Hi y'all

We are down south at Charleston.  We visited a plantation that used to have slaves in the old days.  This is an avenue of 200 year old oaks.

We had a tour of the house...

...and looked around the buildings where slaves lived, several families in each building.

We didn't see any alligators but we did see these turtles...

...and a bald eagle.

Downtown Charleston...

...coffee time...

...and finally dinner.  Malcolm tries the local specialty shrimps n grits.

The Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia

A rainy Sunday morning so we went to an American diner for breakfast and had grits and biscuits and gravy etc. Just like Jack Reacher 

This was breakfast. Malcolm has biscuits with gravy and bacon, I have hash brown casserole with stewed apples and biscuits with jam. Biscuits are like scones. The grits is in a bowl, it is like porridge or semolina. Then we drove through the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia - amazing Autumn scenery but unfortunately cloudy.

Civil war

Today we visited the US civil war battlefield at Antietam where 23,000 soldiers died in a single day. We are deep in confederate country.T

Re-enactment

We drove through West Virginia and into Virginia.  Had dinner at Winchester where this statue commemorates the fallen confederate soldiers.

Washington

Washington - a whole different vibe from New York - quieter and more relaxed. Jazz musicians and Secret Service near the White House. Protesters but no Trump 

Love these squirrels

Lincoln memorial

New York

We got tickets for the hop on, hop off bus which took us everywhere.  We had a night trip and a boat trip too,

Wine o'clock

Time square

Empire State Building

Central Park

Irish pub food

Last day in the camper van

Our very last day in the campervan.  We visited St Marie among the Hurons - a reconstruction of a  17th century Jesuit fortified settlement.  They had christianised and traditional Hurons living with them, but after 10 years of disease and attacks by other tribes of Indians they gave up and went to Quebec.  The settlement has been excavated and rebuilt as it was - and was peopled by costumed guides who sat around doing the tasks that the Jesuits and their lay helpers would have been doing.