A Roll Through the Woods

Friday was a such a gorgeous day we couldn't stay inside. We decided to borrow a golf cart and head off on a trail through the piney woods across the road.

 

 

Sadly the piney woods is scheduled to be cut for timber any day but for now it is home to many creatures -- deer, raccoons, and birds.

But that's what it was grown for, sale of the timber, and the creatures will have to adapt.

 

 

 

 

 

There is a primitive road through the sand, past an old abandoned pig farm and another farm with a very curious horse In a pasture. I don't imagine he sees many visitors back in here.

 

 

 

 

We came out into the open on the other side where once rice grew as far as the eye can see on vast plantations. The things that look like rocks in the mud are oyster beds. Did you know you can't eat oysters in the months that don't have an "r" in them?

Oysters spawn during the summer and spawning takes a lot of energy. To get enough energy oysters use what is stored in their bodies, leaving a not very appetizing mushy oyster instead of a fat, juicy one. Yuk. (Well, in all honesty oysters are yucky to me even when they're plump.)

 

 

 

This is pluff mud, what's left at low tide in the tidal flats and grassy salt marshes. It's slippery, shiny brown-gray, sucky mud and it has a nice earthy smell all its own.

 

 

 

 

And here is our destination: the old trestle bridge, now a fishing pier on the Coosawatchie River. It's a magic spot where you can feel the presence of history: Revolutionary War soldiers, plantation slaves working in the steaming hot rice fields, an old steam locomotive laboring to pull cars loaded with rice and cotton up to the markets of Charleston.

 

 

 

 

 

 

From the pier you can see all the way to Beaufort. The low spot on the horizon in the center of the river is the bridge in Beaufort 20-some miles away.

 

 

 

 

 

We had lunch at a locally favorite barbecue restaurant. It is only open three days a week and when it is, cars fill the parking lot. Everything is southern fried and the menu never changes. Here, I'll show you my plate.

 

 

 

Starting at 10 o'clock: pork with a choice of hot or mild barbecue sauce, fried chicken liver, fried gizzard, fried okra, hush puppy, homemade potato chips, potato salad, coleslaw, and plenty of dill pickles. If you want to make a sandwich of of your pork, or you need a slice of (soft, white) bread to mop up your juice, there is a communal loaf on the longest table. Just help yourself!

 

 

 

 

Paul got a stomach ache that lasted all afternoon.

The fried okra and potato chips were delicious and I ate enough to last me quite a while.

And I won't be trying the gizzards and lizards, oops livers, again. But at least I can say I did!

 

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