Arrival in Beaufort

Beaufort, North Carolina, I discovered, is pronounced "Bow-fort," but in South Carolina it is pronounced "Bew-fort."  Neither of us had been to this lovely city before, filled with more historical homes than Savannah and Charleston combined according to some reports.  We were impressed when we arrived by the sheer scale of some of the homes - huge mansions, hidden back in the shade of live oak trees hung with Spanish moss:

We had dinner at a little place tucked in a back street - our first taste of seafood on this trip and good, although Martha's shrimp and grits was a little unexceptional.

After dinner we strolled along the river - a river which, Martha pointed out, seemed to follow us all along the journey:  it seemed as if we followed a similar river on our next two stops, as if in anticipation of the ocean.  Tiny little gnats - "noseeums" - tried to torment us, but I asked around and found a little spray bottle of cedar-scented local natural ingredients that seemed to do the trick.