Middleton Place, part 2

I am glad we got a membership to Middleton Place. It has turned out to be a place we can go multiple times without seeing the same things over and over.

We opted to take the carriage ride today. It was 45 minutes long and we saw much more of the plantation. We learned a lot about the Middletons. We leaned how they planted rice. We saw some fallow rice fields, Lon was looking for alligators. The driver said he saw a couple last week.  The largest one was over 6 feet.  YIPES! I am glad we did not see one today. Lon thinks it would have been really cool.

At the gate to the house. It was burned down and ruined in 1865.  The family had already fled, but everything was destroyed. They rebuilt in one of the wings to the house. The driver told us that part of the movie the Patriot was filmed here. The part where they blew up the ships too.

This is something I read about in the newspaper! It is called an Upping Stone.  They are in front of some of the older homes in Charleston. What an upping stone is, is a stone that ladies and children can use to get into carriages.  The Carriage would pull up to the front of the stone, and the ladies would climb up via the upping stone.  While I was explaining that to Lon, there were some people who stopped to listen.
The arrow is part of the walking tour

The river view from the house ruins. Ruins is the right word, only piles of stone. Nothing that looks like it could have been a room.

The view to the left. It was so pretty there.

Another beauty shot. It was just such a nice day there

Lon was looking for the frog in the spring house. It seems the frog moved on.  This time the chain was not up at the door, so we stepped in, just a little, and it was remarkably cooler inside.

Lon wanted to stop in the restaurant and get a dessert. We did. He got ice cream and I had the Huguenot torte. It was not bad, but very very sweet.

Last time we were here we did not notice the coat of arms at the stableyards.

Lon found some pottery and wanted to tell the potter about it.  She was very nice about it, and told him to bring it up to the pottery section

Lon with his big hunk of terracotta drainage pipe. They made a nice fuss about it and made him feel very special.

Mr Jeff with Lon's drainage ditch piece. It was very nice of them.  Lon was thrilled they made a fuss about it.

Lon found Mary the Cat. They had a nice chat for a little while.

Lon and Ron the blacksmith. The blacksmith was not there last time we were there. Ron is amazingly knowledgeable about EVERYTHING. He is a great guy.  He loves blacksmithing and was making 150 S hooks for a wedding . They were going to put them in the favor bags at the wedding. They were so cool.  We found out we could buy one up at the gift shop, they were 12 dollars.  We did get one.  Ron made it. I like buying something when I know who made it. Ron takes pride in his work, and he does beautiful work.  I hope he is here the next time we come out to Middleton!

Lon and Ron had a nice chat. Ron asked me if he could give something to Lon. I said yes.  He gave him a spike from the narrow gauge railway that was built in the last half of the 1860s to carry phosphate they started mining on the plantation. After the civil war, the plantation moved to phosphate mining and timber. They moved away from the labor intensive rice production.  Lon was so happy to have a spike.  It is pretty cool.

Getting ready to go home

Lon had saved up some money and it was finally burning a hole in his pocket. He had to get an S hook made by Mr. Ron, and then I had to go look at other things around the gift store. He wanted to buy me something. It was so sweet. The cashiers told me how very sweet he is.  He got me a pair of earrings. I like them, the are red and gold beads. I will take a photo of them soon.
We had a great time. We will go back again!  We have yet to tour the house. !