HUNTING ISLAND, SOUTH CAROLINA 2015...4 OF 4

                Saffire and the "Baby Car" that follows us wherever we go!

   A whelk shell commonly called an Olive Shell, we saw a lot of live ones the first week but very few shells to be found and no live ones to see after that week.

A huge rain storm came through one evening and as you can see a large branch fell from above and pierced three holes in poor Saffire's roof.  Luanne to the rescue, she climbed up, removed the tree and patched the roof!  It was a good job but I'll have to take her in to the RV hospital now that we're home!

  For a few days the Horseshoe crabs were everywhere at the end of the Island.  Teddy was quite interested in them.  It was cool to see their footprints in the sand, they moved oh soooo slowly!

                           

This was the day I went out kayaking and saw the dolphins.  What an amazing experience that was!!!!

One day I wandered down a road I had been by many times and stumbled upon this little deserted chapel.  The original construction was from 1740.  

On our drive out to the Island we pass the Beaufort National Cemetery where soldiers are buried.  I'd often wanted to go in and this year Teresa and I walked all around it.  It was commissioned by Abraham Lincoln after the Civil War.  It is a peaceful place, surrounded by a red brick fence and dotted with live oak dripping in moss.  

In the Jewish tradition mourners place stones on the headstones of loved ones when they visit.  I'm sure that is what someone was thinking of when they placed a coin on the stones of a whole row of Unknown Soldiers from the Civil War.

I think Patricia must have been one smart, tough broad to become a Navy Commander during WWII and Korea,  she certainly did it her way!

And perhaps this gravestone touched me the most of all, Ralph Henry Johnson was a baby of 19 when he recieved the highest honor our country bestows.  He died a hero in the Vietnam war.  So many of his fellow soldiers returned to a nation that did not honor their service and left them disturbed for the rest of their lives.  It could have been my brother, my cousin, my friend.  They came home.  Ralph didn't and I'm sure his family still mourns.