Charleston Trip Part 3: Downtown

The first place we hit up was CUPCAKE... did you really have doubts we would go there?! I love that place. Unfortunately I forgot my "Free Birthday Cupcake" postcard (but Jim said we'll go back).

Jim and Cathy ate boring flavors (I couldn't convince them to step out on a limb)... while I tried the French Toast (although the pink lemonade was tempting me). And let me just say if French Toast tasted that good I would be eating it A LOT more often! Even the icing was perfect!

Then we ventured to a carriage tour of Charleston where they had donkeys to entertain visitors while they waited.... and these were really nice donkeys because there were a few annoying kids that were petting them hard and if I were a donkey I would have bit them.

We saw lots of churches.... and learned Catholicism was not one of the allowed religions when Charleston was first founded. They were after all trying to get away from that when they (the colonists) came here in the first place.

This Catholic church is the only one which houses a woman's remains (Joanna) as she was originally buried with her brother Bishop England and prior to being moved into the church a fire caused their caskets to fuse.

 Each star represents one hour of work done to complete the church.

 In the attic (where the small oval window is) the original owner hid her two daughters during the occupation by the British Army (for two whole years) during the Revolutionary War and General Cornwallis lived in the home.  When General Cornwallis went to leave the home he told the mother he hoped to someday meet the rest of her beautiful family (she didn't hide them too well obviously) but he was nice.

 Charleston was also home to some other characters, such as Jack Sparrow (who has discovered the conveniences of modern technology.)....

 and also Chicken Little... who runs around like she owns the place.

 We finished off the day with a delicious dinner at Coast Bar & Grill....

 which is somewhat hard to find, but it is definitely worth the search.

Charleston Trip Part 2: Boone Hall Plantation

The second stop on our Charleston Day Trip was Boone Hall Plantation. It is a beautiful plantation where several movies have been filmed including North & South and The Notebook. It also inspired the design for one scene in Gone With the Wind.

Who wouldn't like to have this driveway?

There were a lot of beautiful old trees on the property and they have tours of the house, the old slave quarters (which depicts slave culture and history from the area during the time), and a tour of the farm on the running of the plantation.

There is also a flower garden in front of the home where there are many plants.

Notice I said plants.... not flowers as many of the plants in the garden were over grown and not well manicured. These were two of the only blooming plants present. The entire garden was a huge disappointment as most of the plants were dead or over grown and several of the flower beds falling apart and one even being completely full of dirt and with entire exposed watering system.

The tour of the house was also disappointing seeing that visitors are only allowed to view 4 rooms... a library/sitting room, dinning room, a sun room, and for lack of a better term the man cave. This is done as the family that owns the property uses the home as a vacation home and lives there much of the time.

Looking out at the drive from the house.

 

My disappointment came a lot from expectations.... after all admission was $20 per person. I expected the plantation to appear a little better put together or better maintained. On the other hand our tour guide did an amazing job discussing the history of the rooms we were able to see.

Charleston Trip Part 1: Sullivans Island

Several weeks ago Jim's mom was here to visit. And we decided that instead of sitting around Myrtle Beach we would explore Charleston for one busy and long day.

Jim's mom had been to Charleston before in the past so we decided to check out some other outlying areas that were points of interest. We drove down to the Isle of Palms past all the big and beautiful houses. And watched some dolphins swimming in the water. (If you look close they were in the middle of the right side of this picture just below the waves peaking).

Then we checked out Fort Moultrie. Jim and I are both kind of history nerds and enjoyed walking around the fort... They also have a great museum across the street with displays and a gift shop.

The majority of the construction of this fort was under ground...

And it was very broken up into different sections.

With lots of tiny hallways and passages and narrow stairways. Not exactly what we had expected.

The above stairway led to a recreation of what the fort looked like back in the day.

From much of the outside you could see across the water to Fort Sumter.

I think Jim mostly enjoyed the large guns and cannons.

The tunnel to the outside with "hidden" openings inside so that they could bombard any intruders from the sides.

Another family was nice enough to take a group picture for us.

I was in love with the architecture, the great doors and winding corridors, the amazing use of brick; there were even some rooms off of rooms that seemed secretive.

While in the museum/gift shop I fount this Passport to National Parks

All the National Park sites have cancellation stamps you can get in your book as you visit each place and corresponding sections with some information about them as well.... of course I was sold. (The book was like $8 and the stamps are free when you visit the NPS sites.)

The book also came with a map of the USA to show where these sites are located.....

If you look here you will notice there are just a few in the Washington D.C. Area (the long list below Tucker's paw, whenever you lay paper out on the floor he wants to lay in the middle of it... he does it with newspapers and wrapping paper as well). I am excited that we will be getting a lot more stamps while in D.C.

To Be Continued.....