Tag 2022 Edisto Island Trip

The remains of Bleak Hall Plantation on Edisto Island

Ted Shideler 2 Comments
Read time: 8 min.

My occasional trips to South Carolina’s Lowcountry are always invigorating. Around central Indiana, the earliest cemeteries and schools were established just after the Civil War. Edisto Island offers a stark contrast. Take Bleak Hall Plantation, for example: it dates all the way back to 1749! Of course, that longevity came at a terrible human cost. Like other plantations in the region, Bleak Hall was built, maintained, and made profitable through the forced labor of enslaved people. Their labor powered the wealth and permanence that make places like this stand out so dramatically today.

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Edisto Island’s old Steamboat Landing still brings in the boats

Ted Shideler 2 Comments
Read time: 6 min.

I’ve said it before, but Edisto Island, South Carolina, is remote: there’s only one bridge in and out! Before there was even a bridge, though, travelers from nearby Charleston had to sail to the island. One route was via the Atlantic Ocean, a sixty-mile trip that, while direct, could be very dangerous1. Another way was through an “inner passage” that followed coastal rivers upstream between several islands. Sailing the inner passage took longer, but it was the safest way to get to Edisto2. Today, the island’s Steamboat Landing still provides access to Steamboat Creek, a branch of the Edisto River, for a modern variety of watercraft.

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Walterboro’s downtown waterfall

Ted Shideler Leave a comment
Read time: 8 min.

I was walking to the courthouse in downtown Walterboro, South Carolina, last New Year’s Eve when I passed an unexpected sight: a waterfall. I’ve blathered on about how much I love flowing water in the past, and it’s not often that I come across a waterfall cascading from the back of a building. It was a dreary day, but I spent a few minutes admiring the site and took pictures on my phone. Before I continued on toward the courthouse, I made a mental note to open an investigation into the matter. This post is the result.

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The Colleton County Courthouse in South Carolina (1820-)

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Read time: 8 min.

One of my favorite things about traveling is being exposed to things different from what we have at home. I don’t just mean swapping White Castle for Krystal, either: as a kid, I was fortunate to grow up with parents who stressed the importance of experiencing authentic slices of local culture on our trips, whether they found us in Montreal, Belize, New Orleans, or the ruined Mayan city of Chichén Itzá. The South Carolina Lowcountry is no different- here in the midwest, two-hundred-year-old Greek Revival Courthouses aren’t exactly common!

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The Bridge to Edisto Island, South Carolina

Ted Shideler 1 Comment
Read time: 11 min.

With only one road in and one road out over the Dawhoo River, Edisto Island -a barrier island between Savannah and Charleston- is a place that seems hidden from the world in many ways. That’s great for tourists and vacationers! Unfortunately, its detachment from the rest of South Carolina has presented the island’s inhabitants with many difficulties over the years.

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The abandoned Ferris wheels of Royal Blue, Tennessee

Ted Shideler 6 Comments
Read time: 9 min.

I have an overactive imagination that occasionally leads me to question whether or not things I think I’ve seen are real. The first time I experienced that phenomenon was when I was a kid and happened past a disembodied steeple rising from a cornfield. The second time was years later: I thought I found water gushing from a boulder in a rural display of some biblical miracle. The third time was about a decade ago. I was driving down I-75 towards Knoxville when I stopped to get gas. I swear that I saw the unmistakable outline of a Ferris wheel gazing down at me from the mountainside! Ten years later, it turns out that I had.

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Hunting Holidomes: Knoxville’s Baymont Inn & Suites

Ted Shideler 4 Comments
Read time: 9 min.

A few years ago, my friend Ben mentioned to me how much fun he thought tracking down old Holiday Inn Holidomes would be. I agreed! Unfortunately, they’re thinning out around these parts. On Monday, my dormant interest woke up in full force when I stumbled across an old Holidome masquerading as the Baymont Inn & Suites in northwestern Knoxville, Tennessee- or so I thought.

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