Exploring Charleston, South Carolina

I got to embark on an Adventure of a lifetime July 28th - August 1st, 2009! I was fortunate enough to be able to go to Charleston, South Carolina with my mom for a training convention for her work, and I invited my friend Ashley to come along so we could take in the sights and sounds of all that Charleston had to offer while we were there! We stayed the night at the Ramada Inn in Minneapolis by the airport and the Mall of America, so we would have a quick hotel shuttle to the airport when we were to leave at 4am the next day. Once up in the air and we were awake.. the cameras came out for what was to be the next 4 longest days of their lives!

We stayed at the Hampton Inn on Daniel's Island, and there was a Pirate-themed restaurant named "Queen Anne's Revenge" that shared the parking lot with the hotel.. needless to say their food was AMAZING and we were there at least once a day! For the record- they have the BEST GREEN FRIED TOMATOES I HAVE EVER EATEN!! So everyone that reads this blog post should make it a point to go to Daniel's Island for Queen Anne's Revenge's Green Fried Tomatoes... 

After eating our delicacys from Queen Anne's we decided to scope out the rest of Daniel's Island on foot with our cameras in hand. We went downtown and were walking around for about 3 hours that night, which was a very good way to curb the jet-lag that we may have had. Once we were done taking pictures for the night we stopped by the hotel's brochure rack to decide what our plan of attack was going to be for the rest of the weeks' trip.

Day 2: We decided to go into Charleston and go to the Charleston Aquarium on Aquarium Dwarf and take in the sights at the aquarium, and we had to go there when all the school groups had tons to kids and everything was chaotic. At one point the people had been taking about seeing dolphins in the harbor so a lot of people went outside and seen them coming up out of the water but figured they would be around later, I was more interested in seeing the HUGE ships that were coming in the Harbor with at least 300 cargo units from trains stacked on them.. Man and I thought the ships that came into Duluth/Lake Superior were big.. they were nothing compared to this!

After we were done at the Aquarium we went and had lunch at the "Harbor Grille" Restaurant at which time there was a downpour while we were in there and then it was even hotter and muggier after we were done eating. But if you ever get to Charleston.. I have another thing for you to try- go to the Harbor Grille and get a Bloody Mary.. they were bloody-deliciousAfter stopping for some local grub we went down by the harbor and did some dolphin-watching. When we weren't paying attention, one sprouted up right by the barge that we were standing on and scared all three of us.. too bad nobody had their camera ready for that because that would have been an AWESOME picture!

Later on that night we also went down by the Pier and it ended up storming while we were there so we opted to go back another night, while we were about and about we grabbed some more brochures and decided out plan of attack for tomorrow while my mom was  in her first day of training. 

Day 3: Ashley and I decided to take on the Bulldog Walking Tours and see what their Low country Flavor Tour had to offer us. We walked around Historic Downtown Charleston with a group and a guide for about 3 hours tasting samples of their well known restaurants' food as well as getting a first hand account for a history lesson of the area. The other people on the tour with us almost seemed disgusted to know we were from Minnesota because it gets so cold there that they though it was interesting to ask a lot of questions. The first place we went was a bakery and they served grits and iced tea and someone had asked how grits compared to cornmeal or polenta and nobody seemed to know so I butted in my two-cents of knowledge about it and everyone was surprised I knew anything about it.

Then we were off to an Odds and Ends cooking supply store, a spice store which I bought some seasoning called "Pirate's Bite" .. yes it was quite spicy.. but oh so good!.. We then went to a candy place and left with our sweet-tooth satisfied as well as our bags full of leftovers! Our last stop on the tour was to a down home barbecue place that served us coligreens and brisket. Ashley and I decided that after we were done walking around all morning we were going to go to the Rooftop bar and have ourselves a refreshing drink! Which was ironically called "A Harbor Breeze".


Once we were done with our drinks we decided to go back to the pier and take some pictures since our time there had been cut short the night before due to the weather. When we got there, there were people playing in this fountain and they looked like they were having a super fun time, so I couldn't resist taking a picture of this little girl who looked like she was having the time of her life playing in the fountain! We walked around down there and took some more pictures and we waited until my mom got done with training and then we decided to try going to Isle of the Palms Beach, but when we got there it rained again, you know you are tourists when- you are down along the beach with rain jackets in a thunderstorm so one way or another you get to see the beach that you came to see in the first place! We ended up getting a bite to eat and calling the hotel shuttle to come and pick us up prematurely since it was crappy weather.

Day 4: Ashley and I went to the Magnolia Plantation & Gardens for the majority of the day. We toured the plantation grounds and seen the living quarters as well as the huge garden which took

us about 3.5 hours to walk through after stopping once and backtracking to get some refreshments. Tons of beautiful flowers and ponds with footbridges and huge trees with long strings of moss hanging from their limbs, and then the occasional animal or two along the way that our cameras decided to document. Like this picture here the mother spider was feeding her baby spiders, the lighting was just perfect to get to see the web and everything!  So cool!

After we were done touring the gardens we were waiting for the cab to come back and there was a disturbance among the locals, apparently a cute little baby alligator had escaped from where it should have been and people were taking pictures of it and a local Southern lady who was selling baskets was freaking out because she "ain't never seen no alligator and she's lived down here all her life!" and it started walking towards her and she started high-tailing it down the path, while all the tourists are sitting there 8 feet away from it taking pictures! ahaha

Once the cab finally came we went to the hotel and went and had some more awesome Green Fried Tomatoes and then we decided to take our chances once more with Isle of the Palms Beach! Which it turned out to be a gorgeous night for the beach! Played around in the sand a little, took some pictures, grabbed some seashells, and even made a pretty sweet looking sand castle!

All in all, this was a really fun trip, between Ashley and I, we probably took about 10,000-12,000 pictures! But you know what they say - "a picture is like a thousand words!" But all the stories I have from there are priceless and if I ever get the chance to go back there, I would in a heartbeat!