Been a long time

Sorry for being away so long. So where was I? Ah, yes Seattle. I spent the bulk of the next day meandering around the Seattle Center. I started with The Pacific Science Center. It turned out to be more "kid oriented" than I was expecting, but being a bit of a "big kid" myself, I still had a good time. For some reason, I found a sign showing how many times a button had been pushed since 2003 rather amusing.

The next stop was the Space Needle. I had been up it once before during my previous visit to Seattle in 2001, but the view is always worth a look.

The last stop is two museums in one building. The "Experience the Music Project" and the "Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame". Both are very cool for a sci-fi/music geek like me. The music museum has a great collection of costumes worn by various performers like Hendrix, Cher, and many others I can't remember now, and this is out in the lobby area, so you don't have to pay a dime to see them. Inside the museum is a nice collection of exhibits and hands-on stations where you can "learn to play" guitar, keyboards, and drums. They also have a stage a group of people can go "perform" on and for a "few extra dollars" can come home with a DVD of their performance.

The Sci-Fi museum has a fabulous collection of all things Sci-Fi. It starts with books, and moves into movies and television. They have props, costumes, and set models. I had a great time wandering through the collection.

The next day, I boarded "The Empire Builder" and spend an overcast and rainy 40 hours travelling to Chicago.

Checking out Seattle

I arrived in Seattle about 24 hours later than I had intended, but in exchange I got to spend some time with a good friend right before he moved to Pennsylvania.

My first tourist stop was the Seattle Aquarium. The aquarium is getting a face lift, and there is a new big tank in the works, but what I saw was pretty impressive. Their signature tank is a "dome" tank where you are practically surrounded by fish. The only problem is the windows between the framing are kind of small. They have a nice bird area including a collection of tufted puffins. I had seen a pair of puffins in the wild once when I took a boat tour to the Farallon Islands.

Later that day I took an amazing tour. It started with a bus ride from the waterfront to Lake Union. We transferred to a boat and went from Lake Union through a lock out into Puget Sound and back to the waterfront. Not only did I get multiple glorious views of the Seattle skyline, but the chance to use a lock to transfer from the higher water of Lake Union to the lower water of the Sound. The one thing I could have done without on most of these tours was the perpetual mention of property values. It seemed we couldn't go more than five minutes without a house being pointed out along with a mention of how much it sold for recently.

The Coast Starlight (is late)

On to trip two!

The train to Seattle was due into Emeryville (next to Oakland) at about 10:00 PM. It arrived at 11:15. By the time the dining car opened for breakfast, we were another couple hours behind schedule. Delays are a fact of life on long distance Amtrak trains. I had warned my hotel when I made the reservation that I might be late. The only trick was, I had no idea how I was going to get from the station to the hotel. We had been due in at 8 PM. We got to southern Washington about 4 and a half hours behind. Time for a new plan. I wanted to see a friend who lives in the area before he started his move to Pennsylvania. It turns out that the town he was in is a stop on the route. I cancelled my first nights stay in Seattle, got off the train early, and spent the night at my friends house. He was able to arrange a ride the rest of the way to Seattle for me the next day.

It was nice to be flexible so that I could visit my friend who would not have had time to come up to Seattle to see me.

Perhaps the best part of the train ride was the crossing of the Cascades. Mountain crossings on trains give you a chance to enjoy scenery which is not accessible by car. It may be open to hikers, but I covered far more miles than I'd be willing to hike in one trip. I got off the train too soon to get a view of Puget Sound, but it was dark by then anyway. Oh well.

Trip 1 wrap up

After lunch on day 2 in Charleston, we started the long drive back to Atlanta. We were fortunate on this trip to only be hit by severe rain while we were driving between cities. On the drive back to Atlanta we were hit by several downpours which reduced our visibility to nearly nothing. The cars on the interstate slowed to about 45 mph during the heavy rain. It was more than a little scary. We made it back to Atlanta without incident, and flew home the next day.

This trip gave me flavor of the south eastern corner of the US. I may have to go back so I can see more. Sadly I didn't do it all justice with my camera. I was so overwhelmed while walking through Charleston, that I forgot to take pictures. I think it's an area that has to be seen. A camera cannot do justice to the multiple streets full of beautiful buildings.

If I go to that specific region again, I would use a connecting flight to get closer to the coast. The drive to and from Atlanta was not a good use of vacation time. All you can see from the interstate are pine trees. It's pretty, but not interesting. Short distances can be done on back roads which reveal more of the character of the area, but the 5 hours of driving to get back to Atlanta was just a pain. Oh well, now I know.

The H. L. Hunley

The H. L. Hunley is the first submerged vessel to sink a ship. It was a Confederate attack on the blockade of Charleston Harbor. The Hunley was a hand powered vessel with a crew of eight. Seven men tuned the crank that powered the sub. One man controlled the steering. A "torpedo" was attached to a six-foot wooden boom at the bow (front) of the boat.

The Hunley snuck up on one of the blockading ships. Someone on the ship spotted something strange approaching. The alarm was raised and the ship started to get under way. Before it got very far, the Hunley attached the torpedo to the side of the ship and started to back away. When the torpedo exploded, the ship sank quickly. Sadly the explosion also cracked the hull of the Hunley and it too sank. All hands were lost.

The wreck was found in 1995 and rasied in 2000. The remains of the soldiers were given a full Confederate funeral. 10,000 Civil War re-enacters and mouners led the parade to the cemetary in wool uniforms and heavy costumes over several miles on a hot humid day.

A model of the Hunley stands outside the Charleston Museum. The remains of the real thing are at the Warren Lasch Conservation Center.

Around town in Charleston

Sorry for the delay folks, internet access has been sparse recently.

After the trip to Fort Sumter, Mom and I checked into our hotel and then went for a walk through the historic district of Charleston. The next morning we took a tour bus ride through the same area. Charleston's historic district is huge. I think it is the largest historic district in the US. Buidings have the standard plaque noting it as a historic building, and many have an additional sign which gives information about the original occupants or other tidbits of interest about the building.

Before the Civil War, Charleston was a wealthy port city. The primary exports were cotton and rice. The accumelation of wealth led to the construction of many huge beautiful homes on the eastern end of the peninsula. The economy of the South collapsed after the Civil War. While obviously bad for southerners at the time, this collapse is good for those of us who want to see what a city looked like in the early 1800's. The south was so poor, it was ignored by the restoration movement in the 1920's. I don't know much about this movement, but it souded like it was a "knock down and rebuild" movement. The buildings were left alone until the 1950's when people with wealth and an apprectiation for these buildings started to restore them.

As we rode in the tour van, our guide pointed out details of craftmanship all around us. Much of the ornate iron fences and gates were hand hammered. The sad point that our guide made was that many of craftsmen who worked on these huge ornate homes are unkown. The reason? They were slaves.

Charleston part2 Fort Sumter

The historic part of Charleston sits at the tip of a peninsula formed by the convergence of two rivers. Fort Sumter sits on a sand bar a few miles further down stream. The only access is by boat. During the boat ride we treated to stories of famous pirates (Blackbeard, I think, was one) being caught and hanged and the story of the first fort to defend Charleston. They built an earthen wall strengthened with logs from the local Palmetto trees in the area. When the British attacked the fort, their cannonballs failed to penetrate the forts defense. The ships were easily defeated. The flag of South Carolina is based on the uniforms worn by the men in that fort. These men wore blue uniforms and were identified with the symbol of a gorget (neck armor). The flag is a blue field with a gorget in the corner, the center of the flag contains the image of a palmetto tree. The palmetto is the state tree of South Carolina.

The story of Fort Sumter:
When South Carolina seceded from the US, Fort Sumter was about 90% complete and not occupied. There were only 85 US troops in the Charleston area at the time led by Major Anderson. Despite its incomplete state, Fort Sumter was still the most defensible location in the area, so Maj. Anderson secretly moved his 85 men and their families into Fort Sumter. The Confederacy in the form of Gen. P. T. Beauregard tried for months to get Maj. Anderson to surrender the fort without bloodshed. Anderson refused to leave his post. The fort was blockaded and the troops within slowly ran out of food. The women and children in the fort were evacuated.

A fleet was sent from the north with troops and supplies for the fort. This left Gen. Beauregard with a choice. He could fight the 85 men currently in the fort now, or he could fight 650 men armed with a full set of cannons later. On April 12th at 4:30 in the morning, with the US supply ships just outside Charleston, a signal shot exploded over Fort Sumter and the assault began. The assault lasted 36 hours, and the story of the end of the fight as told by a park ranger was rather funny.

During the fight a red hot cannon ball sets the officers quarters on fire. The officers quarters sit atop the powder magazine so a fire in this part of the fort is really bad. Later, the flag flying over the fort is shot down. This prompts two separate requests for surrender. Anderson accepts the first request, but the second request angers him to the point of wanting to pick up the flag and resetting it himself. Before he does this he is offered the chance to return to New York with all of his men and his flag. He accepts. The two sides agree to a 100 gun salute to signal the end of the fight. On shot 48 the gunpowder explodes too soon and the soldier manning the cannon is killed. This is the first death of the war. The salute is reduced to 50.

In 1863 US troops began to recapture the fort. First they laid siege to Morris island just south of the fort. This siege is seen in the movie "Glory" as it is the first action for African-American combat troops in the war. Once they controlled the batteries on Morris island, they used them to assault Fort Sumter. The upper two levels of the fort's three story 5 foot thick brick walls are reduced to rubble, but still the confederates fight on. The only thing that makes them decide to leave is a letter from Gen. Sherman from his new house in Savannah. The gist of the letter? "You're next." Confederate troops abandon Charleston. Sherman never arrives.

Despite its condition, efforts are made to keep the fort useful. During the Spanish-American war it was fitted with a new gun battery. The guns from this battery have been removed and half of the interior courtyard has been excavated. The lower flagpoles mounted on the still filled in section mark the original height of the walls. Two of the flags that fly over the fort now are early versions of the flag of the Confederacy. The flag we are so familiar with was only a battle standard. It was never an official flag, so it never flew over a Confederate building.

If you want to get a good feel for what Fort Sumter looked like when it was intact, you can visit it's sister fort. It was built at the same time with the same plans, but is still in good shape. It is Fort Point in San Francisco.

Charleston part 1 the aquarium

The first item on the agenda for Charleston was a trip to Fort Sumter. We got to the ticket booth with over and hour before we needed to board the boat, so we visited the South Carolina Aquarium next door. The aquarium does a nice job of displaying the various habitats in the state. They start you in the mountains at the west end of the state then though the "piedmont" (foothills) into the coastal plain and finally into the ocean. They also had a new area of exotic critters from the Amazon. I walked out of there with a much better understanding of the ecosystems of the Carolinas.

Hilton Head and Hush Puppies

We left Savannah round 6:00 in the evening and drove to Hilton Head, SC. Hilton Head is the largest island on the Atlantic coast between New jersey and Florida. It is full of hotels, condos, and shopping/restaurant centers. After checking in at our hotel, we walked down the road to the beach on the Atlantic. It was a little odd to be on a beach at sunset and have it happen behind you when you looked out over the ocean.

After a stroll on the beach we headed back towards the hotel with a stop for dinner at a seafood place with outdoor seating. It seems like most of what we ate on this whole trip was fried food. This includes a standard side dish in the south the hush-puppy. A hush-puppy is a deep fried cornmeal ball. Dinners at the place we ate came with hush-puppies and some veggies. As mom and I were finishing up, another family sat down at a table nearby. The husband of the group went off to do something, so his wife made sure she knew what he wanted to eat. He confirmed the item and said "no veggies, extra hush-puppies". Mom and I looked at each other and grimaced. They do taste good, but my arteries clog just thinking about what I ate on this trip.

More from Savannah

There is a part in "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil" which discusses the tendencies of Savannhians to drive after having a few drinks. In particular, the narrator mentions a row of trees on the edge of a park which are all scarred at about bumper level. Mom and I had an excuse to drive down this stretch of park, the trees are in fact damaged at bumper level. I was amused.

The picture I'm attaching is series of overhead walkways above the street close to the Savannah river. These are called "Factor's Walks". A Factor is someone with the math skills (arithmetic) to handle the buying and selling of cotton and other goods for the people who buy and sell goods off the boats. The Factor would stand on the walkway and direct the flow of goods underneath them into the warehouses in the lower floor. The walls and streets are paved with the ballast the ships used to stay stable when they came from Europe. Once the people on the ships realized that the colonists were using the dumped ballast for building, they staring selling the stones.

Savannah is working on a park dedicated to "The Siege of Savannah" a battle during The Revolution which cost 11,000 lives. At some point they decided to bring in an x-ray system to look under the area they were tuning into this park. They found the burial site of the soldiers from the battle. Needless to say, this delayed the opening of the park a bit.

Next stop, Hilton Head. A resort island on the Atlantic coast in South Carolina.

Updates at last!

Had some issues getting online after my last post. I am back and will try to summarize my adventures to date with a few different posts.

For those who are interested, the windows are indeed upside down. It seems the instructions that came with the windows were wrong. I was so amused by the story, that I had to return and get pictures.

Sorry Bob, I have no pictures of Southern Belles. A couple of waitresses smiled at me rather often, but I think this was more about being friendly for tips than actual interest.