Reconstruction Era National Historical Park, SC

Weather: High 56/Low 43, Sunny

NPS Stop 1-Reconstruction Era National Historical Park:
https://www.nps.gov/reer/index.htm

As we were driving towards downtown Beaufort, SC, we had to make an emergency pull over for Bailey. Ken found a set of parallel parking spaces and gently pulled into them. He was going very slow and we heard a soft bump on the roof. I jumped out of the RV with Bailey and told Ken ‘don’t move’! We were under a huge tree limb and could not move forward without wiping out the air conditioner. After Bailey was settled, I ran to the back of the trailer and stopped traffic while Ken backed up the RV and trailer a few feet to clear the tree limb.

We continued to drive into downtown and could not find parking. When we tried to turn around to get out of the downtown area, we ended up on a narrow, one way street with an illegally parked truck on the corner, so we were stuck. A kind woman called the sheriff’s office to get them to tow the illegally parked truck out of our way. The police came by and gave it a ticket and called for a tow truck. The police then decided it would be quicker if we backed the RV and trailer up the street, across an intersection and then we could head out of town. By the time all of this happened, we had quite a crew watching us. We heard cheering as we drove away!

After all this excitement, we decided to skip this park today and drive to the next campground. Reconstruction Era National Historic Park is open Tue-Sat 10-3, so we missed it on this trip. Guess we’ll have to come back and visit this one with the Jeep.

4/4/2021 - We decided while we were out and about with the Jeep, we would visit Reconstruction Era National Historical Park. The Visitors Center in the downtown area was closed but we grabbed some pictures of the story boards and then drove out to see the Brick Baptist Church and Darren Hall (recreation center). It is an interesting story of what happened in this area after the slaves were freed in 1861. The folks in this area created Penn Center and decided education was the best way forward to help the freed peoples to independence and prosperity. Missionaries originally set up the school.  One sad fact that we learned at the site was, prior to 1861, it was illegal to teach an African American to read.