So, I lied. I said I would knock off a couple of substantive posts tonight, but traffic did not cooperate, and it’s a fairly early flight tomorrow. So this will be photo-heavy.
Today, we took a break from the beach and the playground and headed up to Mepkin Abbey, the Trappist monastery about 40 miles north of Charleston. I’ve wanted to go there for ages, but am usually in such a hurry coming or going that it doesn’t work out. And then they were closed to visitors during Covid, so there’s that.
But today, I thought – let’s go – so we did.
I had no idea about the history – which you can read here – but the short version is that these thousands-of-acres former rice plantation was purchased by Henry and Clare Booth Luce in the 1930’s, and then 3200 acres of that was donated to the Trappists for this monastery in 1949.
The Luces are both buried on the monastery grounds.
(In plantation days, the owner was one Henry Laurens, who led quite a life himself, and was, among other noteworthy achievements, cremated at at time when those of European descent did not do such a thing. The cremation was at his own request, and done so because years before, his young daughter had, it was thought, died, but before her burial revived – this planted a fear in Laurens of being buried alive, hence the cremation. Which, it is also said, did not go well.)
It’s a beautiful setting, with Clare Booth Luce-commissioned formal gardens overlooking the Cooper River.
We took a guided tour through the grounds to the church, which is relatively small and, of course, simple. We were there for noon prayer, bought some dried mushrooms, and headed back to a bit of playground time before it was time for me to head back west – further this time, to the wilds of Atlanta for the night.
Gator sighting
And later, some cotton fields yet to be harvested:
Charlotte was Both 