Today, we are half way through our trip. It's whizzing by! The weather has been brutal--yesterday and today the worst. When we got to the Fort Sumter ferry at 9:30 a.m. (the earliest tour was at 10:00 a.m.) it was 85 degrees with 85 percent humidity--brutal. St. Louis sees some pretty nasty, hot, humid summer days, but this...this is worse. I think the exercising in the moderate heat in St. Louis has made it bearable for me, and Tim's days out in the orchard mowing between apple trees during the dog days of summer came back to him pretty quickly. I must say, Charleston is beautiful, but if Tim and I weren't both educators, I would like to go during late fall, or maybe even winter. Even the ride out to Fort Sumter on the water, in the shade, with a breeze didn't help because of the humidity.
Regardless, it was awesome to go out to the Fort. The War Between the States started in Charleston's harbor. Fort Sumter also played a major role throughout the War. Again, I learned more about the start of the Civil War in the last 2 days than I did in all my years in school, but I'm not going to go into detail here.
We also visited a former rice plantation that has been turned into a tourist attraction. We took a tour of the grounds (currently 500 of the original 2,000 acres). We planned to tour the inside of the building, but somehow the person who sold Tim the tickets didn't hear him say he wanted tickets for the inside of the mansion. I'm kind of glad because the outside didn't look anything like the traditional antebellum plantation house (see pic link to the right). And once we got there, we found out that this was the 3rd house build on the land--obviously not an original. Maybe we'll try to find one in Savannah or on the way home.
Since we are halfway through the trip--this was a laundry evening for us. When we finished the tour, we headed to a laundromat to wash replenish clean clothes. We called it quits pretty early today.
Did you think I was going to leave out the food? Not to worry. Hymans came highly recommended by several people. Tim and I split a platter of shrimp, scallops, oysters, and a crabcake. The platter was plenty for both of us, and was quite a good deal. Once again, the meal started with boiled peanuts. The scallops were the best--coming dangerously close to the best we've eaten (at Boston Sail Loft in Boston). The shrimp, oysters, and crabcakes were awesome as well. By the time we finished up at the plantation and got our laundry together, we decided we couldn't eat another heavy meal tonight. Once we got the laundry in, I jumped back in the car and headed back to a Whole Foods we passed. If I had brought my camera to the laundromat, I would have taken a picture--it was good, too--fresh fruit (watermelon, cantaloupe, honeydew, mango, blackberries, raspberries, blueberries, and strawberries) and a trail mix I mixed myself--mixed nuts, banana chips, dried tropical fruit, and a few Georgia praline pecans--a welcomed change from all the fried food! : ) I know Savannah will bring more Southern comfort food, so we decided we needed a break. We'll leave tomorrow morning for Savannah!
2 comments:
We agree, living in Charleston in the winter months, even spring would be awesome. Forget the summer. When you get back, I need to pick your brain on Boston and Maine. That's our trip in august. If you want to go to the Lady and Sons, you will have to get up early, stand in line to make a reservation for lunch or go back and stand in line in the afternoon for dinner reservation. We went at 7:30, were the first ones there, made our reservation for 11:00, and were back to the hotel by 9:10 to walk around. We stayed right around the corner about a 5 min walk facing the river, and backing up to the market. It was a great location. We figured lunch was a better deal time wise, and it worked out well. There is also a good pizza place on the market, and of course tons of places along the river. Make sure you walk to the waving girl statue. Great story about her. Ms Wilke's is also supposed to be a lot like the lady and sons with good southern food, but I can't vouch for it. We saw Jamie Deen, and that made it all worth it. If you get there when the restaurant opens, they come out and ring the dinner bell and call you to eat. Very fun! Enjoy your next leg of the trip.
Would love to tell you about our trip to Boston and Maine!
I think we're going to try to go stand in line in the morning for The Lady and Sons!
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