March 1, Hilton Head Island

He everyone.  Since we left Myrtle Beach on the 22nd, we have spent a couple of days in Sun City SC, visiting a good friend Anne.  She has recently moved from her previous location in Beaufort.  She was glad to see us as the previous owner left all sorts of household goods here and there.  By the time we left, things were pretty well consolidated and organized.

On Saturday, we arrived on Hilton Head Island, which is having some of the warmest weather in years.  Today was in the high 70's.  The island is however still cleaning up from the effects of Hurricane Matthew on October 8 and 9.  It is estimated that the costs of cleaning up could run into the 30 million range.  Thousands of the downed trees have been mulched and removed, but a lot still needs to be done.  Some buildings are being rebuilt and there is still a lot to do repairing many homes.

Since this was not our first time on the island, we knew right where to go first. 

There were dozens of choices.  Tom's choice was Junkyard.

This morning we took a Gullah Heritage tour.  The tour was done by Irvin Campbell who has been doing the tours for better than 20 years and has a large knowledge of the  Gullah heritage on the island.  Many of the Gullah people have sold their land and relocated but many still remain.
They were a group of African American people that have been on the island dating back before the Civil War.  Part of the island was used as an encampment for Union soldiers up until 1868.

Part of the tour where the encampment was located features a Bench by the Road started by Toni Morrison and her benches have been located in other locations around the world.

Toni Morrison 

 http://www.tonimorrisonsociety.org/bench_histories.html

This location is called Mitchelville and is the focus of a Preservation Project.  Toni Morrison was awarded the National Humanities Medal by President Barack Obama in 2010 for her work's attention to African-American history and culture.   Mitchelville   in case the link may not work, use http://www.islandpacket.com/news/local/article33510423.html

The Freedom Park is being supported by the Hilton Head community.

For dinner we went to the Skull Creek Boathouse.  It features seafood, and the food was great

No, we didn't have the Lobster Tail

The location was down by the water.  In the background you just barely see the big blue tarps covering parts of a roof in need of repair.  In the south, this is the time of the year when year round maintenance is done.

Grammie was seen today down by the water.  She is getting used to the pictures.  What a sport.

A card seen in one of the local shops. It sure does apply here when you see so much devastation caused by the storm.  These people had a mandatory evacuation back during the hurricane.