Miles yesterday: 6 (plus about 35 in a circle)

Miles today: 360

Miles to date: 1535

States to date: 8 (MA, DC, MD, WV, VA, NC, SC, GA) Yes, we know that DC is not a state.

Where are we again? Locust Grove, just short of Atlanta, Georgia

Fun fact: Few people realise that the state of Georgia is not actually a real place, but a typeface copyrighted by Microsoft TM.

The Day’s Events: Well, yesterday, we left the Masters Inn, intact, and drove into historic downtown Charleston, for the start of our ‘Gone with the Wind’ tour of the Old South. Parked the car on the Old Battery, from where we could see Fort Sumter, the place where the South Carolinians started the Civil War. The Historic Downtown is full of the townhouses of the Colonial and Ante-Bellum plantation owners. We walked around, grabbed a coffee, and went on a tour of the Anderson-Middleton House. This was full of period furniture and, as ever with National Landmarks, the tour guides were thrown by us being British, and the poor American tourists from Little Rock got a raw deal, while we were expected to opine on Wedgwood basalt ware (of which we know nothing). This was a beautiful house, with a beautiful view and we learned from Mary Margaret, our tour guide, that ‘slavery was an ugly institution’.

Encouraged by this, we travelled up SC Route 61 to see the Middleton plantation. What can you say? Only one wing of the plantation house – the others having been burnt down by the Unionists, possibly because the owner signed the Secession document (we got to see a copy) and, if we heard right, was Vice President of the Confederacy or Governor of South Carolina or similar. But the position was beautiful (on a bluff overlooking the river), the gardens were beautiful, as were the horses standing in the shade under the spreading live (evergreen) oaks, and the little wooden chapel over the spring house with all the ceramic bottles filling with water in the shade. All so beautiful that you could forget that it was all made possible by slavery.

And, even though they had preserved the woodwork shops and the stables, all they had to show that there were ever any slaves was one hut where some of the loyal slaves stayed on with the family after the Civil War. Did we say that the Foundation that preserves it is headed by the current generation of the same family? Did we say that Malcolm was wearing his Lee Scratch Perry ‘Emperor of Life’ T-shirt, throughout? We even went on the tour of the house, where we were told that we would get the history of the furniture, not of the plantation, or of the plantation system. (However, we did get to see a very small rice paddy.) Have we said that, in the South, it’s the fashion to call ‘executive’ housing developments ‘Such and such Plantation’?

Anyway, doing all that in the 100 degree plus heat had taken it out of us, so we drove back to Charleston and took a Motel 6 on the edge of town. Here, although they had promised a dataport in every room, they only had dial up (if you took the lead out of the telephone), hence we couldn’t do a posting last night. Instead, Malcolm got a haircut, we grabbed a Mexican meal, and a couple of Margaritas, and went to bed.

Ok, so this morning, we drove down Highway 17, crossed the State line and into Georgia and then navigated our way to the historic downtown area of Savannah. Here, we took the trolley tour, because it was about 106 degrees. This was bigger but very similar to Charleston, except that, in their orientation video, they say that they never intended to have slavery, they were always religiously tolerant, welcoming a group of Jewish settlers back in the 1600s, etc, etc. These places seem to have entered the post-modern tourist economy, where all the cotton warehouses have been converted into up-market family restaurants that look just the same as the ones on the Isle of Wight, UK. The good news is that the whole of the South seems to have entered the post-modern air-conditioned economy where everyone works in logistics, arranging for stuff produced in China to reach shopping malls and outlet centers.

Unfortunately, we missed the Moon River brewery but we saw Johnny Mercer’s Grammy or Oscar or whatever, and we have come to realise that ‘Moon River, wider than a mile’ is not an exaggeration in terms of South Carolina rivers.

Anyway, mid-afternoon, we set off up Interstate 16 and then I-75 and arrived outside Atlanta, checked into a Ramada Inn, got Vikki a haircut, and are sitting here, drinking Stone Mill Pale Ale, which we picked up thinking it was brewed in Georgia, but it turns out it’s from New Hampshire – wot a swizz.

We’re off again tomorrow to take a look around Atlanta, and will be heading west through Birmingham, Alabama, en route to Memphis, Tennessee. Thanks, by the way, to all those of you who have posted some top quality suggestions for driving tunes. Keep ‘em coming!


Ted’s Photo Blog

A picture of me, Ted, arriving back at Teddington Plantation to find that the damned Yankees have burned the place down!

Thankfully, the woods are still there.