Maybe it’s the fact that I spent my college years in the Palmetto State.  Maybe it’s the friendly and welcoming people.  Maybe it’s the beauty of the lowcountry.  Maybe it’s the wonderful lowcountry cooking.  Or maybe it’s all of these, combined with all the times that I spent hanging out with friends down here.  The area around Charleston will always feel like home to me. While only down for a short visit to attend my college roommate’s wedding, I wanted to capture some of the area’s immense beauty and character.

The first set of images is of some of the area’s vibrant waterways…not only is the seafood tasty, it must be plentiful, as evidenced by the numerous birds that fish all of the local bodies of water.

Shrimp boats along Shem Creek. My firend recently commened, “I love how Shem Creek still has an active fishing industry…I recently attended a wedding there where the vows were interrupted by someone using a grinder to repair their fishing boat.”

A typical lowcountry scene…this one out back of our inn on Boone Hall Creek

A pelican watches Shem Creek for breakfast as the sun rises

While we didn’t have enough time to make it to many historical sites, we were staying next to Charles Pickney’s (Signer of the Constitution and SC Governor) home which is now preserved by the National Park Service.  Additionally, we were able to make it to Boone Hall Plantation.

Charles Pickney National Historical Site, South Carolina

The sun’s early rays paint the live oak trees at Charles Pickney National Historic Site

Charles Pickney’s Home

Historical Marker from the 1700s

Maybe not my best night picture, but I was struck by the Charleston skyline when I climbed to the top of a downtown parking garage to retrieve my car

Ft. Moultrie – Ft. Sumter National Monument

America’s only tea garden: the only place in the US where tea is commercially produced, in this case by the Bigelow Company.

Oak lined driveway at Boone Hall

Cypress Gardens, one of the area’s many beautiful spaces, is an interesting place.  It’s basically a swamp ringed by some beautifully landscaped gardens.  They even have a few alligators that live in the swamp!

This bridge was used in the film, “The Patriot”

A newt…he was not happy about my presence

While not in Charleston and not really in the lowcountry, the Congaree Swamp is the largest old-growth bottomland forest in the state.  While it is well out of the way, it is really worth visiting.  Now preserved as Congaree National Park, the swamp boasts the largest and tallest trees East of the Rocky Mountains.

A downed cypress tree in the background. This tree has likely been down for decades, even a century, as cypress wood is slow to rot

Loblolly Pine: I have a new found respect for this common Southern tree…I had no idea that they could reach this size

Congaree National Park, South Carolina

Unlike the water table, family roots run deep in the lowcountry.  Here I am (way in the back row) with my Clemson family.