Wednesday, May 20, 2026 - McLeod Plantation, Lime Bikes, College of Charleston, Happy Hours

We took an Uber to McLeod Plantation this morning, primarily because it is a 10 minute ride from our Airbnb.  At a few acres, it's much smaller than what it once was (a 1700+ acre cotton farm). It's now owned by the county as a historical site. Other plantations in the area are still operating, much larger, and still owned by the original slave owning families, which is a troubling thought. And this was the tone of the plantation tour - that slavery was of course evil, but also complex and troubling in pervasive ways that still has impacts today.

As recently as 1990, when the last surviving "McLeod" died at age 104, a slave descendant was STILL living in one of the former slave cabins... Or at least, in a small structure where those cabins originally sat. She cared for the last McLeod in his final years as his nurse. The property purchaser (an earlier historical society) evicted this last slave descendant, in spite of her being given a "lifetime right" to live on the property by the last McLeod. Sheesh.

Much of what we saw today has been influenced by popular culture or opinions of the times. For example, an earlier McLeod family member planted live oaks (now 100 years old), restructured the house, set up props and fabricated stories to make things more appealing to civil war tourists in the early 1900s.

A lot more could be said about what we learned at the plantation, but, in sum: Allowing entitlement and privilege to dictate your actions can do catastrophic evil that echoes for hundreds of years. We should all attempt to act from a place of grace and empathy. 

After the tour, we returned to the Airbnb and had a light lunch.  Then we rented Lime electric bikes and rode down to the College of Charleston campus. A neat area, but Charleston is not bike friendly.  No bike paths and lots of traffic. An interesting fact about this campus is that it is 68% female. Its readily apparent, with mostly young women walking around campus and the downtown area.

We saved some money by eating in high end restaurants in their lounge areas during happy hour specials. 

At the Swamp Fox restaurant in the Francis Marion hotel, we had shrimp and grits and a chicken sandwich.  

Then we had an after dinner drink at Southbound, where our fellow bar patron had steak tartare and the largest pork chop I have ever seen. This guy was a true carnivore! We learned that Southbound is owned by the same group that owns Allora, our fancy restaurant from last night.  The formula is: buy a nice historical house and turn it into a high end gourmet restaurant. It works!