Back to Kiawah

I have been a bit lazy with my posting recently, so I thought I had better catch up before the weather gets so nice that I won't take the time.  This collection of photos are from our trip to Kiawa Island and Charleston, SC in February.  The weather was mostly sunny, but cool temps.  Peggy and Dale were gracious hosts as usual.  It was nice to get away and we avoided one of the few snowstorms back home this winter.

We toured a couple of plantations on this trip.  This bridge is on Magnolia Plantation which has been a tourist attraction since the end of the Civil War.  Rice, then cotton were the original cash crops.  The gardens were originally English formal and then converted into their current naturalized form seen today.

As always we spent a good bit of time strolling on the beach, picking up some shells and watching the birds. This fellow, a royal tern, was a bit out of the ordinary from the usual. While I am sure not rare, we only saw this one.

This is a second plantation we visited, Drayton Hall.  It has only recently been restored and opened to the public.

One of six or seven original slave houses on the property.  Folks still lived in them up until recently.  Unbelievable.  Our garage is bigger!

These are some retired naval vessels that can be toured.  Maybe next time....

Right outside our condo, behind the dunes is what can best be described as low scrub trees and shrubs. This deer spent a good two hours nibbling and sunning herself.  We saw a buck racing down the beach at full speed the day before.  What a sight!

The condo, oceanfront! Not too shabby.

Anole sunning near the elevator.

While strolling the expansive gardens at Magnolia we stumbled this bad boy sunning itself only a couple of feet off the path.  We went back an hour later and it was still there.

The square box in the hole in this tree is about 15 or 20 feet above the ground and is the burial urn of one of the recent owners of Drayton Hall.  He had entered the family mausoleum nearby and seen how everything had decayed and did not wish to be interred there. 

Rabbit ears?

Alligator a short walk from the condo.