4th of July in the Lowcountry

I can't think of a better way to celebrate our country's freedom than tour the home of a signer of the Declaration of Independence (Arthur Middleton)... can you? My husband and I went to Middleton Place over the weekend. All South Carolina residents got 1/2 off the price of admission, so we figured that now was our time to see this place! (Read: plantations in the south are NOT CHEAP to visit).

Because it was the 4th of July weekend, they had a little exhibit with all of these people dressed up in the clothes of the Revolutionary War period; they also talked about life back then and did interesting demonstrations. This is a doctor talking about bloodletting to remove diseases from the body- he said the belief was back then that the body has 12 liters of blood. My husband later told me it's more like 5-7. Needless to say, lots of people died from bloodletting!

They also had a camp of tents similar to what the soldiers had back then. Each tent had a flimsy hay bed and would fit four soldiers!

Middleton Place has a great restaurant where you can get whatever your inner-Southerner fancies (for a fee). This here is Shrimp n' Grits; it is one of the most popular Southern dishes out there. I wasn't so sure about the gravy and shrimp combo, but it wasn't bad.

Now this was good: cornmeal-encrusted fried catfish, corn puddin' (amazing- think cornbread and corn mixed), collard greens (not as good- rather bland and bitter tasting), and a buttermilk biscuit. The biscuit tasted like Christmas morning. I've never had catfish before, but it was really tasty.

This is me in front of a slave cemetary. The plaque read that African Americans believed strongly in being interred where you lived- where your home was. So these gravestones are close to where the slaves lived on the plantation.

This was cool- there was a demonstration where they played old tunes using fifes and military drums, and there were these "soldiers" dressed up in Revolutionary War time regalia that talked about fighting the Revolutionary War. They even did a demonstration on how to prep and fire their muskets. This was a pretty intense ordeal- a lot of steps to do in a relatively short amount of time!

They were LOUD, too.

They also showed us what it would be like to have soldiers walking towards us with bayonets fixed on the ends of their muskets (but they told us to imagine a crowd of 400 instead). This was actually pretty intimidating!

Did I mention that plantations are HUGE? There is a lot of walking involved. Middleton Place has miles of gardens and gorgeous lakes all over the place. I can't get over the beauty of the thickness of the green trees, and all of the spanish moss hanging from the branches.

Here is a pic of a Southern swamp. I know it looks like a field, but that flat, green stuff is actually water.

My husband got to milk a cow! Quite the exciting moment. The plantation has this whole section dedicated to showing the crafts and trades that were on a plantation. There were cows, horses, sheep, vegetable gardens, a blacksmith shop, etc.

Middleton Place was a rice plantation- here is a pic of a flooded rice field. We had a great time! I'm glad we went and checked it out- it made for a very memorable 4th of July weekend activity.