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?
April 23rd, 2006 at 4:32 am
Rare & great picture of you 3…
it’s always the same problem when it’s you behind the camera…I know that even if i run very fast to be in front of, some times…
bruno.
June 2nd, 2006 at 1:16 pm
Howdy Rich –
I’m catching up on my Tour of America reading . . .
Don’t forget all the Revolutionary War History in Charleston – many of the locals don’t realize there was a war before the one between the states.
The British captured and commanded Charleston for a year period until the Rebels (as Colonial forces were known during the Revolutionary War) took it back. If the British had kept Charleston and expanded their command over much of the South we might all have been subjects of the Queen for a bit longer!
Zach
January 26th, 2007 at 5:18 pm
Just thought I would clear something up for you, just in case you really don’t know what it means. The pic you have “warning against hula-hooping” is the actual logo for a band by the name The String Cheese Incident. A lot of there albums come with these stickers that fit on cross walk signs. They have a kind of Grateful Dead like following…and when making your way to a show you can expect to see these signs letting you know that you are headed in the right direction!!! I have seen them well over 40 times over the years and just thought I would share…awsome band by the way.—-Jared