The Art of a Travel Story

  Hi everyone.   Happy weekend to you. I hope if you're in the US you had a nice Independence Day yesterday and are  enjoying the holiday weekend. 250 years...Wow. I remember the 200th anniversary clearly so I must be getting old. Ha ha! 😉

  I hope everyone, no matter where you live, had a nice weekend so far also. 

  I wrote this post several weeks ago, and I kept pushing it into the future. I figured it was time to share it, and with this being a holiday weekend, I thought a little bit of US history would work. If you're interested in US history you might enjoy this post. And if not, then I'll catch you another time.

 I never did finish my trip blog posts from when I went to Charleston, South Carolina back in April, so I thought this history inspired post would be a good choice for this weekend.

  I'm also joining Gillena for her Sunday Smiles  and Nicole for her Sunday in the Art Room (Sitar) which is canceled this week.   

  Today I'm taking you to Fort Sumter and on an adventure my husband and I took out into Charleston Harbor. I like the challenge of writing a travel post that tells a story, but it's always a little tricky when you're writing about history unless that's your expertise.I'm not even close to being a Civil War history expert, but I do find it interesting.  It's  tough because I want to tell a complete story, but not write a novel. I don't know if I succeeded today or not, but I'm sure if you read this you'll have something to say. 😉

   Our last day in Charleston was a history military-style day for us after a couple of nature days, and our visit to Fort Sumter takes us back into American history. This fort played a pivotal role during the American Civil War. The fort really started becoming a pivot point during the late autumn and early winter of 1860, right after Abraham Lincoln was elected into the office of president. It really became a pivot point after his inauguration on March 4, 1861.

  In this above photo you can see the fort as it looks now in 2026.  Forts Sumter was an American fort. It was under construction in the 1820's, and  when 1860 rolled around there were still construction workers there. The fort sits in Charleston Harbor on a man-made island, and its original purpose was to help protect the harbor from foreign invaders.  In the above photo you can see what is left to the fort. It was originally a 3 story building. In the flag photo below, if you look for the line on the flagpole (which is a bit deceiving from the angle I took the photo), you can see how tall the fort originally was.

   In 1860, the United States had a presidential election, and Abraham Lincoln was elected. Many people believed he would immediately free the slaves once he became president. This was especially true in the south where a lot of the economy was tied up in cotton and having slaves to work the fields. This made many southern states want to leave the United States, and South Carolina was the first state to do so in December of 1860. In fact Charleston was the heart of the secessionist movement. In the next few months, several other states would leave the United States and join South Carolina, forming what was called the Confederate States of America.

  However in 1860, Fort Sumter was an American (also known as the Union) fort, and it was manned by the American military. It  (along with 2 other forts) sat in what was  now  not the United States since South Carolina had left the country  The other 2 forts were connected to the mainland, but Sumter was not. 

   The military commander of these 3 forts was Major Robert Anderson. Since he was stationed with his men at Fort Moultrie, one of the forts connected by a bridge  to the mainland, he worried that staying there would lead to security risks. On Christmas night (after midnight so it was December 26, 1860), under the cover of darkness, he moved the entire garrison out across the bay to Fort Sumter and raised the American flag. The next morning when daylight arrived,  the people of Charleston were surprised that Fort Moultrie had been abandoned and that the American flag was flying high at Fort Sumter.

   Although this now meant that for the South Carolina military to capture Fort Sumter it would need to either bomb or attack  by ship, it also meant that the Sumter could not be easily resupplied. Between when the men moved onto this island up until the time it was attacked, food supplies would run very low. Several attempts to resupply the fort lead to those American supply ships being chased out of the harbor by various means. 

   Many negotiations went on between December 1860 and April of 1861 between the United States and the new Confederate States. None reached any real positive conclusions. Some of this was because President Lincoln, in his inaugural speech, said that all American military bases would stay in Union/American hands. He did not want to look weak after that and give up the fort. 

   Since none of these negotiations worked, and since the Confederate States wanted the Union military out of Charleston Harbor, tensions rose quite high.

  On the 12th April of 1861, the fort was bombarded by the South Carolinian military, setting the fort on fire and causing Anderson  (after a few days) to surrender in order to save his men. That military event is why the fort looks much like it does today. This event also started the American Civil War, also called the War Between the States, that lasted from April of 1861- April of 1865 and killed more Americans than any other war to date.  But because it was the Confederacy that attacked the fort, it can be said they started the war, not Lincoln.

   OK enough background. Here's some photos for you, starting with this model of how the fort looked in 1860. This model was inside the modern museum added to the fort . I think that was my husband's hand reflected in the glass on the top.

    Now you can see the present condition of the fort. This next photo is taken inside the fort, looking back to Charleston, which is where the bridge ( that you can see in the distance) is located.

   This next view is  also inside the fort, and it is mostly  the modern portion added by the National Park Service with the museum, store and offices.

    Every star on the US flag stands for one of the states. Another bit of history I learned at the fort was that when new states were added to the Union, new stars would be added on July 4 of the following year. This flag has 33 states, even though by the time the war started Kansas had been added to the Union. However, since the war started in April, its star would not be added until July so it was not on the flag flying at Fort Sumpter.

     I also learned that there was no set star pattern at this point in time, so the star pattern that flew at Fort Sumter was Major Anderson's preference.   

    To get to Fort Sumter you have to take a National Park Service boat tour.  On the tour you get a history lesson, and once you land, you get an hour to explore the fort. An hour may not seem like much, but it really was enough time since the fort and the island it is on is not very large.

   In this next photo you see some more ruins of the fort, and below that, where the tan twine circle is, you can see an original Civil War artillery shell that is still embedded in the wall. 

    If you look at this next photo, you can see some finger impressions from when the bricks were made. The bricks were made in the general local area, and as it was explained to us, made by slave children. One of them pushed a little too hard and left an imprint. It makes me wonder about the life this person had...and this unknown person is (sadly) only remembered by some imprints in a brick.

   More ruins.

   And finally, our hour passed and it was time for us to leave. There's my husband on the walkway out to the boat that would take us back to Charleston Harbor. The weather had changed while we were at the fort, with the wind picking up and the clouds coming in. It was even chilly.

   I hope you enjoyed this little bit of US history. And I also that you have a great rest of  your weekend and start to the new week.

   

More of Congaree National Park

    Hi everyone. Happy Friday. Today I am joining Nicole for her Friday Face Off and Gillena for her Friday Lunch Break.

   Thanks everyone for your wishes for success with the new batch of bees. And I love reading your bear comments too. 

     This past Sunday I shared some photos from my recent visit to Congaree National Park which is about a half an hour outside of Columbia, South Carolina or about 2 hours outside of Charleston. Here's the post if you're interested :   An Ode To Trees.   

    Today I'm back with the rest of the photos from the walk on the boardwalk that my husband and I took that day.  OK, these first couple of photos don't have any faces. It looks so peaceful and quiet, doesn't it?

   When we arrived at the park's visitor's center, we had a really hard time finding a space to park. One of the reasons it was so crowded that morning was that the park was celebrating. 2026 is the park's 50th anniversary. Since they are a National Park, run by the federal government, they were also celebrating the US's 250th anniversary. One thing they had going on was that at a few points along the boardwalk they had music students from the University of South Carolina playing music. 

   The music was great. Most of it was traditional American tunes.  The students were also very willing to answer questions and talk about the music. We even  later spoke with one woman who was a combined music and environmental science student. She was thrilled to be able to combine her 2 loves here at the park.

 These woodwind players had climbed down into a dry patch below the boardwalk.

I thought their music stands looked  lonely but also interesting in the woods.

 

    There was also a chorus singing in another spot just off the boardwalk, but I didn't get any photos of that. 😟

The further we walked, the sounds turned from human music to the songs and sounds of nature.
   

     You can really see the muddy forest floor in this next photo. This is the area where they were  constructing the new boardwalk.

    And there's more wet and muddy forest floor in this next view.

   We had a paper trail guide, and along the boardwalk there were marked spots.  One marked spot had an old still set up from Prohibition when bootleggers found this area to be a perfect hidden-away spot to produce their alcohol. FYI- Prohibition was mostly during the 1920's. You can tell in the photo that this still covering has been sitting in the forest for a long time.

   And here's South Carolina's state plant, the palmetto.

And of course these cypress trees with the cypress knees were quite interesting.

    And there was wildlife. I have never seen so many pileated woodpeckers in one day or in one area.  Can you see one in the next photo? They were hard to get a picture of because they hopped around the trees and flittered out of sight a lot.  I read they are the largest woodpecker in the US too. I didn't know that.

    There were also lots of grey squirrels too, including the one running along the boardwalk.

    The park is known for their Fox Squirrels, but other than this sign we only saw Gray Squirrels.

  But we did see quite a few reptiles, especially down at this pond.

   There were a whole lot of these snakes in the water. I think they are Brown Water Snakes, but I could never get a clear identification.

 And I'm not sure if this next creepy crawly is some kind of lizard or a salamander as it was below me (since I was up above it on the boardwalk). It was also near the snakes, and it's skin looks pretty smooth and not scaly. But of course, I wasn't close enough to see very well.  The blue on the tail makes me think it's a juvenile type of skink (Blue tailed skink-a type of lizard), as they have blue on their tails which disappears as they age. 

   And then we saw this turtle/ tortoise crawling around.

   I really don't know much about turtle/tortoise identification, and I couldn't find a picture online that helped me ID it.

  And ha ha how about this cute guy you could buy in the gift shop. I must say I thought about it because he looks like he could be fun to play with. 😉

   I'll leave you with that face. I hope everyone one has a wonderful rest of your Friday and start to the weekend ahead. 

    I'm adding that I'll also be linking a up to Mosaic Monday.

Congaree National Park-An Ode to Trees

    Hi everyone. Happy Sunday and weekend to you. 

    And to all you Mothers (of human  children or other children most probably  of the 4 legged variety),

  Happy Mother's Day. 🎕 ❤ 

     Today I am linking up to Nicole's Sunday in the Art Room (Sitar) and Gillena's Sunday Smiles.

    I'm taking you to Congaree National Park which is outside of Columbia, South Carolina. We visited the park when my husband I  took off a few weekends ago and flew to Charleston (South Carolina).  On Saturday (of that weekend) we took the 2 hour drive inland to visit this park since we hadn't been there before and didn't know when we might be back in this area again. 

   Congaree  National Park  is basically  a large track of bottom land forest with a couple of rivers running through it. It's beautiful forested land too, quite different from what grows in New Hampshire. 

    My art today is me trying to get some interesting tree and forest views. We walked the Boardwalk trail, which because 1/3 of it was removed for reconstruction, meant we walked about 1.5 miles (2.4 km) to the end and then turned around and walked back. It was a lovely walk though, and I saw lots of wildlife. (Although for the sake of brevity, I'll have another post later in the week with the wildlife and some other park views.)

    This was not only a beautiful walk, but really relaxing since it was flat. And although my photos make it look like no one was there, when we first arrived it was quite crowded. In fact, we had a hard time finding a spot to park.

     And here's some of my "Arty" photos of trees, at least the ones I really like. I'll start with this loblolly pine. Wow those are tall trees. And what a fun name too. 

A cool shadow

and then more height

 Below is the bark of the loblolly pine.

Fungi enjoying the remains of a dead tree, and then below, a very large plant gall.

And I didn't know we had wild American holly either. 

    Being bottom land the forest floor was quite muddy in places. We ran into a couple from New Hampshire (that we didn't know) but we were chatting, and they told us that when  their son had visited the park  the bottom land was flooded. I'm not certain when that was.  From what I read the forest mud here was quite thick, which is why there is a boardwalk.

    Of course, being wet, this place could be filled with mosquitoes.

    But as you can see on the Park's Mosquito Meter, it was not a problem the day we went. In fact, there weren't many insects at all. This park does not allow bug spray because it was one of the few places in the southeastern US where there are synchronized firefly events-meaning all the fireflies are flashing at a similar time. We missed that event by a few weeks, but since it is very popular, there is a lottery for tickets to attend. They can't have the park trampled by people and all the habitat for the fireflies ruined.

   As I mentioned, I'll have another Park post later this week. Until then, have a great rest of your weekend and start to the new week.