The SCs in SC: "The weather has been unbelievable."

Before our honeymoon, when people learned we were going to South Carolina in August, most individuals chose to inform us of exactly how hot it would be down there.  Um, yes.  That was a big part of the reason we chose to go to a southern state for our honeymoon - we wanted to be warm and be able to relax on the beach. We realistically expected it to be borderline unbearably hot and humid during our stay, so imagine our surprise when the first few days of our honeymoon were, dare I say, comfortable!  And then, it happened.  As we were sitting on the beach on Monday morning, and Mr. Snow Cone declared, "The weather has been unbelievable.  If it rains the rest of the trip, I still think our overall trip weather would be a pretty good."  As a firm believer in jinxing yourself, I immediately scolded him and wrote his comment off.

That afternoon, we decided to tear ourselves away from the beach long enough to experience some local culture and history by visiting a South Carolina plantation.  We opted to go to Boone Hall Plantation, as it was the closest plantation to our resort and it boasted some original architecture from the Civil War era, which was a big draw for us.  After getting there, we discovered that we weren't the only ones smitten with the scenery at the plantation; multiple movies have been filmed there, including The Notebook.  The landscaping was gorgeous; I really enjoyed the plantation's pecan trees that were over 100 years old.

Even though I do love a good pecan, I have to say that the plantation's most impressive landscaping feature was a long road lined with gigantic Oak trees.

After scoping out the grounds, we decided to watch a presentation on local Gullah Gullah culture, highlighting the history, language, and music that pervaded plantations during the 1800s.  The presentation included an interactive portion, calling for volunteers from the audience to participate in a music demonstration.  Bravely, Mr. Snow Cone decided to participate, showing off his natural sense of rhythm.

We also toured the original slave cabins, which gave us an interesting perspective on slave culture on a Southern plantation.

Remember Mr. Snow Cone's ill-advised comment about the awesome weather we'd experienced up to this point?  Well, it definitely came back to bite us in the butt.  We were preparing to tour the plantation's mansion when I checked the weather on my phone.  It read, "Severe thunderstorms developing directly over Boone Hall Plantation."  Awesome.  Sure enough, in about three minutes, we went from this:

... to looking at this:

It poured.  And gusted.  We sought refuge in a tiny little visitor's center to wait it out.  After about an hour of "waiting it out," we were debating whether to cut and run when we heard a large crack and saw a bit of a blur in our periphery.  We looked over just in time to see a large pecan tree fall to the ground.  Apparently it was nearly 150 years old and was just too aged to survive the storm.

As the visitor center's employee was lamenting the destruction of a "piece of history," we decided that enough was enough, and we'd had our fill of thunderstorms and plantations.  We headed back to the resort to relax before checking out a cool local restaurant for some killer seafood.  Unfortunately, the severe thunderstorms just kept coming, so we decided to play it safe and stay on the resort for dinner.  Twist our arms, we headed back to our beloved Sea Island Grill for some light fare before calling it a night, hoping the worst of the bad weather was behind us.

Anyone else visit a place connected with a famous movie on your honeymoon?

(all photos personal)