One of the highlights of our trip will be discovering the Mansfield Plantation B&B in South Carolina. While googling plantations in the hope of teaching the kids some of the hard lessons of American slavery and the Civil War, I happened upon Mansfield (please check the website link, there’s a lot there), and it was all that and more.

Before arriving however, we drove through Charleston and stopped at the Fort Sumter National Monument. While it would have taken a ferry boat ride to get out to the actual fort, the park service does a great job in presenting the particulars in the museum (or visitor’s center). Just a taste…

In addition to the classic lines of mossy old oaks and interiors speaking of antebellum aspirations to European gentility, they provide beach cruisers to use to explore the former rice plantation. (The rice paddies have turned into wetlands, and Miss Catherine regaled us with tales of alligators, fish, birds, snakes, and other aspects of the South Carolina ecology. Here’s just sample of Mansfield…

Here’s another sample (sorry for the randomness, but this is randomvail.com!) of pix from Mansfield Plantation. This set features the “slave village,” a collection of cabins, including a church, that one passes through before arriving at the “big house.” I also rode into the forest and found a hunter’s hide up in a tree. Enjoy…

Vid clips of the dirt road in…

The plantation is near Georgetown, South Carolina. We had a nice dinner on the waterfront, but as it was Sunday we weren’t able to visit the Gullah Museum (but you can). The one pic through the window is of an art class being given nearby…