We met up with our friends Renee and Fred this morning, fellow Airstreamers who happen to live in Charleston, and they gave us a quick tour of the historic district this morning. Charleston has a vibrant and large historic residential area, filled with glamorous homes and quiet tree-lined streets and tourists in horse-drawn carriages. It's something like a cross between historic Savannah and New Orleans' Garden District.

Renee and Fred in the pink

There are a tremendous number of things to do in Charleston. If it wasn't just a stop on our trek to Myrtle Beach, we'd spend a week exploring all the good stuff. Across the new Cooper River Bridge in Patriot Park is a riverside floating exhibit of an aircraft carrier, a submarine, and a destroyer. In town, dozens of fine eateries, including the one we went to for a local specialty called "Shrimp and grits". (Worth trying even if it sounds awful to you. We loved it.)

Then there are the tours, the parks, the marketplace, Fort Sumter, tons of Civil War history, beaches, and plenty of other things. Renee is going to write up an article for the magazine about it, sometime. Charleston is much more interesting than I expected.

At the market

We hit the marketplace, and managed to come out with only a little bag of local cookies called "Bennes". They're pretty good -- sort of a thin sesame seed sugar wafer about the size of a quarter. I could eat the whole bag in a few minutes if I was left alone with it.

We browsed downtown Charleston until the thunderstorms arrived. Renee and Fred headed home to pack their Airstream motorhome for the rally, and we went to Marble Slab Creamery for birthday ice cream. Today is Emma's official birthday, after all.

Playing in the rain

And it's been a while since I gave you a Sign of the Week. Here's one from today's walk ... a warning against public hula-hooping?