Sonya's Blog - Day 166 - Southport and A Carolina Nutcracker
Sonya’s Blog - Day 166 - December 5th - Southport and A Carolina Nutcracker
We drove to the town of Southport today. I had read about it and it sounded like a quaint port town and I wanted to check it out. We had to drive about an hour to get there. The drive took us through area where there had been plantations. There are road signs every so often telling you which plantation area you are in.
Southport was very quaint. I wanted to visit the tea house, but it was closed for a private party. We went to the coffee house instead and had a light lunch. The kids were playing a game of chess on the ipad, so Blake and I went and grabbed Kizmet and walked around the town with her. We walked to the river and saw Fort Johnson. This was built by the British in the 1740’s and 50’s to protect the Cape Fear Coast from Spanish Privateers. It was an important post in both the American Revolution and the Civil War. In the American Revolution the patriots took control of the Fort early in the war. When the British tried to take it back the American’s fought back with a numerically superior force of Scottish Highlanders and the British abandoned their strategy. The British did manage to take control of the Fort in early 1781, but then the war was over in October of 1781 with the siege of Yorktown by General Washington and the Brits withdrew. In the American Civil War, it was a very important fort for the Confederates. Rebels took control of the fort before North Carolina seceded, but the Union demanded the rebels give it back. After the fall of Fort Sumter in Charleston, SC the Confederates took control of the Fort again and North Carolina seceded from the Union. The Fort was used as a center for military recruitment and training early in the war. As the war progressed and the Union successfully blockaded the South, Fort Johnson became a very important Fort for the Confederates due to the successful blockade running. This was the only sustained blockade running activity for the Confederates during the war and Lincoln decided to put an end to it in December of 1864 and bombarded the area, taking control in January 1865. The Confederates withdrew to Wilmington, but that fell in February 1865 and in the Spring the Confederacy surrendered and vanished.
We then walked back towards main street and picked up the kids. They were not done their game, but Natasha feels like she is all over Isaac and he has no chance of success. Isaac feels Natasha will win as well because he made some mistakes, but he is still playing the game out.
Natasha and I went in a few stores and looked around and then we went back to the truck and headed back to camp. We needed to get back and have supper because we had tickets to see A Carolina Nutcracker.
When I bought the tickets to A Carolina Nutcracker I didn’t realize that it was a dance school production instead of a professional ballet. The theatre was very nice and the school put on a good show, I guess they do this every year. The ballet was the story of the Nutcracker, but it had been adapted to take place in Wilmington after the Civil War. A few things were changed to include Yankee Soldiers and places in the area. The general story was the same. Some of the dancers were very good and the little ones (like 3 and 4 years old) were super cute and funny on stage because they had no idea what they were doing. They looked really cute in their costumes though. The production was very well done and there was a live orchestra, which was very good and a boys choir. We all enjoyed it.
Sonya