May 13, 2013 - Charleston, SC - City Pics

Although we often say that wherever we are at the moment is our favorite place to be, Charleston always comes out on top as a favorite city. Beautiful homes in the city, plantations, wonderful restaurants. We never get tired of walking the downtown streets. Each time we've been here, we've taken a tour including a Gullah Tour, historic homes tour, plantation tours, and this time we enjoyed a Civil War tour. The guides are always professional, well-informed and interesting. The price of real estate in the city attests to the love that so...

May 8, 2013 - Charleston, SC

Day 6 part deux: Destination - Magnolia Plantation We decided to split up today. Heather and I went to the Magnolia plantation, while Nick, Joe, Ryan, Jake, and Lauren went kayaking. From what I hear, the kayaking trip was pretty cool. Ranger found a horseshoe crab, Joe and Skeeba saved a child's hat from being lost forever, and Nick and Lauren found a shipwrecked sail boat. They saw a few dolphins and got ridiculously sunburned... Heather and I went to the Magnolia plantation, which has one of the most beautiful gardens in the...

May 7, 2013 - Charleston, SC

Day 5 part deux: Destination - Charleston, SC Joe took us to Glazed, the doughnut shop, for breakfast. They have bacon in the doughnuts... no joke. Nuesske's bacon to be exact. Another point for Wisconsin. We know bacon. My favorite was the bacon apple fritter. It was seriously delicious. Joe had a meeting to go to. So, he sent us off on our own with some ideas of what to do until he could meet up with us again. We walked around the market and found some mostly unnecessary trinkets to purchase. We went to Mellow Mushroom for pizza, which...

May 6, 2013 - Charleston, SC

Day 4 part deux: Destination - Charleston, SC We woke up a bit later than we probably should have, and made our way the Early Bird Diner for chicken and waffles. I'm glad I did it, but I personally think that chicken and waffles are sort of strange together. The honey mustard on the waffles along with the syrup overpowered the waffle and chicken. I do have strange eating habits and would generally prefer to eat things singly, though. Then we headed to the Angel Oak Tree. It is supposedly over 1,000 years old. It is gigantic! Nicholas went a...

May 5, 2013 - Asheville, NC to Charleston, SC

Day 3 part deux: Destination - Charleston, SC We were rudely woken up by a security guard at 8:00 AM letting us know that we could not sleep in vehicles in the parking deck. So, we decided it was time to get up and get going, but it was rainy and crappy all morning. So, we headed straight to Joe and Megan's house in Charleston. Six hours worth of some serious rainy driving and we arrived. We went to the Mount Pleasant Pier and walked around until Joe and Megan got home. The plan was to get Mexican food and margaritas since it was Cinco...

May 4, 2013 - South Carolina Charleston

Wonderful day in Charleston! We park the truck right on Murray Street, a river boulevard and walk around the nearby historic district admiring the homes of 16th, 17th and 18th centuries. There is so much to discover and learn about the architecture. It's a cool day, perfect for strolling but I would love the sun to come out for my photos! @ Amen Cafe, famous for seafood, we have a delicious low country meal of she-crab soup, hush puppies, slaw, shrimp and grits with a nice glass of wine :) In the photo, you will see chandeliers made of...

May 3, 2013 - South Carolina Charleston

This great urban campground, St. James Island has a shuttle into Charleston so we take it this morning. It saves driving the truck through morning traffic and trying to find a parking spot! Highlights We take a GrayLine Tour of the city which includes a ferry to Fort Sumter in the harbour. Fort Sumter is famous as the site of the first shot fired in the Civil War in 1861. It is a National Monument. It was extremely windy and consequently wavy and our ferry was the last for the day. Stroll through the famous City Market which is packed with...

May 1, 2013 - Until next time in the DR

It’s completely surreal, but here I am back in the States and finished with my month in the Dominican Republic. Right now I’m sitting on balcony of the beach house in South Carolina my family rented for Michael’s graduation celebration week, a complete switch in economic status from what I was living in for the past month, but with the beautiful ocean in front of me and my bachata music playing while I write, this is the perfect moment for me to stop and reflect on everything before I fully jump back into my “normal” life at home. This...

Apr 26, 2013 - Charleston, SC

4/26/13, Friday On to Charleston, South Carolina today! We passed through Georgia through some beautiful countryside and into South Carolina. We arrived late in the evening and went to the wrong RV Park. While it was nice at the Naval Weapons Station, we wanted to stay at the newly refurbished Charleston Air Force Base "Shady Oaks" RV Park. So we headed over there. We had to drive through a truck sized X-Ray machine before being allowed on base. This is a very nice RV Park. We are in the overflow area with water & electric. It is very nice...

Apr 1, 2013 - Charleston

America is the land of the car, the drive up to Charleston was reasonably straight forward as the I-95 travels more or less straight north up to and beyond South Carolina and 9 hours driving (including a couple of stops) saw us arriving at the Holiday Inn in the Historic District of Charleston where David is now General Manager. Well, we were glad to arrive but were not so delighted with the fall in temperature, we had left in T shirts and by the time we arrived it was only 10C, I am sure that given the temperatures at home presently, there...

Mar 28, 2013 - OTRA - SC - Charleston - Second Campground

3/28/13 We were due to leave for Georgia today but Bob woke me up around 7:00 a.m. this morning and asked me to take him to the hospital. His back, in the kidney area, has been bothering him off and on for several weeks. Last night it came to a head and really hurt him but he didn’t want to go then; wanted to see if a good night’s sleep would help. It didn’t so I called the ambulance and off he went. CTscans showed nothing untoward so home we came again, about 3 hours later. The way he’s feeling, I’m not too comfortable traveling because I...

Dec 30, 2012 - A Charleston Christmas

I took a train down from Washington DC to Charleston. Now I could launch into a detailed comparison of the various pros and cons of the British rail system versus the American but I feel it might be a little skewed considering I started writing this on a train that was running 3 and a half hours late. Suffice it to say, they have bigger chairs but worse service and toilets that run out of water. The train journey did however provide a really interesting and beautiful view of the countryside as we travelled south. I couldn't help but think...