Charleston, South Carolina

We had a long drive from Virginia but made it to Charleston before dark. Our new spot is Oak Plantation. It is actuallly in Hollywood, SC about 15 minutes from downtown Charleston. Rain was due on Monday but we got rain on our first night, Sunday. It rained on Monday but stopped and so we drove to downtown Charleston in the afternoon.  It is a charming city but still a city. I saw a lot of parking noted on the map we had but didn't realize until we got there that they were parking structures and not just parking lots. We had the boats on and so couldn't park in them. We found some street parking which wasn't easy but it was only two hour parking. We walked around a little and had lunch at another very good restaurant, Queen 82.  We ate out in the open air courtyard which was nice. Even though there was very recent rain, it was warm, in the 80's. We had been wearing long pants and jackets and boots a week ago and now we have had to bring out the shorts again. So sad, huh. :) The restaurant has some low country food and I have been wanting to try grits since I saw shrimp and grits on one of the Top Master shows. And they had barbequed shimp and grits which I, of course, had to try. I had been seeing she crab soup on a number of menus I looked at for this area and so decided to try that as well. I got a cup of the soup and the appetizer size of the shrimp and grits. Both were just delicous. Grits are like a creamy polenta. Very tasty with apple smoked bacon,cheddar cheese and green onions on top of the shrimp and a little glass of sherry for the soup. Joe had a cobb salad with scallops that he said was very good as well.



Courtyard at Queen 82

 Charleston is called the Holy City and has numerous churches. Below is one that had a sign I really liked.

We then continued to tour the area by going to Folley Beach, which is a typical beach town. A lot of the houses near the water are built on stilts. Do you think this is Hurricane territory? Reminded us of Hawaii.

Charleston has lots of water ways through out the city and we traveled over a number of bridges.
Joe had looked up and found there was a Camping World in Northern Charleston and so we headed that way. We took longer than we thought to get there and we had some rain starting as we got there.  Luckily they had the light fixture we needed as the one in the bathroom has been broken for awhile and we were using a flashlight in the evening hours. Bought a few other things as well. Well we got a little mixed up on where we were in relation to the campground and so it was dark by the time we got back and we were just starting to see lightning. Had another thunder and lightning show. A very full day. Tomorrow we head for Florida to stay at a state campground where we plan to take it easy and just relax for a few days or more.