Coach Service, Caching & Not Much Else 2/9-12/2009

Monday morning we had to take the coach to Camping World for some service work and to have them install the TV we got. I drove down and Mom picked me up after she dropped Judy at the YWCA so she could do some aerobics. We had a few errands to run as we had to pick up the wings for our wing party Saturday night and pick up some dog food. We picked Judy up and went back to the house to wait for them to call from Camping World. Well they never called until 4:30 so we didn't want to fight the traffic in MB at that time so we decided to pick it up on Tuesday.
Tuesday we left the house early and drove to Georgetown to do some caching and so Mom and Judy could walk around the downtown area. We did one cache on the way in to Georgetown along a boat ramp in the woods. Once we got into town we did our first cache at the Morgan House which was in a damaged tree in a hidey hole and it did take us 2 trips to find it. There is quite a bit of history in the old houses in Georgetown too.Mr. and Mrs Morgan often entertained guests in their home which was built in 1825. Their years at the house were happy until the Civil War came to Georgetown. Union soldiers occupied the town, forcing the Morgans to evacuate their home for their safety. The Union troops seized the house and used it as a hospital for their wounded. Major surgeries were performed on the large dining room table in a room in the front corner of the house. Many of the patients did not survive their surgeries. After the war, the Morgans returned to occupy their home once again. Even though the house had been occupied, it was scarcely damaged despite it's use as a hospital. One night, a few years after the war, there was a Confederate Reunion held at the Winyah Indigo Society Hall across the street at 509 Prince Street. After the reunion, many of the guests stayed at the Morgans house. After everyone was sound asleep, a terrific noise was heard to be coming from the downstairs dining room. Breaking glass, silverware being dropped, furniture being moved about the room, and the low-pitched sounds of men moaning and groaning were heard by the guests. The men in the house jumped to their feet and ran downstairs fully expecting to catch vandals, or burglars ransacking the place. Instead, what they found simply amazed them. Nothing was out of place, no glass was broken, and the moaning had ceased. Everyone went back to bed without discussing the occurrence. The next day the noises of the previous night were investigated and it was determined that the noises were only heard in the Morgan house. No one in the neighboring houses heard a sound. It seemed the Confederate Reunion had awakened the spirits of the dead Union soldiers. Over the years, the Morgans continued to hear disturbances coming from the dining room, always after midnight, and it was loud enough to awaken everyone in the entire house. Over the next hundred years, many of the subsequent owners have been jolted awake from a sound sleep by a tremendous commotion coming from the dining room. Upon investigation, no one was ever found and nothing was ever out of place.
Our next cache was at the Henning-Miller House and the cache was hidden behind a bracket for a piece of PVC pipe on a phone pole. During the Revolutionary War most people in Georgetown were patriots and one of their local heroes was Francis Marion - the General known as The Swamp Fox. He could lure the British soldiers into the mazes and mires of his well known swamps of the Pee Dee where the British would spend exhausting hours trying to find their elusive prey as well as their way out of the swamps. Every British soldier serving in Georgetown detested Francis Marion and knew that the capture of The Swamp Fox would be an enormous coup. While most residents of Georgetown were patriots there were others who were loyal to the crown. The residents offered comfortable and gracious hospitality to officers serving in SC. One such sympathizer was the owner of the Henning House. The Henning House had a peculiarity that made ascending or descending the upper most stairs precarious. If not tread with care, an uneven riser at the top of the stair could cause a nasty fall. After an exhausting night searching for the Swamp Fox through the swamp muck of the Waccamaw Neck a British officer was awakened by a loud conversation downstairs. He caught the words "....just spotted the Swamp Fox in Georgetown." The officer was instantly on his feet and into his breeches and boots. He was buttoning his shirt and holding his jacket under his arm as he hastily rounded the corner at the top of the stairs and began his dash downstairs. In his rush, he forgot the flaw of the uneven riser and fell headlong to the bottom of the stairs. He was pronounced dead by a local doctor and only then did his comrades straighten his twisted, broken form. After the war ended and the British returned to England, an unusual presence was noticed at the Henning House. Many others have stumbled or tripped due to the uneven riser at the top of the stairs but no one except the young British officer has ever fallen. Anyone who has tripped has been immediately caught by a strong and gentle arm. Once the stumbling person has been righted and regained his/her balance, the distinctly human-like force would once again fade away.
Next cache was at the site of the old Howard School in a tree on the front of the property. After purchasing this land in 1866, Georgetown Colored Academy built a school here. By 1908 the old school had been torn down and a new school built, its name changed to Howard. After the 1984 graduation, predominately black Howard merged with predominately white Winyah High School to form Georgetown High School. Next cache was in Manigault Memorial Garden in the middle of town. It was a small garden dedicated to a husband and wife that were residents of Georgetown and were quite active in the town.
Next cache was located right in the downtown area across the street from the Keith House in a hedge row. The Keith House has had many owners throughout it's history and one of those owners was a clairvoyant woman. She was the wife of a Civil War soldier and, in her later years, developed severe, disfiguring arthritis in her hands. She had been a widow for many years and had always worn black after her husband died, but now she was wearing black mittens to hide her gnarled fingers from public view. It was also around this time that she began to make astounding predictions of unexpected deaths of members of her family and friends. She made eerily accurate predictions of the name of the person that would die and the hour of their death. It was bad enough to receive these predictions while she was alive, but, after her death, it became worse. It was told that her ghostly figure, dressed all in black, would emerge from a small room under the stairwell to be seen by family members or friends preceding their deaths. After she appeared, those who had encountered her ghostly image would return home only to agonize over the prospects of who was the next to die and when because the figure never spoke a name. The next death was a mystery to all. The lady in black has not been seen in many years probably because no members of the family have lived there since a few years after she passed.
After doing this cache I dropped Mom and Judy off in the center of town so they could walk around and browse all the many shops along the main street. I went and did 3 more caches one in another small garden, another in a tree near a mall and the last in a soccer park. Then I went and picked them up and we did 2 more caches one in Constitution Park in downtown located under an old rusty anchor. Not much information on the park but it did have 2 old cannons and a stone compass on the ground. Our last cache was in another small park and Mom and Judy found the cache quickly. Then we drove to another park and sat and had lunch as we had brought sandwiches and grapes. Then we drove back to Camping World to pick up the coach. We had to wait a few minutes for them to run us through the new TV hookup and we called Direct TV and activated our service. They ran us through it and the picture was great on the new HD LCD set. They had serviced the hot water heater and LP gas system and also checked the rook for any leaks and that was fine. I drove back to the house as did Mom and Judy.
Wednesday Mom and Judy went to Surfside to meet friends of Judy for lunch at their condo. It seems that there are quite a few Camillus people staying in that area. They had a good time chatting and meeting new friends. I went with Liz and Bob to do a few caches as they are working their way to their 1000th find and we have to get them close by next Saturday for our meeting to be their 1000th. We found 5 caches and 3 of them I had not found. One was on a beach access, another in the woods on the old air base and the last along the waterway near Hard Rock Park. We stopped at Huddle House for lunch and they dropped me off at home. After I came home I made shrimp stuffed potatoes for dinner as we were having Liz, Bob and Ed over. All went great and everybody enjoyed the potatoes, broccoli and corn.
Thursday we just hung around and caught up on things and Mom and Judy went to Barefoot Landing and did some shopping. We went to dinner at Crab Catcher's in Little River and had a great dinner. We came home and found that Raggs had chewed one of his toys and chewed the squeaker out of it and we couldn't find it. Oh no another trip to the vets to have him x-rayed? We looked all over and all we found was stuffing and the end of the plastic squeaker. Boy not another trip to the vets. Just before bed I took them out and on coming back in I thought gee we didn't look under the couch and sure enough he must have pushed it under there and couldn't get it, so we were lucky. Guess we have to pick the toys up when we go out.
Well that's about it for this blog so until next time we love and miss you all. Mom & Dad


Picture List:1,2,3-SC Champion Oak, 4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11-Constitution Park, 12,13-Henning-Miller House, 14,15,16-Mt. Olive Baptist Church, 17-Howard School, 18,19-Manigault memorial Garden, 20,21-Winyah Indigo Society, 22,23-White Bridges Park.