A few months ago we decided we needed a little vacation. After some reading and research we decided on Charleston, South Carolina because it had a little bit of everything: history, shopping, and the beach.
We are not just sit by the beach kind of people and we like to stay busy on vacation so Charleston was a perfect place for us. With only 2.5 days to see it all we were busy the entire time. There was SO much to see and do. We left early Thursday morning and arrived in Charleston at 1:30 in the afternoon.
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| Just getting to the airport! So excited! |
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| Our ride for the long weekend. Doug was THRILLED :-) |
After getting our rental car we decided to use our time wisely and so we drove out to Magnolia Plantation to see the house and gardens. It was a beautiful drive to get there.
The one thing I hate about traveling just the two of us is that we don't have anyone to take our picture. A lot of selfies!
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| Waiting for our tour of the plantation house |
The original plantation house was over 13,000 square feet. This was the third home after the other two were destroyed. It was so amazing to see the history in every room! The only bummer was that you couldn't take pictures inside the home.
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| Doug and I before dinner our first night in Charleston |
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| What would a vacation be without a visit to a truck business. Thank goodness we didn't stay long :-) |
We did some shopping on Friday morning at the Old City Market, which is 4 huge buildings full of tables and tables of stuff: souvenirs, paintings, clothes, etc. We found a few good buys!
We took a break from the shopping to take a carriage ride around town. The carriage rides work on a lottery system. You must check in with the city after getting on the carriage in order for the city to keep track of the amount of tourists touring the city. They then assign you one of three "zones" to tour. It is totally random and you have no control over it. We were assigned the best zone! We got to see the Battery (White Point Gardens) and Rainbow Row. Needless to say I was beyond excited!
This carriage ride was one of my two favorites in Charleston (the second is the trip to Folly Beach). I LOVED hearing about all the history of such an old town. After knowing some of the stories it really made the city come alive!
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| This sign says it all |
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| This was the Old Custom and Exchange where the Declaration of Independence was signed and the Constitution was ratified among many other historical events. I was in awe to be standing where such amazing things had happened! |
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| Our wonderful house after the carriage ride. |
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| Our yummy lunch on Friday afternoon. I had a shrimp and crab cheese dip with chips. Doug had fried catfish. For anyone who knows us well knows we don't like seafood-this was brave of us. And we loved our meals! |
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| Rainbow Row |
I took a picture of this house to show the "fake" front door. That white door is just to create privacy for when homeowners are on their patios. A lot of the houses have them. Many of the houses are brick houses covered in stucco and then divided to look like stone. Stone was considered "wealthy" and so a large majority of the houses are covered brick.
There are 6 houses you can tour in downtown Charleston, and we chose to tour the Calhoun Mansion. This mansion was used in the movie The Notebook. It is the largest house you can tour downtown. It is 9,000 square feet and is privately owned. The owner still lives in it today. He was gone on business the day we were there, but our tour guide says he is often there during tours.
His house was FULL of stuff. Again they wouldn't let us take pictures, but I am not kidding when I say there wasn't an inch of free space in this house. Supposedly he is an avid antique collected (or junk) and every room is FULL of things. It made me a little crazy to see that much stuff. We wondered who had the job of dusting!
We were told that it took 7 worldwide insurance agencies just to insure the things inside the home and that over 60 pieces were tagged that if a hurricane (or other bad weather) was predicted then they had 48 hours to pack up those 60 pieces to get them out, that's how valuable they are.
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| This was just one section of the gardens outside |
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| The front entrance of the house. |
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| Doug was walking through the water and then found himself caught on a sandbar. He thought he could walk straight back up to shore, but then it dropped off more than he was expecting and he got a little (lot) wet. |
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| The huge pier |
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| This little gecko/lizard was right on one of the steps up to a shop in town at Folly Beach. |
After the beach we grabbed a sandwich and waited for our trip to Fort Sumter. The Fort itself is still very impressive, but to have seen it back in the day when it was over 50ft tall would have been amazing. Although I am a bit more interested in the American Revolution time period, I still loved hearing about the Civil War time as well.
Meanwhile back at Grandma's house our little Stinky was playing in the dirt. Thank God for FaceTime! We were able to talk to Camber each day and see what he was up to. We enjoyed our kid-free time (especially our quiet dinners without being interrupted or feeling like we need to hurry out of the restaurant), but we sure missed our little guy!
Our last night in Charleston we ate a restaurant right on the Ashley River. (again more selfies)
On Sunday morning we packed up quickly ready to see Camber. In the airport I swore I recognized this woman. Lea DeLaria (from Orange is the New Black-on Netflix). She ended up being on the same flight as we were. TO DES MOINES. She was presenting at the Governor's Conference on LGBTQ at Jasper Winery! I wasn't brave enough to ask for a picture in Chicago and by the time we got to Des Moines I was way more concerned with seeing Camber that I wouldn't have stopped to take a picture with Channing Tatum-ok maybe I would have stopped for him :-)
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| Seeing my guys back together after 4 days of being gone! Priceless! |
