p54 May 2015

 

We drove to Waxhaw, NC to visit Franklin and Sarah and Amelia Grace, now 3 months old.

Franklin is doing aviation orientation at JAARS (Jungle Aviation and Radio Service).

While there Franklin took us all in the R44 helicopter.  Franklin has over 1600 flight hours, mostly in the UH60 Blackhawk.

 

 

 

p53 May 2015

 

The Magnolia Plantation was settled in 1876 by the Drayton family.  The Gardens have been a tourist attraction since the 1870s.  Since the 1970s the Plantation House has been open for tours. It was home to the Drayton family for 9 generations.  You can take a tram tour and a nature boat tour.  A swamp garden with boardwalks can be hiked.  One family member had his ahes placed in a live oak tree that had been in the gardens since the 1600s.  That evening we attended another murder mystery show, which I guessed the conclusion correct.

 

 

p52 May 2015

 

The next morning we took a ferry to Ft Sumter which lies in the middle of Charleston Harbor.  It was being built in 1860 and still unfinished when troops moved into it in Dec 1860.  On April 12, 1861 Confederates opened fire with artillery on Ft Sumter.  The Union surrendered on April 14.  Two years later the Union returned to bombard Ft Sumter for 20 months until the Confederates evacuated the Fort in Feb 1865.  What started as a three story fort was now mostly a pile of rubble.  The fort was not used again until 1898 when a battery was built.  It was used during WWI and WWII.  In 1948 it was transferred to the National Park Service.

Next to the ferry that takes you to Ft Sumter is the USS Yorktown aircraft carrier, the USS Laffey destroyer, the USS Clamagore submarine, and a Vietnam War exhibit with helicopters and river boat.  The Yorktown, Laffey, and Clamagore all were in World War II.  The flight deck and hanger deck of the carrier have numerous aircraft including a F14, F18, and WWII Corsair.  You can tour multiple decks on both ships and can go through the submarine from torpedo room to command room.

 

 

 

 

p51 May 2015

 

In 1980, my sister Nancy married Ed three weeks before Carol and I.  Every 5 years, starting with the 25th  anniversary, we go on a vacation together.  For the 25th we all went to St Augustine for several days.  For the 30th we went to Asheville and Winston-Salem, NC.  Now for the 35th, we met last week in Charleston,  the oldest city in South Carolina (1670),  where we took a horse drawn carriage tour of the large historic district.  Plantation owners would have a house in the city as well as their plantation house, so Charleston has a historic district of many large old homes.  We then toured the unique  Russell House Museum, built in 1808.  The house has a free flying staircase, some round rooms with curved doors, and elaborate plasterwork.  We then toured the Heyward-Washington House built in 1772.  Heyward was a signer of the Declaration of Independence.  George Washington slept in the house on a trip to Charleston in 1791. 

That evening we attended a murder mystery show.