To Charleston and Boone Hall Plantation- Saturday, June 27, 2026

    We stopped driving earlier than we had hoped last night, so instead of 4 hours remaining to drive, we had more than 5 still to go this morning.  We also knew that 5 driving hours aren't the same as 5 clock hours and it would take us more than that to get to Charleston today.   We had breakfast at our hotel and were on the road by about 8:00.    We stopped at the very nice welcome centers for both North Carolina and South Carolina for bathroom breaks, but enjoyed the stops.  Abby had her picture taken at a number of spots in the North Carolina one, and Scott grabbed a handful of brochures and literature at the South Carolina one.

     Lunch was a bit of a challenge, unfortunately.  In Orangeburg, SC, we tried to stop at a Chick-fil-A mainly because we expected that it would have a play area where Abby could burn some energy.  The lines and cars there were ridiculous, though.  After creeping through the traffic in the parking lot and not being able to find a spot to park, we decided it was not a good choice for lunch.  We made our way to a nearby Wendy's and went in, but they had a long line waiting at the counter.  We reminded ourselves that we were in the South.  After waiting for awhile and not getting any closer to ordering, we left there too.  We ended up going through the drive-in at McDonald's.  While we were able to get food, it was way harder than it should have been to place our not-to-complicated order.  We ate on the road, which was just as well because we were behind schedule, but Abby was disappointed about not getting a play break or a chocolate shake.  We told her we wouldn't be able to promise any particular food for this trip if things continue to be like these.  

     Eating our lunch in the car, we left Orangeburg around 1:00, and made our way to Charleston.  We arrived at our first stop at about 2:30.  The heat had crept into the low 90s.  We expected that, but it still was hot. 

     Although the theme of this trip is the Revolutionary War, we decided to step into a slightly different era for today.  Scott and Julie have both been fans of the miniseries North & South ever since they watched it back in the 1980s.  Its Civil War setting not only helped inspire the theme of their wedding, but they entered the reception to the strains of Bill Conti's opening theme from the show.  (That soundtrack was actually the first CD that Scott ever owned, since he had to buy it for the DJ.)  Scott has shown clips from this show probably every year that he has taught about the coming of the Civil War.  When they realized how close they were going to be to some of the locations that were used, Scott made sure they got on our itinerary.  

      Plantations usually aren't our thing (They're too "Lost Cause" and Confederate for our tastes), but we made an exception for this one.  Boone Hall Plantation used as the exterior of Orry Main's "Mount Royal" plantation.  (Orry, of course, was played by Patrick Swayze.)  We arrived there, paid admission, and drove down through the long line of oak trees known as the Avenue of the Oaks.  It was the scene of several dramatic horse rides in the series.  The 88 trees are over 200 years old and maybe even 300 years old.  Their branches spread all they way across the path, forming a canopy that is draped with Spanish moss.   The drive goes on for 3/4 of a mile under their limbs.   To the left are brick cabins that were slave quarters for at least some of the slaves who were here, and at the end of the drive is the main house.

     In some ways, the main house at Boone Hall Plantation is something like Mad King Ludwig's Neuschwanstein Castle in Germany.  Both are more modern than they seem and were built to resemble what an idealized, overly romanticized past was supposed to look like.  This place was an actual plantation since the 1600s.  Five generations of Boones raised cotton and indigo here, and several more generations of Horlbecks added to the profits by having an industry of making bricks here.  The main house, though, was built in 1936 and was meant to represent those "gone with the wind" myths of the plantation era.  It's no wonder that Hollywood loved the mansion and made its exterior the Main's home.   (For that matter, it's also still a popular site for weddings, including one that they were setting up for today, in spite of the horrors that the enslaved people had to go through in the historical plantation,)  In actuality, the earlier homes on this site were much more modest because they were mainly meant for the overseers who were hired to manage the plantations.  The actual plantation owners were living in fashionable mansions in Charleston. 

     We arrived in time to take the 3:00 tour of the interior of the house.  It is still privately owned, and we only got to see three of rooms on the first floor which were the public facing rooms-- a party room lined with books and a grand piano, the dining room, and a covered breezeway called the "Loggia."  There were some interesting antiques in the house, but seeing the inside, it's not surprising that North & South producers decided to use a different plantation in Mississippi for the interiors of "Mount Royal."

     After the house tour, we took a leisurely tour on a large canopy-covered, tractor-pulled tram around the 738 acre grounds.  We saw demonstration crops of indigo and cotton, as well as modern crops that they grow such as peaches, pecans, and grapes.  The highlight of the tour was probably the alligator whose eyes were poking out of a freshwater pond and a nearby tree full of white egrets and some of their chicks.  The wind was blowing a bit and the breeze in the open-air ride made the 90 degree heat more bearable.  Abby proved herself to be a girl like her sisters before her because she was fast asleep by the end of the tour.

    We spent sometime in the small museum and gift shop in the cotton gin house.  Julie bought a Christmas ornament of the house.   Abby's face was a little red by now, so we went to the "Butterfly Cafe" there for some ice cream.  Scott noticed it was getting close to 5:00, and there was one more spot that he wanted to see.  One of the scenes of George and Orry that he shows every year was filmed at the building called the Cotton Dock.  Not only were the grounds closing, but there was a wedding scheduled to begin and the reception was going to be there.  We found a way for him to go to the river side of the building where he got some pictures and video, but he also learned that the building had been rebuilt after being damaged by Hurricane Hugo in 1989, so there were some differences from the one in the scene.  The railing that they leaned against, for example was replaced with benches for people to sit on.  The grounds were closing and the wedding guests were arriving, and we had to move on.  We regretted the time we lost during our travels to get here, because we would have liked another hour to look around.  The brick slave cabins are much older than the big house, and are supposed to have some interesting exhibits inside them.  We would have liked more time to explore them.   The Charles Pinckney National Historic Site was right across the road and we didn't touch that at all, in spite of the fact that he was an important contributor to the US Constitution.

     Our hotel was only three miles away.  Scott had hoped to visit the location of George Hazard's family home today, but we decided that would wait until another day.  Our hotel is a Comfort Inn & Suites, but the exterior of it doesn't look like one.  It is located in a cute complex of coastal colored buildings.  The King Street Grill is right next door, and since their patio seating area also had a small playground, we quickly decided to eat there.  Abby was very wound up by this point and needed a chance to go crazy.  She was thrilled to see that our first floor hotel room is right across from the pool.  The pool itself was very busy.  Julie said that the water was as warm as bathwater and Abby spent a while in it.  She even tried floating without her vest for a little bit.