Charleston

 James and I are back from our Charleston trip, and we had a GREAT time.  I do think, though, that South Carolina has to be the most humid place on earth!  I grew up in Mississippi....maybe I've just forgotten what it's like.  In spite of the high 90's and the humidity, we had a lot of fun.
  On Wednesday, drove over to Sullivan's Island, walked out to the Atlantic for a few mintues, and drove to Isle of Palms (only about 20 min. from the hotel). 
Lighthouse at Sullivan's Island

We decided to drive over to Georgetown, which is one of the places we thought about staying.  That took longer than we wanted, but we were glad we hadn't stayed there.  It's a quaint little place to walk through~once.  We walked down the pier at the marina.


Hmmm... that sign was a surprise.  We never found any, though.
Our hotel sat on the harbor, which I guess is actually the Cooper River.  We could see historic Charleston across the way.  At the far right of the picture, to the right of the tikki hut, is where we sat at night watching the lights of the boats and listening to the waves lap against the rocks. 

view toward Charleston from the hotel pier

Fort Sumter, with a telephoto, from the pier


Sailboats at the hotel marina.  You can just barely see the crescent moon in the center of the picture.

To put the size of this ship in perspective~~all of those "little" boxes stacked on there are train cars.  That's our hotel back behind the ship.

Right next to the hotel marina was this.

The Yorktown is an aircraft carrier.  There was also a destoyer, submarine, and Coastguard cutter.
The bridge to take us over to Charleston

The 2nd day we spent walking Charleston.  Our first stop was shopping at the market.  This is 3 or 4 long buildings that were originally slave markets before the war. 


The gate of this church

Many of the houses are like this.  The little driveways and gardens between the houses are just as fascinating as the houses.



Most of the other houses look like this.  That door is not actually the front door to the house.  It opens up to a huge porch just like the one on the 2nd floor. 


There are a few cobblestone streets and a few brick ones.

We eventually made our way to Battery Park~beautiful, shady, peaceful, blissfully windy.  It is where the Ashley and Cooper Rivers meet and run into the Atlantic.




   The last day we did very little~slept late, lazed around and read, sat on the swing out on the hotel beach and watched the boats, drove to the islands to find lunch, came back and took a nap.  That evening we went to Shem Creek, which is a marina with restaurants lining both sides.  It was so neat.  Amazingly, on a Friday night we got a waterview table without a reservation.

The 2nd roof line on the right is where we ate.  We watched the pelicans and sea gulls have a ball.  We also watched 3 dolphin play throughout the time we were there. 



Am I the only one who literally cries every time they leave the water?
Thanks for sharing our trip.

Tisha