that the ghost said “leave” he deliberately dropped his flashlight to see if anyone would scream. I wasn’t one of the ones that screamed, but I definitely jumped a couple of feet. Luckily it was dark so no one saw it.
On the way the group next to me asked about if the different herds mingle together. The captain told them that the horses all stay on different sides of the island in their own herd, unless there is a hurricane. Apparently someone sent up drones during the hurricane and it discovered that when one hits all of the horses gather together in the center of the island. The weaker horses and the foals are in the center of the circle, and the stronger horses are on the outside with their butts facing out. And this is how they ride out the hurricane, by working together.
After I finished walking around I went to my hotel for the night. Funny story about that. When I was trying to reserve my hotel I kept getting an error message. I needed a place to stay so I kept trying over and over. Apparently I tried 4 times, because when I finally got to the hotel, that is how many reservations I had. Luckily they were able to cancel them, so I only had to pay for 1 room. Apparently I wasn’t the only person that had this issue. The lady at the front desk said there was another man that had the same issue, but apparently he only reserved 2 rooms; not 4.
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June 2022
AuthorThese are details from my adventures around the world. |