Days 17 & 18, Charleston
Trip Start
May 04, 2008
1
11
18
Trip End
Jun 08, 2008
Charleston,
South Carolina,
United States
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Tourist Activity: Night tour of the 'haunted' jail. Eating Southern food.
Lunch at Hominy Grill
Non-Tourist Activity: An unbelievable private tour of the H.L. Hunley (aka the Hemley!), the first successful battle submarine, from the civil war, that has recently been recovered from the ocean outside Charleston and is being preserved. Eating Southern food.
Wild Animals: Buzzards...and tree frogs that sound like well-used old beds creaking into the balmy night.
Cultural Difference: Where do we begin? For one thing, they call cock roaches 'palmetto bugs'...sounds so much prettier doesn't it?
Best Odor: The fragrant jasmine in the evening around every other corner.
Worst Odor: The fragrant smell of horse urine around the other ones.
After surviving the rain downpour, nickel-sized hail and rather frightening thunderstorms we continued our journey on the 'scenic' route through Myrtle Beach. If the miles of Las Vegas style putt putt golf weren't enough (think Division street in Spokane with huge fake volcanoes and dinosaurs thrown about) it was BIKERS WEEK!!! Hundreds and hundreds of urban kids on street bikes without helmets.
CHARLESTON was our final destination...and it proved worth the wait. We met up with our friends Brian and Adriane. Brian grew up outside Charleston so we were in good hands. After getting settled in our lovely carriage house in the heart of town, they took us to a restaurant that truly fulfilled Connie's desire to 'eat her way through the South'. Afterwards we took a walk 'round town before settling in. About 1 am Connie woke up sick...powerfully sick...'roll your eyes into the back of your head' sick. We're thinking she shouldn't have started eating her way through the South while we were still in Myrtle Beach!
The next morning Brian and Adriane surprised submarine-loving Bob with an extraordinary experience. Typically the H.L. Hunley submarine is only open to the public on the weekends because the real people, the archeologists and scientists, work on it M-F. Typically it is soaking in water when the public sees it. Typically...but not good enough for Bob Travis! They had the ship out of water because it was mid-week and they were trying to get the forward pump out - the smoking gun so to speak, as to the mystery of what might have befallen the submarine in 1862. We were four of only 12 people in the room...all the others being scientists, videographers, photographers and benefactors. The event made the newspaper the next day. Wow...I suspect we'll be the four dorks in hard hats in the background when they do a documentary about the event. We'll let you all know when it premiers. Unfortunately, they didn't allow the public (aka the four of us) to take any photographs so you'll have to take our word that all this occured until we're famous!
In A Fake Hunley
Hunley Guide with Bob and Brian
We also took a haunted tour of the old creep jail. Great, silly fun.
Jail
Bob Connie Adriane Brian at the Jail
Charleston is a beautiful tasty treat of a city. Thanks for everything Adriane & Brian...see y'all in NOLA!
B&C
