Beaufort, SC, Day Two

At Sunday morning breakfast Pat and I sat with two sisters that had grown up in Beaufort. They were both widows and were spending time together, having just come from Savannah. They related how Beaufort was when they were growing up. Dorothy was on my right and Shirley was directly across form me. I began to ignore Dorothy and talk with Shirley who now lives in San Francisco. I asked Shirley: "Why, why, why do you continue to vote for Nancy Pilosi?" She smiled and claimed that a conservative like her was completely out numbered, it was not her fault. During the conversation Dorothy let it be known that she had a boyfriend. While I did not let on, it was a great surprise to me. I was astonished at the various questions that popped into my mind. Why isn't he here? Is she really a needy person? Does she live with him? Is it only platonic, like having somebody to go to concerts with? Did she use the past tense when she said that? Why did she tell us that? At any rate, I did not mention or even let on that I heard her statement. Yet my mind was full of questions. I devoted more of my time talking to her. Looking back on it all, and reflecting on my own puzzling behavior, I now wonder if she had interjected the information as a ploy knowing she becomes instantly more interesting. Both ladies were very knowledgeable and had done much travelling. The four of us hit it off very well and we found much to laugh at. When it came time to breakup, they both lamented that we would be parting. At one point they said they wanted to come with us and spend the rest of the day in our company. But we did part, Pat and I to the Tea Plantation and we never did find out what they were going to do the rest of the day. I do not know their last names. "The Tea Plantation", 30 miles southwest of Charleston. We drove both cars to The Tea Plantation, I led the way using Pat's GPS module. It was my first time using a GPS and it was very easy to use. It gave directions for every turn, said when we were at the turn, and gave a beep when that portion was completed, then showed the next leg of the journey. There was one glitch, it said they we had arrived at the destination and we could not see "The Tea Plantation." At this point we are out on a small two lane road in the SC country side. Up ahead I saw a small Church, drove to it, and inquired of a person in the front where the Tea Plantation could be found. He indicated it was further down the road, and it was only about .2 miles further. The GPS got us very close but it was not a ringer. We toured the factory where the tea is sorted from debris, dried, put on a conveyor, dried some more to make either: black tea, orange tea or green tea. Yes, it all comes from the type of drying. We were told that it took only two people to run the whole factory since everything was automated. When exiting the factory and entering the gift shop, we were offered two different teas to drink. Both were iced tea and both, to me, were terrible. I prefer tea to be hot and so, since this was not my cup of tea, I discarded it. There is a bus tour, cost $10.00/person, that took us out to the fields where the tea is grown. The tea bushes look like Azalea bushes without the azalea blossoms. The tea leaves come from new growth springing up at the top of the bush. The driver said there were two inches of new growth on the bushes and when it gets to four inches the leaves will be harvested. In China the leaves are harvested by hand, here it is harvested by a specialized machine that straddles the rows of bushes and then cuts the new leaves like a lawnmower. This is the only tea plantation in the U.S. and the bushes come from a field that was planted here many years ago. That plantation went broke and the bushes then grew to thirty feet tall. The fields we saw were all grown from cuttings from that original plantation. There were some weeds in the fields, the driver said they were all pulled by hand before the harvesting. The name of this tea Company? The Bigelow Tea Company and their tea bag is made in the shape of a triangle.