A Most Beautiful Day!

31 Oct 09--It occured to me today that I have not introduced you to our camp hosts, Jane and her husband...don't know his name. They are both very nice, and very helpful, and Jane loves dogs. She doesn't own any dogs, but she drives around in a golf cart with a cannister of dog treats, so all the dogs in the camp love her. This is her feeding Fluffy and Jabba as Cathy is taking them for a walk. Jane is 76 years old, and she and her husband have been full-time RVing since 1993. They are usually travelling, but she recently had a small stroke so they are staying here to go to the military hospital. Cathy is walking the dogs to tire them out before we go sight-seeing again. We just got back from the gym...I forget what I was doing but I am in the RV.

There is a woman and man who live in this trailer full-time...I think the husband is in the military, and she is 9 months pregnant with their first child...due to deliver next week. I don't think I would be living in this small trailer if I was about to have a baby, but that's just me! They also have a rather large dog...like a golden retriever mix.



Cathy and I went on a 90 minute harbor tour today and we couldn't have picked a better day for it. The weather was absoluetly beautiful! About 83 degrees, barely a cloud in the sky, and the sea breeze was just perfect. They took us out about 2 1/2 miles from shore, basically in a counter-clockwise circle, and it couldn't have been nicer.



When we pulled away the first thing we passed was this big cargo ship, loading up BMWs that are made here in South Carolina and then shipped to Europe. The Captain of the ship told us that Charleston is the 3rd or 4th busiest port on the Eastern Seaboard, so cargo ships are in and out all the time. When we were returning from our trip this ship was already leaving...the Captain said that the owners of the cargo ships try to get their ships out of the harbor as fast as possible because it costs them aout $20,ooo a day to keep their ships in port. Ouch!



To the left below is Ft Sumter, again this is where the first shots of the Civil War happened. And to the right is Sullivan Island. Sullivan Island is known as the Ellis Island of the slave trade...this is where they were all shipped into before they were taken ashore.

On the far side of the port, in an area called Mount Pleasant, there were a string of some really beautiful houses, right on the water's edge, some with beaches, some on rocky embankments. Later in the day we saw a really beautiful area of Charleston on the water's edge, but because of all the trees we couldn't get any pictures. It looked like a lot of money had been put into apartments and probably condos along the seashore. We were here for several days before we even noticed it.

The captain said that Charleston is called the "Holy City", because it has over 140 churches...and a law that says no building will be higher than the church steeples already established. I tried to get good pictures of them, but we were too far out. I mentioned another day, I think on our first day, that I had noticed how many churches they had on just one street, so I was not surprised by the 140 number.

The Aircraft Carrier below is the USS Yorktown. That is also on the other side of the bay, in Mount Pleasant, and you can take a tour on it. It was involved in the Cuban Missile Crisis, but was decommissioned sometime in the 1970s. The bridge in the background reminded me of the one in Boston, and the Captain mentioned that both Boston and Savannah have one like it.

From the harbor we walked over to the Old Exchange & Provost Dungeon, which is the last building built by the Brits before the Revolution. It was initially a meeting area upstairs and a storage area downstairs, but during the revolution the Brits occupied it and made the downstairs a dungeon.

After the war, South Carolina ratified the Constitution in this room below, called the Great Hall, becoming the 8th state in the Union.

The tour guides dress in period costumes and give a guided tour of the Dungeon area downstairs. They have mannequins down there, chained to the walls, as prisoners would have been back then. The guide said that along with captured patriots fighting the crown were slaves, criminals, prostitutes...the whole shebang...and all in together with no bathrooms or other niceties.

Prior to the Brits taking it over, our side hid 10,000 pounds of gun powder in a room that was never found by the Brits.

The building is run today by the Daughters of the American Revolution, and they meet inthis room upstairs from the dungeon.

A nice touch upstairs is along with this meeting room is a bunch of posters and pictures that tell a lot of stories of people and events, and one thing is what is called the Halls of Freedom. They list Faneuil Hall in Boston, Independence Hall in Philly, and the Great Hall here in this building as places where great things happened in the past when people stood up for freedom.

And last but not least, for those of you who have never seen cotton except in your clothes, here is some cotton still in its pod. And then here is Cathy at the restaurant we ate at on the way home, a nice open air place about a block form the ocean. We found that along this road they had quite a few restaurants, bars, art galleries, etc...allthe things you would expect to see at a place like this, but that we missed before. And get a load of this house. It seems about 15-20% of houses here have what I am calling false front doors. Notice the door doesn't lead to the house...it leads to the porches on the side of the house. I think you have to go thru that door, and then there are more doors on the first floor that lead to the upstairs. Weird, huh?