Now my long time readers know that I've been to Charleston before - I went in September 2008 to visit my friend Donna... and that's where I got my first tattoo. Well, since I didn't envision Mom being receptive to getting a tattoo, I figured this vacation would be different.
After a lovely free breakfast at the hotel (Hampton Inn - free breakfast!), we headed out for Charles Town Landing - it's the part of Charleston that was originally settled by Europeans. I was not sure that this was going to be a good place to go because when we walked into the visitors center, there were about 25 kindergartners. I realized that it was field trip time of the year. Fortunately, my fears did not happen. The kids all disappeared while Mom and I were checking out the ladies room and the museum part of the visitors center.
We trekked around the mile and a half path to check out the scene. It was a beautiful morning, although it was a wee bit chilly. There was a little bit of trouble, though, and we were delayed for a short while.
After a trek through the gift shop and the ladies room, we were able to get away. It was time to start thinking about lunch. As we had bananas and peanut butter in the car, we headed for the beach. Now this turned out to be more difficult that one would think. We discovered that while Charleston is a lovely place, they have this way of not mentioning upcoming exits until like 2 feet before it is time to exit... making it impossible to take and ending up taking the wrong bridge and ending up on the wrong island. It was on our way to Folly Beach when this happened the FIRST time.
We found the beach, found the public access, and made our way to the beach! As my regular fans know, I was meant to be a beach bum, but through an odd accident of birth, was given to landlubbers. Sigh..
While we dined in high style on 'nanners and peanut butter, we were joined by this cute little bird. Unfortunately one of his legs was broken and while it was sort of cute to watch him hop and hobble, hop and hobble, it was also heartbreaking. While I knew there was nothing I could do about it, I was pleased to know that he flew off and I choose to believe that he flew off to a vet's office where a world-class pet doctor performed a and emergency experimental bionic leg replacement surgery and now he's off fighting bird crimes.
After emailing a picture of me on the beach with a message "Guess where I'm having lunch" to my peeps back at the firm, we swept the sand off and packed up to go see this long pier. I'm sure Mom could tell us the name of it, but.. And again, after tackling the gift shop, we trotted down the pier - I think mom said it's the second longest pier extending out over the Atlantic ocean. That far out into the ocean, the wind was incredible and we were very chilly. As we sat and watched the world go by, we saw these three guys catch two baby hammerhead sharks (keep in mind that there was a sign that said that if you catch sharks of ANY size, they are to be thrown back). I'm like, ok, they're going to throw them back. But first they each have to take their pictures with them and then the tourists nearby have to have their pictures taken with them. The poor little nippers were hanging there flipping and gasping for breath. The guys did throw them back finally, but God alone knows how much brain damage the poor things ended up with.
That evening, we met my friend Donna for dinner. We tried to meet her at one place that served "gullah" style food. Sounded good. The only problem was that it was closed that evening. Donna's reaction... "They're NEVER closed!" We found another place and had a wonderful time catching up. I did get a picture of me and Donna, but she tells me that I promised I wouldn't show the picture of her that I took back in 2008 and then I ended up posting it on my blog. I didn't remember this, but I again promised not to post the picture. So you won't get to see how fab she looked.
We made our way back to the hotel, remarking to ourselves that we'd picked the perfect hotel location and fell asleep... pooped.
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