Seeing the sights before leaving CharlestonApr 26, 2012
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On our way to Fort Sumter, a lady snapped our photo.
The boat trip to Fort Sumter was worth the price of admission.
Hazel reads the brochure on the trip to the island.
| Hazel and I spent a week at the Lake Aire RV Park near Charleston, South Carolina. The park was in a beautiful location, 5 miles from a Walmart for needed supplies, and a short trip on the busy highway system into Charleston to see the sights. No complaints about the park, other than the water which tasted bad, ruined the coffee, and had an odor to it. Fortunately, I still had half a tank of really good water from our stay at the Gulf Islands National Seashore in Ocean Springs, Mississippi, so we used that for drinking and cooking. Two tourist things were on our list, to go out to Fort Sumter in Charleston harbor, and to see an old Southern mansion. We did both, spending an enjoyable afternoon taking the boat to the fort, and a couple of days later, we walked the gardens at Magnolia Plantation. The mansion was a bit of a disappointment, thanks to being burned nearly to the ground by General Sherman's troops, but the gardens were great, and I managed to keep up with Hazel and our friend Steve Weaver as we walked the grounds. The plantation was owned by the minister at a local church, and operated by a large number of slaves. When the war ended, so did the free labor. Hard-times set in, until the family figured out that Northern tourists flocking to Charleston would actually pay money to see the place, making it one of the first tourist traps of the post Civil war era. I was up in the middle of the night this week, a common occurance, working on my aviation website, when I accidently knocked over a glass of water on the table, and some of it went straight to the keyboard on my notebook computer. I wiped everything dry, but the keys started to take on a life of their own, with some working, others not, or sticking, with letter whirring across the screen. Now, what was I going to do? Fortunately, I can order a new keyboard from eBay for about $30, but that could take days. "Why don't you run over to Walmart and buy a regular keyboard to plug into one of your USB ports?" said Hazel, normally a non-computer person, I didn't know she knew anything about this. When she checks her email, I have to show her how to run the mouse. "Hazel", I said, "you're a genius!", and I took off for Walmart in our tow car. $10 bucks and 10 miles later, I was back in business on the net. Our week was up on Thursday morning, seven days of touring the sights and just relaxing in the camp. Steaks were grilled, spaghetti cooked, spirits consumed, and as they say, "a good time was had by all". Now, it is time to head up through North Carolina and beyond to New England, where I hope it has stopped snowing. |
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