Palmetto Bluff: Living Large and Beyond My Means

Palmetto Bluff is a playground for the rich, and occasionally, the famous. Pop singer Kelly Clarkson supposedly was here recently playing golf. 

The 20,000 acre development in Bluffton, South Carolina, oozes Southern charm. With the May River as a backdrop, enormous live oaks drip with Spanish moss. Beautiful homes are tastefully set along well-manicured fairways; paved pathways allow walkers, bicyclists and golf carts to navigate safely separate from traffic. Much of the land is a nature preserve. 

The place smells like money.

My wife and I do not qualify to live in such opulence, but apparently we have friends that do. For the weekend, we pretend we belong.

The occasion is an annual event called ‘Music To Your Mouth’. It is an event that Caligula would have approved of: an orgy of food and drink. (We’ll let the orgy references stop there.)

Noted – and unnoted – chefs gather to show off their skills of preparing Southern fare.  

Beer artisans offer snooty beers. Wineries from the East to West coasts offer unlimited tastes of their best reds and whites. And there is a bacon forest, where bacon – plain, smoked, candied, and drizzled in chocolate – hangs from lines, waiting to be ‘picked’ and eaten.

 Admission is the cost of a year’s tuition at UGA. We took out a loan.  

When it is over, the whole affair has lasted only four hours, but that was enough. Decadent indulgence has its limits.

Another time, for another event, I would tell you that we all went back to the house and passed out for the remainder of the afternoon. But this is Palmetto Bluff. The top drawer. The upper end. 

We napped.