charleston tea plantation

It's the hot, humid weather, and the moist low country that makes the good tea.  The ONLY tea plantation in North America. (Now owned by Bigelow Tea Company)

 This is the "Green Giant", specially made to the cut the tea leaves from the bushes.

back over to fresh fields

the most beautiful beach on the east coast of the usa

The northeastern most point of Kiawah Island is an ecologically undisturbed place where the Atlantic Ocean meets the land.  It is probably the most beautiful beach on the East Coast of the United States.  Of course, it is a golf course.  They say that it rivals, and perhaps surpasses, the dramatic beauty of Pebble Beach in Carmel California.  That is where we went to lunch.  My pictures do not capture the wild expanse of trees, grassland, and surf.

This is FA and her friend from Wellsville, Nancy, sitting on the "rocking bench" at the Golf Clubhouse out there.

 The pillows on the couch in the clubhouse are "karate-chopped", which is the latest thing.  Just in case you needed to know.

misc kiawah stuff

 Twisty trees ...

 Jubilee's allergies have started up

 

 More photos coming when I get a chance ...

sunrise

We were the only ones on the beach. Got there just as the sun had broken the horizon.

 The sand castle ...

 FA and Nancy at the Sand Castle ...

to the beach and back

 Jubilee didn't waste any time going into the surf.  Beach was mostly deserted, even though it is in the high 60s today.

 Coming home ...

 Trees are dark and winding here ...

 ... dripping with Spanish moss.

 FAs door ...

 Over to Fresh Fields to get some food ...

 Frogs are still there, but these look like new ones to me ...

 It is a colorful place with expensive stuff ...

 This is the Low Country, so mysteriously beautiful.  When I am here I feel myself caught in a shadow of the past.  The black workers (in the stores, at the gates, in the gardens) smile with radiant warmth, the shoppers and beach walkers so gently (and genuinely?) friendly, while the sun and landscape carry it all with both grace and a dark unknown.

another drive south

I drug my feet long enough, so Thursday after the freezing rain seemed less threatening, I set out.

 Hated to leave, somehow.

 Rained through most of West Virginia.

 My rock wall ...

 Into Virginia ... still more than 300 miles from Kiawah ...  Turned the car air conditioner on in Virginia; put on sunglasses in SC.

 Coming through Charleston (you should click on this photo and blow it up some so that you can read the writing on the side of the building!)

 Bridges and trees ...

 Made it to Kiawah about 1:30pm Friday.  Next up, the beach ...