dare2go

Charleston/South Carolina


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James Island County Park is situated just outside the downtown area of Charleston, so we thought it would be conveniently located to explore the city. We drove into the city for a first look on Saturday afternoon, before driving to the campground. We were very impressed by what we saw. The buildings are mostly well restored and the whole area has a look and feel that is a little European, with a lot of tropical features thrown in for good measure. We walked around the Market area and a little along King Street, the main shopping street, but were mostly just happy to look at the variety of beautiful architecture in the buildings. We also ate cake at Kaminsky's Café, which consistently wins the city award for best desserts every year!
We arrived at James Island County Park shortly before 5.30, to find out what was meant by the 'Holiday Festival of Lights'. There was a long line of cars waiting to enter when the gates opened at 5.30 to drive around the park and look at all the incredible light displays set up in the park along the road. Most had either a Christmas or a local theme to them and they are sponsored by local business. I began to understand why it is difficult to get a site at this campground at this time of year. Fortunately for us there was a separate lane for campers and we were waved through to go and check in to the campground. We had to drive past part of the display to reach the campground, but decided to leave the rest of it for another evening.
We went back into Charleston on Sunday afternoon to walk another part of the historic town. Somehow we never seemed to tire of looking at these beautiful old houses. Starting at White Point Gardens on the southern tip of the Charleston peninsular, we walked north along East Bay Street, which gives a pleasant view of the Cooper River to one side and a street of beautiful houses to the other. We noticed that many of the houses seem to sit side on to the street with an entrance door - often a very ornate entrance door - that leads only to the veranda, and the main entrance to the house sits in the middle of the veranda. At first I thought it was to aspect the house towards the garden as most of the verandas seemed to overlook sumptuous gardens. We later learned, when we took a carriage ride, that this design was imported from Barbados, where people were taxed by the amount of street frontage their house had. It was assumed that the British would tax the colonials here in the same way, so they adopted the same style. The verandas are most often aspected to catch the breeze from the water during the very hot summer months. As you continue to the north, you pass Rainbow Row; so-called because of the variety of colours these attached houses are painted. We turned at the Old Exchange and Provost Dungeon - but didn't go into the museum (even though it is supposed to be haunted!), as it was such a lovely day that going indoors for any reason didn't hold any attraction - and continued along Broad Street toward the prominent structure that is St Michael's Episcopal Church.
We then turned south again into Meeting Street which would take us back to the White Point Gardens. Several African American women had set up their sweet-grass baskets on the sidewalk for sale. These baskets are only made in this area from local grasses which grow in the swamps. They are very expensive, but also very time consuming to make. There is some concern that the younger women are not interested in learning this craft and that it will soon disappear. They are very beautiful baskets, but I resisted temptation once again. Having such a small living space doesn't really encourage one to collect many of these types of souvenirs. Meeting Street has quite a few houses with beautiful cast iron work, which seems to be a French influence. We found that we had taken over 70 photographs in this walk which took only a couple of hours!
We arrived back at the campground just after sunset and took the opportunity to drive around the complete circuit to view all the lights. Unfortunately it is quite difficult to photograph light displays which have lights going on and off to create different effects, but we did get some pictures and gained a lot of pleasure from just looking at them. I was more impressed than I wanted to be with what I had originally thought to be a massive waste of energy!

Monday, 4 December 2006, Hunting Island
We spent a very relaxing day here at the Hunting Island State Park Campground yesterday. Sometimes it is nice to just not go anywhere. The weather wasn't very pleasant, but the view was worth it. This morning the sun is shining and the view from the window is even prettier than yesterday!
We ended up staying a week in Charleston, because we organised to have a lot of little jobs done on our camper and had to wait until Friday to get into the repair shop. We didn't really mind staying a bit longer than we had planned and took the opportunity to go back into the city several more times. One of these was on my birthday, when we decided to take a carriage ride around part of the historical area. It was a lovely way to see the architecture and the driver, who was a sixth generation native of Charleston, provided interesting commentary as we went.
The weather remained sunny and clear the whole week and even became quite warm. We took the opportunity to visit one of the many plantations outside of town, which are open to the public. In hindsight, I would recommend doing some research before deciding which of them to visit. It seems that they all have different features, and some would appeal more than others. We chose Middleton Place from a tourist pamphlet because it sounded less touristy than the others advertised in the same brochure. It turned out to be very expensive and we later heard that it is one of the most expensive to visit. But it has the most amazing garden and we did find it an interesting place to visit. I was a bit surprised that we needed so much time there - I thought after an hour or two, we would head back to the campground and spend the afternoon sitting in the sun. It was almost dark as we drove back into town!
Another truck expense popped up during the week - we were all set to leave the campground on Tuesday morning (my birthday) and the truck wouldn't start. The battery sounded dead. One of the camp hosts organised a ranger with jumper leads but that didn't help. She had to leave after about half an hour and then our neighbour brought over his truck and tried his jumper leads. That also didn't work immediately and by this time I was calling AAA. Just as I was finishing with the phone call, the truck started. This meant spending some time at the local Advance Auto shop, where a friendly and helpful woman sold us 2 new batteries, installed them and got us on our way into town for the carriage ride. If anyone asks what I got for my birthday I reply, 2 new batteries, a windscreen wiper blade and a carriage ride. It unfortunately cut a rather large hole into our day, but I feel more secure heading into Mexico and Central America with 2 new batteries in the truck. (I still don't really understand why diesels have 2 batteries, though!) We finished the day with a fabulous meal at a restaurant on James Island called The Mustard Seed. The food was great and the staff were very friendly and attentive.
A big plus from the battery problem was meeting and spending time with our campground neighbours, Jim and Joanna. We haven't been staying in one place long enough for most of our journey so far to actually make more than a passing acquaintance with fellow travellers. We spent several evenings just sitting and chatting with them over a glass of wine, one of them on the beautiful Folly Beach, in the moonlight. It is one of the things I have missed so far - spending time with like-minded people and just talking about everything. Juergen and I recently discussed the question of being homesick - we decided we wouldn't mind being in our favourite coffee shop at home with our friends one Saturday morning if we could just get Scotty to 'beam us up', but that we didn't want to do it enough yet to get on a plane for 14 plus hours, especially since we would then want to come back and carry on with our journey. So it was very special for us to spend a few days with this lovely, interesting couple.
We were tempted on Saturday morning to try for one more night at James Island, but the weekend had brought a lot of families to the campground and children tend to be noisy at both ends of the day. So we reluctantly said goodbye to our new friends and once more headed south. Juergen had chosen Hunting Island from our camping book as the best place to stay near Beaufort (pronounced Byoo-furd), which is the second oldest town in South Carolina. We arrived after dark on Saturday evening and chose a campsite right by the ocean. Even in the dark we could tell this was a stunning location. After a restful day yesterday, we have decided to spend a few hours in Beaufort this afternoon and then come back here for one more night. We are trying to balance our urge to drive south with the temptation to stay just a bit longer in this lovely spot. Then tomorrow we will move on to Savannah, Georgia which is reputedly "the most beautiful city in North America" according to the Parisian newspaper, Le Monde! Well, we have been in some beautiful cities and towns lately, and Charleston really impressed both of us, so what we think of Savannah remains to be seen...

Wednesday, 6 December 2006, Skidaway Island State Park, GA
Beaufort is a rather small town, but has some very beautiful buildings. We spent a couple of hours walking around the town and found it quiet and peaceful. For lunch we stopped in a restaurant called Panini's on Bay Street. It was one of our best lunches yet - we were certainly lucky with food in South Carolina! We were pleased that we had stopped, both for the town of Beaufort and the Hunter Island State Park campground. We left the beach rather reluctantly yesterday and drove south across into Georgia. I think we also left South Carolina rather reluctantly as we had spent a couple of very enjoyable weeks there, with nice campgrounds, some gorgeous weather, friendly people and some excellent food. Just as they state on SC's number plates: "Beautiful Places - Smiling Faces". Who could ask for more?