Monday we drove into the island around noon to go sightseeing and generally do touristy things that we don’t normally do while on vacation. First order of business was lunch, so we stopped at Coligny Plaza and had a bite at Steamers which I have reviewed in another post.

After lunch we decided to go check some things out. There are a couple of areas that were civil war area forts around. I knew there wouldn’t be much left but wanted to take some pics anyway and have a walk around.

There first two that we wanted to see were located near Mitchelville, named in honor of Union General Ormsby Mitchel. We visited the site of Fort Mitchel. All that is left is the earthen mounds that were the walls of the fort and the moat. There are some signs up showing how everything was situated and where it was all located. It was pretty cool visiting this historic site. The mosquitos were particularly bad around here so we didn’t stay very long. I did get some pictures which I will eventually post but my camera is such a piece of crap and with the humidity they are all slightly foggy as the previous pictures will attest. I may be able to clean them up a bit before I post them.

After we walked around there we drove a little ways down the street in hopes of looking at the Fort Howell ruins. They are located inside Palmetto Dunes, which is apparently a gated community. The asshole at the gate simply said that there were no historic sites there and wouldn’t let us in. Not rich looking enough I suppose. The fucking Hilton Head Chamber of Commerce needs to take the shit off the map if the communities aren’t going to let people in to see them. It was hot and humid so that aggravated my mood a bit I am sure.

We made good use of the Sea Pines pass that we had and drove down to the south end of the island after that where we wandered around the ruins of the Baynard plantation. Some of the tabby walls are still intact and I got some shots of them (a couple from my cell phone have already been posted). Once I get home and get time to mess with the photos I will re-post them and the others as well along with a brief history of the place. Tabby is made with sea shell, which is all I know about it right now. It’s pretty cool.

We left there and went back down to the lighthouse area again where we treated the kids to ice cream before heading back toward Coligny. We parked near the Art Cafe and walked down to the beach where we hung out for awhile. The wind was pretty strong so the waves were nice. We played there for a couple of hours before meeting up with our friend and having dinner at Steamers again.

I think we ended up getting back to Bluffton around 11 last night. I pretty much went straight to bed as I was slightly toasty and very tired from being in the sun all day.