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Tag Archives: South Carolina
The Low Country: Charleston to Savannah: Part 2
Day 3: Charleston
Our second full day in Charleston was a Monday and the town was a bit more relaxed since the residents were back at work. We drove over to get breakfast as priority number one, since we missed out the day before.
We went to a place called the Flying Biscuit Cafe. We had some large southern breakfasts at a fairly reasonable price with good service. Since it was Monday it wasn’t crowded, either. The food was great too.
After eating, my first planned stop was at Patriot Point for the Naval & Maritime Museum. We drove over and arrived right before 9AM to see the parking lot practically empty.
Hmmmm…. the website showed the museum hours as 9AM – 5PM. Perhaps on a Monday it’s just not very busy. Well, not quite. The only part of the museum that is open at 9AM is the gift shop. The actual museum ships aren’t open until 10AM.
We had just paid to enter the parking lot, but our time was precious. We didn’t want to stand around for an hour when we had more to see in Charleston. So we crossed the bridge to make it to the new first stop of the day: The South Carolina Aquarium.
The South Carolina Aquarium
I don’t think I’ve ever enjoyed a visit to an aquarium as much as I enjoyed the couple hours we spent at the South Carolina Aquarium. Coming on a Monday morning and not on a weekend probably helped because the staff weren’t inundated with hoards of people.
I’m actually surprised we don’t have more photos, but we were really able to spend a lot of time talking to the caretakers of the bald eagle, we went backstage to see the operations including the top of the deepest ocean tank in the world, and fed stingrays.
We are animal enthusiasts (as you might have noticed) and enjoy learning as much as we can when we visit zoos and aquariums. While the SC aquarium isn’t the biggest aquarium we’ve ever been to, the visit was much more personal and interactive.
I’ve attached a video from the backstage tour showing the top of huge ocean tank.
The staff was really nice and wanted to share their knowledge with the guests. The only staff we didn’t like were the pushy people trying to get you to buy overpriced visitor photos. We obviously declined. But we did buy some souvenir water bottles for $10 and placed souvenir stickers on them for $5 more. Buying souvenirs does help aquariums and zoos to continue their mission.
After the aquarium we wanted to visit the historic center of Charleston and have lunch. We still did need to go back to Patriot’s Point since I had already purchased tickets online, but we had a few hours to spare.
Historic Charleston
If you were to ask me what the most architecturally beautiful city in America is, I’d have to put Charleston in the top five, if not number one. The historic architecture looks uniquely a mixture of Colonial and Caribbean and the city center is situated on a narrow peninsula which makes it very walkable and free of congestion.
The houses and churches typically date back as far as the early 1700s and are in great condition throughout the city. I enjoy seeing the soaring church steeples, the graveyards, and walking down the narrow passageways that have been in use for centuries.
I wanted to visit at least one of the historic houses, but after wandering through Washington Square and seeking out a place to eat we were beginning to realize there wouldn’t be much time.
We put our names in at a restaurant called Millers All Day and they gave us a wait time of about 45 minutes. Usually that means that well get seated within 20 minutes. I took a quick walk around while Shelley and Evan waited outside the restaurant.
Instead it literally took all 45 minutes to get seated. The restaurant was full even on a Monday afternoon so that was not really surprising. The food was good but the atmosphere was a bit uninspiring. Not really fitting for a historic city. The prices were fairly reasonable for downtown Charleston though.
After eating lunch we went back to the parking garage to retrieve our rental car and drove back over the Ravenel Bridge to Patriot’s Point. Now it was time to see the ships before the museum closed for the day.
Patriot’s Point Naval and Maritime Museum
We’ve been to a few naval museums over the years and this one was good as well. It really features the USS Yorktown aircraft carrier which was in service from World War II through Vietnam. The Yorktown was built in an amazing 18 months during World War II, which is astounding considering the size of the ship. The Yorktown also recovered the Apollo 8 astronauts.
The second ship on display is the destroyer USS Laffey. The Laffey was damaged by kamikaze bombers in WWII but managed to remain in service with a storied history of success.
We enjoyed walking through the ships, particularly my 11-year-old son Evan. We were still in the lower deck of the Yorktown when the museum closed, but were able to find our way out before they kicked us out.
After leaving the museum we made a stop at Wendy’s (lots of stops at Wendy’s on this trip) and went back to the hotel for a couple hours.
Haunted Carriage Ride
I’m not really sure why we have so few photos from the Haunted Carriage Ride through Charleston, but unfortunately I only have one. We did learn a few interesting things, however.
First, graveyards are attached to churches, whereas cemeteries are separate burial grounds. And there were people buried alive frequently enough that they came up with a bell and string to attach to the deceased person so they could ring it and be rescued before dying in ground. It is not true that the term “graveyard shift” originated from these bells.
It was quick tour via horse-drawn carriage, but since it’s Halloween season and we wanted some evening entertainment, it was a fun thing to do.
The Low Country: Charleston to Savannah: Part 1
We had been wanting to revisit South Carolina since we went in 2020. That trip was kind of a spur of the moment decision at the time, and we only gave ourselves two days to get a taste of the Low Country.
Ever since we had been wanting to return and see more of the historic beauty of Charleston and its surrounding areas, and to see whether the people were as friendly as we remembered.
Additionally we read a book called ‘Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil’ and that piqued our curiosity about a certain city in Georgia called Savannah. Actually, we already were interested in visiting Savannah, and the photos of Spanish moss dripping over fountains in the city parks and the historic antebellum architecture of the city were definitely a draw for us. “Midnight” only added impetus to the decision.
So with October 2024 fall break coming we decided it was time for a “Low Country” crawl, starting in Charleston and working our way down to Savannah, visiting both cities and everything in between.
Day 1: Charleston
We flew into Charleston in the afternoon, and after swapping our rental car (the initial economy car we were given sounded like it had transmission issues) we headed for our hotel in Mount Pleasant.
Mount Pleasant is right across the bay from the peninsula of Charleston and hotel rates for rooms with three people are a lot better for the weekend than what you can find in the historic center of Charleston. We had booked the Cambria Hotel which was sufficiently nice for our sightseeing needs. Close to the Arthur Ravenel Bridge, Patriot’s Point, and Sullivan’s Island we were well situated for the next three days.
But sightseeing would need to wait until the following day. We arrived in the afternoon and we didn’t want to kill ourselves with a ridiculous itinerary the day of arrival. We just wanted some dinner and a chance to relax.
We found a place called The Mill at Shem Creek which had a nice view of the river estuary while we had some much needed beers. The seafood was just ok though. We’d need to rectify that before the end of the trip.
Day 2: Charleston
Fort Moultrie
We started out the day a bit disorganized and instead of stopping along the way for breakfast we made our way to Fort Moultrie on Sullivan’s Island.
There is something of a joke between myself and my wife about how often we tend to visit forts when we travel. It just seems like we make our way to historic fortifications as a matter of course, since they were important in our nation’s wars and we’re kind of history buffs. But at the same time she said she didn’t need to see one every time we travel.
So of course I decided to make Fort Moultrie our first stop on our trip 🙂
We had gone to Fort Sumter on our previous visit to Charleston in 2020 and that fort’s significance as the starting place of the Civil War makes it a priority for most visitors to Charleston. However, Fort Moultrie has a longer and more complex history since the initial fortification dates back to the Revolutionary War and the fort was still in use through World War II.
We walked through the fort and into the various bunkers to see various exhibits. The visitor center movie was a bit dated and corny but it also provided a good bit of information before entering the fort. Now we know why palmetto logs were effective against cannon fire (the rounds bounce right off).
My son Evan really likes canons and artillery too, as you can probably tell.
After visiting the fort we were pretty hungry and we all still wanted breakfast. It was already around 11AM and since we were on Sullivan’s Island we decided to head to a place on the island that had some good reviews on TripAdvisor. And it was relatively close, though still 5 miles away.
We drove to the restaurant and found that the parking on the island was pretty limited. Entering the restaurant we found that it was cash-only and we had no cash. In frustration we decided to forgo breakfast entirely and to go have lunch at a BBQ place in Charleston instead.
We drove across the Arthur Ravenel bridge (the first of many crossings) to Lewis BBQ. It was one of the restaurants that I picked out before we left for South Carolina since it had BBQ (a must in Carolina) and the prices were reasonable (a must for us since we’re not wealthy). It turned out to be a pretty good choice. I had a delicious pulled pork BBQ sandwich.
After getting some much-needed food, we wanted to get away from the city for few hours. It was Sunday and things were a bit more hectic than we were really expecting. We wanted to visit a plantation and I suggested Drayton Hall, which would deliver us to the calm countryside along the Ashley River.
Drayton Hall
The drive to Drayton Hall was pleasant and when we arrived the plantation grounds were practically empty (as you can see in the video below). We did see some people waiting near the visitor center for the house tour that would start a half hour later but in the interim we were free to enjoy an afternoon on the plantation grounds.
Drayton Hall is unique in that it is both an antebellum plantation and the house remains unrestored, remaining largely as it would have looked prior to the Civil War. Most plantations houses (including the one at Magnolia Plantation which we visited in 2020) were either destroyed during the Civil War and rebuilt, were built after the Civil War, or simply no longer exist. Drayton Hall is a glimpse back in time to the antebellum era.
Since we were alone to peruse the grounds we made it to the caretakers cottage, the privy, the reflecting pond, the well, and a great oak. While standing by the pond my son and I noticed a dark, elongated shape on the opposite shore. Was that what we thought it might be?
I walked around the pond and sure enough, there was a smallish (around 7 feet long) alligator lying in the grass. I called my son over and he excitedly dashed around to see the alligator too.
After this bit of fun it was time to enter the house on the tour. And it is a good tour with a lot of interesting information. The Drayton’s were a wealthy and politically powerful family dating back to before the revolutionary war. And they weren’t exactly on the side of the colonists in the War of Independence until they knew the American side would win. Then, of course, they played the side of the patriots.
The house tour includes the basement levels where slaves worked and lived and on to the upper floors where the Drayton’s made sure to show off their wealth in their choice of woodwork, ceilings, and furnishings. They also refused anyone to enter through the front door unless they were particularly high-status individuals.
After touring the house we walked over to the shore of the Ashley River and enjoyed the serene environment and the Spanish-moss laden trees with the house in the distance.
Driving back to the main road from the plantation we stopped at a pond where the tour guide said an alligator named “Big Momma” might be found. And of course, we found her right away!
Kiawah Island Beach
After enjoying our visit to Drayton Hall we decided to visit a place that we enjoyed on our first visit to the Charleston area: Kiawah Island. Last time we actually stayed on the Island at the Andell Inn, which had very reduced rates due to the Covid pandemic.
The drive was a bit longer than we remembered it being last time, but after about an hour we arrived at the beach. It was much more crowded this time around and there was an obvious sense that it was a beach visited by those that believe themselves the higher class.
I didn’t quite get the same feeling I got the last time we were there, but it is a nice beach. Did I feel like it was among the top beaches in the country? Maybe not. Another day with fewer people I might think differently again.
But perhaps the old woman dressed in a ton of jewelry took away from the beach vibe. Who wears jewelry to the beach? And she was hardly alone in seemingly presenting a “look at me” wealthy vibe.
Beaches are for families and chilling. Lounging and relaxing in the sun and in the surf.
So yeah, we made it to the beach that we enjoyed in 2020. We didn’t get into our swimsuits and maybe that’s part of the problem. Last time we rode the waves. It’s all good.
One thing we learned is that sanderlings have some fast feet. We got a kick out of watching them race across the sand.
Wildlife of South Carolina
The next wildlife photography page features South Carolina. It’s surprising what I could photograph in only two days in South Carolina. Mostly small creatures, it’s a diverse gallery nonetheless. View the Wildlife of South Carolina…
The Carolinas and Tennessee, Oct 2020
The Carolinas and Tennessee, Oct 2020
In October of 2020 we used flight credits to travel to a few states that we had never visited before. While we would only have five full days available to us, we put together a plan that would start and finish in Charlotte and travel from Charleston to the Smoky Mountains. We were looking forward to Carolina BBQ, a plethora of historic sites, and fall colors in the Appalachians.