So the planning began. We would fly from San Francisco and also visit family and a friend in the city, to make the most of this vacation.
San Francisco provided beautiful weather and an opportunity to visit some exhibits with our friend.
The library is most impressive and was hosting an exhibit of artist books created to support and recognize the appalling events surrounding the car bombing of the Baghdad booksellers area known as Al-Mutanabi Street. Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here
The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) had added a new extension since we were last in the area, so that was also a stop on our visit.
We saw a wonderful exhibition of Los Angeles street photography by Anthony Hernandez, http://anthonyhernandezphotography.com/
After our stay in the Bay Area, we flew to Charleston, SC and had planned to spend several days exploring the area before moving on to visit our friends near Savannah.
Imagine our surprise, when checking into our hotel, to learn that the Charleston area would be under an evacuation order the next day. We had not been paying much attention to the weather situation that was unfolding on the East Coast and so were blissfully unaware that Hurricane Matthew was really heading straight for Charleston. The day of our arrival was Tuesday, October 4, and we had an AirBnB reservation for three nights starting on Wednesday. On contacting the host, they were of the opinion that the storm would moderate and we would be able to keep our reservation.
As you might imagine, that changed to "canceled" in a few hours time.
So here we are with a mandatory evacuation order in place and no room reservations. Our Plan B was to head inland, away from the coast, not a bad plan, but one we shared with about 150,000 other folks! Luckily our rental car had a full tank of gas, as many gas stations were now out of fuel. Columbia, SC, the capital,- was our intended destination, lots of hotels, right! Wrong! We pulled off the jam-packed freeway and learned that there were no rooms left in Colombia. Really?! A mad search on the Internet ensued. The God's smiled on us and we managed to find a room for three nights at a Marriott Springfield Suites. Big sigh of relief. Columbia was only about 80 miles away, but it took us 6 hours to drive that short distance. Did I mention the 150,00 other folks with the same idea.
Although Columbia was not in our plans, we decided to explore. The weather was, as you might imagine, not that great, but not enough to stop us from wandering the city.
We were informed that there were not that many historic sites in the city, as most of the city was burned during the Civil War. None-the-less we found several interesting places to visit and there are many plaques with historical details around the city.
I thought the name of this rail station rather curious as it predates the invention of the airplane. Apparently, the words "air-line" were commonly used by railroads to indicate the shortest route between two cities, i.e. a straight line on a map, ignoring any natural obstacles.
While exploring Columbia, we came across the Trinity Episcopal Cathedral and the tree above was in the forecourt. We took a tour with a great guide, Frank, who gave us lots of information about the church, not the least of which was that it was modeled after York Cathedral in England.
The interior had many stained glass windows and were all very beautiful. The original pews remained and all had doors to enter. Many of these pews were "family pews" where only the family sat and were usually paid for by that family.
I was amused to see that there were "free" pews located at the front of the church, right under the scrutiny of the vicar!
The churchyard was full of very old gravestones and this one above was brought to our attention. There is a spelling mistake, with scared instead of the intended, sacred, carved in the stone.
We also found the Columbia Museum of Art highlighted by all of the trees on the block adorned with colorful, hand-knitted "sleeves" on their trunks.
There was a wonderful exhibit of large format aerial photographs of many areas of coastal South Carolina. The exhibit was titled "Eyes on the Edge" by the photographer, J. Henry Fair.
With the hurricane still charging up the Georgia and South Carolina coast, we were advised to stay inland through Sunday night. The storm hit Charleston and Savannah on Saturday with very high winds and warnings of record storm surges and heavy rain. Wind speeds at the coast were over 110mph and high storm surges predicted. The eye of the hurricane passed directly over Charleston on Saturday night. Consequently, we had to find another hotel for Sunday night, as all rooms were now booked. We decided to continue away from the coast and drove to Augusta, Georgia.
I have often watched the Master's Golf Tournament, which is played in Augusta, and thought the area looked beautiful. Unfortunately, we were underwhelmed by Augusta in October. The locals told us it was only a destination in April of each year, during the Master's Tournament. We were, however, delighted by the Morris Museum of Art, which had a great exhibition of Marty Stuart's photographs of country music stars.
Monday saw us heading to visit with our friends at last. On the journey towards Savannah, we saw long convoys of utility repair trucks heading to the coast, some from as far away as Wisconsin. Great to see that much help was on its way to get power back to coastal residents and help to clear away fallen trees and other storm damage. We arrived at our friend's to witness this sunset over the tidal marsh by their house.
On a trip into downtown Savannah we saw a number of large trees that had been uprooted. There was a lot of debris on the tree-lined streets and parks, but all were well on the way to being cleared.
Many of the businesses in the city were closed, but this candy store was open and we headed in after tasting a free sample of a praline.
And these sweet ladies were hard at work making more candy for all of us.
We have enjoyed watching "The Mind of a Chef" on Netflix and liked a number of episodes featuring the Southern Chef Sean Brock. His restaurant, Husk, is in a restored Queen Anne home in downtown Charleston, so we had to pay it a visit. We had made a dinner reservation the week we arrived, but the evacuation order meant we had to cancel. After our visit in Savannah, we headed back to Charleston for our flight home. We were able to make a lunch reservation just before we departed. The Southern dishes on offer were delicious and worth the visit.
Lots of tours provided by these horse-drawn carriages. We learned that the horses are very well cared for. In the most part they are horses "retired" from Amish country, and spend half of their year on a pastured farm outside of the city.
We wanted to see one of the famous plantations in the Charleston area and had been told to try and visit the Magnolia Plantation, which we did.
One of the ponds on the plantation, which used to be a major rice producer.
Diane's dessert at Husk, Key Lime Semifreddo. She said it was as delicious as it was pretty.
I just loved this truck, it's advertising and the request to report on it's driving. I asked the driver if he was able to sample the load he was carrying!
The trip to Charleston and Savannah did not go quite as we had planned, but we made the most of the situation and counted ourselves very fortunate that we found shelter and are thankful that our friends survived the storm with little damage. Our hearts go out to the many folks who sustained major damage and wish them a speedy path back to their normal lives.
