Farsighted Fly Girl

In remembrance of the nine people who lost their lives in the Charleston Massacre, this is my second re-blogged post about South Carolina Gullah culture, which holds a strong connection with Mother Emmanuel AME Church. Like the resilient Gullah culture that continues to live on after hundreds of years, the spirit and names of    DePayne Middleton Doctor, Cynthia Hurd, Susie Jackson, Ethel Lance, The Rev. Clementa Pinckney, Tywanza Sanders, The Rev. Dr. Daniel Simmons Sr., Sharonda Coleman-Singleton, and Myra Thompson will also live on. Learning about a destination's culture and history are important aspects of the travel experience for me. I enjoy gathering insight into a place from a cultural perspective. One of the most fascinating culture's I've ever encountered is Gullah culture. This week, I have a feature story about Gullah culture in  Travel Muse . The piece focuses on Gullah history in Hilton Head and St.Helena, South Carolina but the culture extends way ...

In remembrance of the nine people who lost their lives in the Charleston Massacre, I am re-blogging my posts about South Carolina Gullah culture. There is a strong connection between Mother Emmanuel AME Church and the Gullah community. Many of the slain were members of the Gullah community: a formidable culture that has managed to retain roots to their African heritage in the face of slavery, Jim Crow, and many other violent attacks in this so-called free country.  This is in memory of DePayne Middleton Doctor, Cynthia Hurd, Susie Jackson, Ethel Lance, The Rev. Clementa Pinckney, Tywanza Sanders, The Rev. Dr. Daniel Simmons Sr., Sharonda Coleman-Singleton, and Myra Thompson. My first introduction to Gullah culture came with Julie Dash's seminal 1992 film, Daughters of The Dust ,   The film showcases the languid beauty of the land and the language. Set at the turn of the 20th century on St. Helena Island, the movie tells the haunting story of three generations of Gullah ...

 For me, one of the joys of travel is uncovering local delicacies. Discovering new and unusual dishes supplies just as much fun as exploring new destinations. So when I visited Greenville, South Carolina for the Euphoria food and music fest, I didn't expect much food discovery since I'm very familiar with Carolina cuisine. From shrimp -n- grits, to Hoppin John and Benne wafers, I thought I'd tried it all.  Then I heard something about fried pickles. They fry everything in the South and I've heard of fried pickles but I never actually tasted one. I was immediately directed to Carolina Ale House to sample this local specialty. I'm not a huge pickle fan and don't eat a lot of fried food but I couldn't pass up the chance to taste something new. I envisioned whole dill pickles battered like hush puppies but that's not what I was served. I was presented with a plate of delicate dill pickle chips, fried into crunchy goodness. I planned to try ...

Covered with palmetto trees, hydrangeas and Lilly of the Valley, South Carolina resembles a swampy Garden of Eden. One of the best places to catch a glimpse of the state's natural beauty is at the National Historic Landmark of Brookgreen Gardens. Nestled between Myrtle Beach and Pawleys Island, the 9,200-acre outdoor museum boasts swamps, marshes,sculptures, fountains an aviary and a zoo. I had no idea how massive the place was until I arrived and was handed back my ticket because it's good for 7 consecutive days. You need a day to devote to just one of the half dozen areas so I chose the sculpture garden and the lowcountry zoo. At the zoo filled with indigenous animals, we saw a red fox snuggled in a tree. Eagles perched on a branch. And a fountain decked with loons in flight. The Huntington Sculpture Garden opened as the country's first public sculpture garden in 1931 and continues to display one of the most diverse collections of 1,200 works by 350 sculptors. The garden ...

I love music and I love amusement parks. I've never seen these two loves come together quite as well as in the Freestyle Music Park. Formerly Hard Rock Amusement Park, it's 55 acres of music, roller coasters and fun. Myrtle Beach has a lot of amusement parks, from water parks, to a NASCAR playground but I enjoyed Freestyle the most, just because of the overall music theme. The rides, shows and park areas all reference some aspect of pop music. The Time Machine is Freestyle's signature roller coaster, with a 155 foot lift and six inversions and loops. I didn't get any where near this monster but my daughter rode it 3 consecutive times. The highlight is that the tracks have five separate audio tracks that you can choose while riding-60s, 70s, 80s, 90s and 00s. I found it difficult to believe that riders would remember what tunes were playing as they whooshed through stomach-churning loops but my daughter reported hearing the Supremes for the 60s track, Michael Jackson for...

So this is the thing. I have always been irritated by "Gulf and Western" singer Jimmy Buffett's broad stereotypes of the Caribbean. Palm trees and well-placed "yeah mon's" do not a culture make. Even though his music is acknowledged for its island escapism theme, the cheesy tropical rhythms and overly languid delivery just gets on my nerves. So it goes without saying that I never considered stepping foot in Jimmy Buffet's Margaritaville restaurants. But there it was, the first item on my Myrtle Beach itinerary. It seems that Margaritaville is the anchor for the bustling Broadway on the Beach shopping district. And since the focus of my trip was family-friendly activities, Margaritaville apparently topped the list. Here's the other thing. I love kitsch. Silly, tongue-in-cheek decor, childish and whimsical knick knacks, always make me smile. So when I was greeted by the swirling hurricane above (I thought it was a giant margarita since it was next to a...

I never knew that Myrtle Beach had more than endless beaches but apparently there are museums, zoos and theaters to compete with all the sand. The photo above is from Brookgreen Gardens, home of the world's first and largest sculpture garden as well a depository of Lowcountry history. I'll be diving into this other side of South Carolina for the week so look for posts on my Myrtle Beach discoveries this weekend.

Gullah food wraps the richness of the culture into dishes heaped with flavor. As descendants of skilled rice planters, the cuisine focuses on rice, rice and more rice. A typical Gullah restaurant will serve at least three kinds and I'm not taking about white or brown rice. There's red rice, a mixture of tomato sauce and pork, a mini meal of rice, chicken, shrimp, sausage and vegetables called Gullah rice and the famous Hoppin' John, which blends rice with field peas. At Gullah Cuisine Restaurant, just off Highway 17 in Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina, owners Charlotte and Frank Jenkins (pictured above left) serve up country charm along with the rice. The extensive menu offers okra gumbo, shrimp & grits, fish head stew, oyster salad, fried flounder, collard greens and macaroni and cheese. Charlotte hovers over customers like an indulgent mother and the eatery envelopes guests with friendliness. I couldn't finish all of my flounder and Charlotte whisked it off to pu...

                                                        My first introduction to Gullah culture came with Julie Dash's seminal 1992 film, Daughters of the Dust. The film showcases the languid beauty of the land and the language. Set at the turn of the 20th century on St. Helena Island, the movie tells the haunting story of three generations of Gullah women. Since the tale took place in the early 1900s, it never occurred to me that the culture was still alive until I stepped onto the dusty roads and marshy landscape of St. Helena myself. The lyrical dialect of the Gullah people floated around me and it drove me crazy. I have a pretty sharp ear for language and what I heard sounded like Jamaican patois, but not quite, like Nigerian Yoruba intonations but not completely, like the sing-song melody of St. Croix Cruzan speech but not totally. When I...

Learning about a destination's culture and history are important aspects of the travel experience for me. I enjoy gathering insight into a place from a cultural perspective. One of the most fascinating culture's I've ever encountered is Gullah culture. This week, I have a feature story about Gullah culture in Travel Muse . The piece focuses on Gullah history in Hilton Head and St.Helena, South Carolina but the culture extends way beyond that. The Gullah trace their heritage directly to the skilled rice farmers of Sierra Leone, West Africa. They were enslaved specifically because of those skills and were transported to work on rice plantations in South Carolina, Georgia and parts of Florida. The swampy conditions and malaria that went with it, made it uncomfortable for the plantation owners to live so they left the Gullah people to work the plantations mostly unattended. The isolation allowed Gullah dialect, customs and art to survive undiluted for 100 years. One of the hal...