PALS Stitching at the Beach - Part Two

Since I had never traveled to the East coast or to South Carolina, I wanted to do a little siteseeing.  I decided on a couple of excursions.  When I was young, every week my family would watch the TV Show, Ripley's Believe It Or Not.  In Myrtle Beach, there is a Ripley's Believe It Or Not Museum.  I thought it would be fun to go.

Considering how big the building looks from the outside, I thought there would be more exhibits than there was.  For the price, I was disappointed.  However, there were a few neat exhibits.

HUGE Transformer 

Dog made out of nuts an bolts.

Portrait of Lucille Ball made of puzzle pieces. 

Thor and Ironman Exhibit

There were other exhibits but they weren't that interesting.  Honestly, I've been to better museums than this one.


The second excursion I went on was a Jeep Safari Tour.  "Safari" is a bit misleading, lol.  It was a 3 hour tour and during the jeep ride, the theme song to Gilligan's Island ran through my head.

First, we drove through Murrells Inlet which is where Blackbeard lived.  The tour guide told us stories about pirates that hid in the area while they looted the ships that traveled along the shorelines of South Carolina.

Next, was a drive to Huntington Beach State Park. After the death of Anna Hyatt Huntington, the land the park sits on was donated on the condition it would become and remain a state park. after the death of Anna Hyatt Huntington.  Anna's husband, Archer was a noted scholar of Spanish culture.  He built Atalaya for Anna as a wedding gift.  The castle is now a national historic landmark.  It's too bad the tour guide didn't take us to it.  We only saw it from a distance.

The park is home to several bird species and other wildlife.  The tour was lucky enough to spot a few alligators.  Could you imagine walking upon this guy?

 

At the park, we were able to get out and stretch our legs.  Despite the overcast skies, the beach was beautiful.

We then drove to a true southern plantation (now an inn and golf course).  The land still has miles of rice fields, slave quarters, and the "big house".

 

Remember the oak lined driveway of the southern planatation?  We drove in and out on one of those oak lined driveways.  Just like in "Gone With the Wind."

 

From there, we went to Pawley's Island.  Apparently, South Carolina gets very hot and humid in the summer.  Back in the day, residents would leave the main land and go to Pauley's Island because it was cooler there.

 

This was a church built for the Gullah slaves.  The Gullah people are the descendants of the slaves who worked on the rice plantations in South Carolina and Georgia. They still live in rural communities in the coastal region and on the sea islands of those two states, and they still retain many elements of African language and culture.

 

Plantation owners would come from the rice fields to these "gazebos" on their boats.  The gazebos sit across the road from the island homes.

The most interesting part of the tour was the trip to All Saints Episcopal Church. 

All Saints’ Episcopal Church was one of the most significant Episcopal churches in the South Carolina lowcountry in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Its first congregation was formed in 1739, and the church has been located at this site since then.  The tour guide told us there is someone from every war the U.S. has been involved in is buried there.  He showed us the grave site of a Revolutionary War soldier.

The cemetery dating from 1822 is located primarily to the south and west of the church. The majority of the monuments are simple slab steles sculpted in either marble or granite but the graveyard also includes table-top tombs and sculptural monuments.

 

The above grave marker is called a cradle grave.  Cradle gravestones frame the plot and look much like a cradle without the legs, which is how they get their name.  One end is larger and more prominent, like a headboard and the other end smaller, resembling more of a footboard.  Most of the time, these type of markers were used for children.

 

The most interesting resident of the cemetery was Alice Flagg.  The tour guide told us her ghost often appears in the cemetary and people have sworn they have seen her apparition.  Raised in South Carolina aristocracy, she was expected to marry someone of the same calibur.  She fell in love with a commoner and seemingly died of a broken heart.  Her brother had her buried beneath a headstone with just her first name because he was furious that she had disgraced the family.

 

 

A complete account of the entire store can be seen HERE.

 

That concludes my excursions of the area.  Part Three will be coming soon!