The Getaway

I wrote several standing columns for The Chronicle. Most were in a Q & A format, but The Getaway allowed me to both be creative and explore Georgia and South Carolina without ever leaving my desk. Here are a few:


April 27, 2011: Upstate Heritage Quilt

I n 1993, someone suggested that Jenny Grobusky of Walhalla, S.C., get a new bedspread.
So she quilted her own using a colorful Dresden-plate pattern, and gave it to her husband for their 50th wedding anniversary.
Now a hand-painted copy of that quilt hangs on her barn, waiting for visitors to come discover it. It is one of 33 other quilt squares scattered along the Upstate Heritage Quilt Trail.
The trail spans Oconee, Anderson and Pickens counties in Upstate South Carolina and is continuing to spread. It was started in February 2010 as a project to promote tourism in Oconee County and has been rapidly growing ever since.

http://chronicle.augusta.com/things-do/applause/2011-04-27/getaway-upstate-heritage-quilt-trail


Feb. 16, 2011: Historic Westville in Lumpkin, Ga.

If you want to walk down memory lane, drive about five hours southwest to Westville, Ga.
The memories might not be yours until you leave, but you will see artifacts your great-great-grandparents might remember.
The 83-acre living history town is laid out in 1850s fashion. It boasts more than 30 buildings that have been brought from around Georgia and restored to their original appearances.
The town was begun by John West in 1928 to preserve "Georgiana," the buildings, arts and crafts and tools of Georgia's settlement. According to the Historic Westville Web site, it is the third oldest living history project in the United States.

http://chronicle.augusta.com/things-do/applause/2011-02-16/historic-westville-lumpkin


Jan. 26, 2011: Crime and Punishment Museum

Fried chicken. Good old Southern potato salad. Ice cold sweet tea. Homestyle cooking served up on a beaten tin plate.
Just like what a death row inmate gets in his final hours.
The place is called Last Meal Café, and it's inside the Crime and Punishment Museum in Ashburn, Ga.
Here you can experience the small-town Southern justice of yesteryear and learn how the judicial system in Georgia has changed over time.
From outside, the building looks like an old brick home with bars on the windows of the second story, but not on the first.

http://chronicle.augusta.com/things-do/applause/2011-01-26/getaway-crime-and-punishment-museum


Sept. 22, 2010: The Southern Museum of Civil War and Locomotive History

On the rainy morning of April 12, 1862, the passengers and crew of The General were enjoying breakfast at the Lacy Hotel in what is now Kennesaw, Ga., when their train left the station without them.
Captained by James Andrews, the crew of Union saboteurs destroyed the Western and Atlantic Railroad tracks and telegraph wires in their wake.
Confederates chased the locomotive, catching it as it ran out of steam just before it reached Chattanooga, Tenn.
The train now rests in The Southern Museum of Civil War and Locomotive History in Kennesaw. An exhibit built around it includes a film recreating the chase, a facade of the Lacy Hotel and a tunnel.

http://chronicle.augusta.com/things-do/2010-09-22/getaway


Aug. 18, 2010: The Biltmore Estate

In the 1890s, George Vanderbilt decided to build a country home in the mountains of North Carolina.
His grandfather, Cornelius, and his father, William Henry, had become wealthy industrialists in the early 19th century.
George, however, was more interested in books and travel, visiting Europe, Asia or Africa every year from the age of 10.
With the help of architect Richard Morris Hunt, he modeled his mountain home in the French Renaissance style and used elements of three 16th-century French chateaux. It boasts 250 rooms, including 34 bedrooms and 43 bathrooms and 65 fireplaces, all covering four acres of floor space.

http://chronicle.augusta.com/things-do/2010-08-18/getaway-biltmore-estate