Life on Paws and Wheels

Simba and I visited Osceola's Grave on Sullivan's Island, South Carolina , the final resting place of one of the most famous Seminole resistance leaders of the 19th century. Located just outside Fort Moultrie's sally port , the small fenced burial site is surprisingly modest considering the extraordinary history surrounding the man buried there. Osceola became nationally famous while resisting U.S. efforts to remove the Seminoles from Florida during the Second Seminole War . After nearly two years of resistance, he was controversially captured by American troops while meeting under a flag of truce, imprisoned, and eventually transported hundreds of miles from Florida to Fort Moultrie. He would never return home. Only about a month after arriving on Sullivan's Island, Osceola died in captivity on January 30, 1838 , at approximately 33 or 34 years old. His grave remains beside the fort today, bearing the words “Osceola, Patriot and Warrior.” Simba and I stopped to see thi...

Simba and I visited the Giant's Causeway Pillar in Charleston, South Carolina , an unusual piece of Northern Ireland hiding in plain sight along Meeting Street. Sitting outside historic Hibernian Hall at 105 Meeting Street , this strange chunk of polygonal volcanic rock would be incredibly easy to walk past without realizing what it is. This isn't simply an Irish-themed sculpture or a modern replica. The pillar is identified as an actual section of basalt from the famous Giant's Causeway in County Antrim, Northern Ireland — one of the world's most extraordinary natural geological formations. That means a physical piece of the rugged Northern Irish coastline somehow traveled thousands of miles across the Atlantic before arriving in Charleston during the 19th century. And, of course, Simba and I had to check it out! 🐾 🪨 A Piece of the Giant's Causeway in Charleston Charleston is filled with grand historic homes, churches, monuments, gardens, and other landmarks tha...

Simba and I visited the Old Slave Mart at 6 Chalmers Street in Charleston, South Carolina , a surviving physical connection to one of the darkest chapters in Charleston and American history. Behind its distinctive arched entrance is a building believed to be the only known surviving structure in South Carolina that was actually used as a slave-auction gallery . The relatively small building is easy to pass while exploring Charleston's historic streets, but its appearance today doesn't convey the scale of what once surrounded it. During the years immediately preceding the Civil War, it formed part of Ryan's Mart , a much larger slave-trading complex containing an enclosed yard, jail, kitchen, infirmary, and other facilities used to confine enslaved people before their sale. Most of that complex disappeared long ago. The Chalmers Street auction gallery survived, leaving an extraordinarily important reminder of a system in which men, women, and children were bought and sold as...