Home Again in the Snow

We are back in Ann Arbor, where it’s been snowing. Happily, it was clear when our plane
landed, and the entire trip went smoothly.

The last evening before we left, we saw a magnificent moonrise over the ocean.
This is called the snow moon.

After watching the moon, we went to a nice bar & grill for
one last fish dinner. The clam linguini was the most photogenic.

The airport in Myrtle Beach — a very nice convenient little airport where the car-rental area is immediately across
from the terminal: no shuttle needed! All flights left on time and arrived early. Very good luck.

This post and all photos copyright © 2020 mae sander for maefood dot blog spot dot com.

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Litchfield, South Carolina, a Great Place to Visit!

Sunrise from the balcony of Arny and Tracy's condo where we stayed in Litchfield. It's on the fifth floor.

Sunset over the salt marsh on the grounds of the condo complex a few blocks from our place.

Again from the balcony: the moon's reflection on the ocean a few hours after sunset.

Inside the condo

The living room has a great view of the ocean.
Sometimes we don't feel the need to go anywhere -- we just look out the window.

The kitchen is large and fairly well-equipped. Some people like to go out for
every meal, but we are happy to be able to cook for ourselves for most meals.

The dining area. In the photo you can see the second very-fresh-fish dinner that we cooked.
Fish filets wrapped in wilted lettuce leaves with lemon and herb butter. 

For more local fish, we went back to Harrellson's Fish
Market for the third time. We bought two whole lane snapper
and had them filleted and scaled so we could cook them.
(OK, this isn't a photo of the condo.)

Len did the cooking. First he pan-fried the fish.

Then he made a sauce with capers, lemon juice, white wine, and parsley.

These fish fillets were absolutely wonderful!

Where we are staying. 

Sandpipers on the beach nearby.

Blog post copyright © 2020 mae sander for maefood dot blog spot dot com.

South Carolina Murals

Georgetown, South Carolina

Georgetown, South Carolina is a little town with a long history and quite a bit of industry. This mural is on the wall of the steel mill, which is on the waterfront facing the tourist shops and restaurants.

Downtown Georgetown has several blocks of picturesque old buildings in which there are restaurants, ice cream shops, old-fashioned department stores (that is, small!), and souvenir shops. Small museums in the town document the history of local maritime activities, rice culture, and the Gullah people who live in the area.
 

One block of shops, though, turns out to be a clever wall painted with murals. You may not realize at first that the “shop fronts” are painted on the wall except for one real door into the building and two real garbage cans! Here are some close-ups of the murals, taken in the bright sunshine —

  

Georgetown, founded in the 18th century, has a long history as an industrial port city in a heavily agricultural area. Activities have included growing and processing indigo, rice, and timber, and manufacturing steel. The steel plant and paper plant (processing timber) continue to operate. Obviously there's now also a well-developed tourist industry.

Myrtle Beach Art Museum: A Mural in the Garage —

A Mural Near Murrell's Inlet —

The area between Myrtle Beach and Georgetown has a number of small communities with beaches, parks, boardwalks, restaurants, shopping centers, neighborhoods of seaside houses and condos, and also housing inland from the beach. We find it very pleasant to visit here!

Blog post & photos copyright © 2020 mae sander 

for mae's food blog, maefood dot blog spot dot com.

Brookgreen Gardens

Brookgreen Gardens is a private non-profit quite near to where we are staying. The gardens include a beautiful sculpture collection displayed in carefully groomed formal and informal gardens, as well as a number of buildings for display of sculptures and cultural collections. Brookgreen Gardens were founded by Anna Hyatt Huntington (1876-1973), an accomplished sculptor with a very rich husband, Archer Huntington. Beginning in 1930, they lived in a house across the road from the current gardens. The house, now a ruin, stands inside of the adjacent Huntington Beach State Park which is named for them. 

When the Huntingtons moved to the area, many rich people from the industrial Northeast were acquiring former plantations in coastal South Carolina as second homes, or as healthful places to live. Anna Huntington suffered from tuberculosis, which the sea climate was reputed to cure. She did live to a very old age, so maybe that was correct. 

Brookfield Gardens, when the Huntingtons owned it, combined four former rice plantations. Rice cultivation was very labor-intensive, and depended on slavery for economic viability. After the Civil War, large-scale production of rice declined, and was effectively finished in the late 19th century. Most plantations in this area fell into disrepair or ruin by the 1920s and 1930s when the elite from the northeast began to acquire them. On Sandy Island, which is across the river from Brookgreen Gardens, a few descendants of the slaves, who are of Gullah Geechee heritage, still continue to produce a very small quantity of rice. 

A beautiful sunny morning was perfect for visiting the gardens today. We began with the Carl Milles work "Fountain of the Muses," which delighted me when I visited here last year. I enjoyed photographing some of the detail of the sculptures.

One of the muses in Carl Milles's fountain. Many years ago this fountain was located in the Metropolitan Museum in
New York, but it was sold to Brookgreen Gardens when the dining room where the fountain stood was remodeled.

A small animal perched on a water jet of the fountain.

Early Spring Flowers in the Garden

More Sculpture

A lion, created by Anna Hyatt Huntington. I took this photo especially for blogger Iris Flavia,
who includes lions in every blog post. She has permission to use this photo if she chooses.

A sculpture of Bernard Baruch (1870-1965). He was one of the Easterner plantation-owners in
this area in the mid-20th century. This sculpture, dated 2013, is by Maria J. Kirby-Smith (b. 1949). 

This blog post and all photos copyright © 2020 mae sander 

for maefood dot blog spot dot com.

Myrtle Beach Art Museum

At the Myrtle Beach Art Museum this afternoon, we saw several interesting
exhibits. Myrtle Beach is less than 30 minutes drive from the condo where we are staying.
It’s a small museum with views of the beach, and work mainly by local artists.

The museum has a tea room on a porch facing the sea.

We were especially impressed by the work of painter
Jonathan Green (born 1955).

“Bessie Mae” by Jonathan Green.

I liked this work by artists from the Gullah community near to Myrtle Beach.

On the way back to the condo, we stopped briefly at Myrtle Beach State Park, despite the threatening weather.

This blog post copyright © 2020 by mae sander for maefood dot blog spot dot com.

If you see this at another site, it’s been pirated.