This particular trip, we spent two days (one night). Though and my parents and I were repeat visitors, this was Micah's first visit to Charleston. We started our day leaving my parent's house and making the two hour drive to our first stop of the day, Boone Hall Plantation, in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina. (Northeast of downtown Charleston)
Known as America's Most-Photographed Plantation, Boone Hall Plantation offers visitors the option of spending a few hours to a full day on their grounds offering tours of the main house, grounds, gardens, and historical walks, along with cultural shows and carriage tours.
Upon entrance to the grounds, you are met at the gate by an admission booth, much like a toll booth on a highway, where you purchase tickets to even enter the plantation grounds. Tickets for adults were $24, but that includes everything. Parking, all the tours, shows, and wandering around you want to do. Driving up to the plantation, there is a sign that tells you the radio station you can tune into to get some historical information about the plantation while you drive the mile long driveway to the parking lot. The drive is lined with beautiful oak trees that create a canopy as you drive, almost like you are driving through a tree-tunnel.
Even though your admission ticket includes the prices of the tours, if you want to actually tour the main house, you need to visit the visitors center upon arrival and pick up a time-pass for your tour. You will also be given a map and times for the carriage tours and the Gullah cultural show. (Which I HIGHLY recommend going to! It's wonderful!)
The house tour takes anywhere from 45-60 minutes, depending on the group size and whether or not you have a guide that likes to talk. The house..is neat. You get to see the formal dining room, the sitting room, the breezeway, and a back room. The family that owns the plantation actually lives upstairs, so that's off limits to the general public and the kitchen is also closed off because, like I said, the family actually lives there and the kitchen is up to date, so they don't want to break that 1800's plantation feel. The bus/carriage tours leave every 15 minutes and these take you around the perimeter of the grounds, in which you will get to see some cotton fields, pecan tree crops, where they grow their current fresh-market/farmer's market crops, and all the while getting a historical commentary by the bus driver with a wireless headset.
(This is the old mill-house/storage hall/stable/whatever else it needed to be)
So let's talk about the Gullah show, or first, the Gullah people in general. It's no secret that plantations in the 1800's were operated on the man-power of slaves from Africa. South Carolina became the home of many people from a region of Africa that has been dubbed "Gullah". The Gullah language is a mixture of English and the native tribe languages of the people that had been brought over.
Ok, show time:
On the particular day that we visited, the woman doing the Gullah show was named Miss Gloria. I believe she said that they had three different volunteers that they rotated doing the shows.. but anyway, Miss Gloria is in her late sixties, and told stories of her great-grandmother (who lived to be over 110) and the time she spent with her when she was a little girl. Her great-grandmother had worked on the plantation earlier in her 110 year old life, but by the time Miss Gloria was born she just stayed at home and cooked and "yelled at me for not being able to keep up with her on her afternoon walks". Miss Gloria has a breathtaking singing voice, strong and clear, and she sang some of the songs that her grandmother would sing to her. She also told a few of the stories, "fairy-tales" so-to-speak, native to the African tribe that she came from. At one point, Miss Gloria even got three audience members to act out her story with her on stage; which, of course, ensued in hilarity and laughter as the audience volunteers had to do whatever the story said for them to do. The show ended with Miss Gloria starting the old hymn, "Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound..."- in her soulful, clear, voice (and almost EVERY audience member was singing with her by the end of the verse. There were about 40 of us). It was bone-chilling and left me with goosebumps.
GO TO THE GULLAH SHOW IF YOU VISIT BOONE HALL PLANTATION!
After spending the entire morning at Boone Hall, we headed into downtown Charleston, where we were staying at the Days Inn.
We chose Days Inn because:
1. When we stayed there several years ago, the rooms were clean and the price was...Days-Inn price. There are MUCH nicer hotels in the area, but you will pay the downtown convenience price. All we needed was a place to sleep at night, so the three-star Days Inn hotel was fine with us.
2. The Days Inn is one of the few hotels that accepts pets, and my parents were bringing their dog with them.
***It's also worth noting: If you are planning a trip to Charleston and want to stay downtown, parking is a problem. Spaces are limited and there are far more vehicles than spots. Check with your hotel about their parking policies before booking. (at the Days Inn, you have to pay a flat fee to leave your car on their lot and they give you a parking tag. This INCLUDES overnight. If you want to park in their lot AT ALL, you have to get a parking tag. If you leave your car in their lot and don't have that tag...your car will be towed faster than you can even mentally process). I believe our parking tag was around $20 a day. Dad wouldn't let me pay for anything, so I'm not positive on the price.
We ate a late lunch (practically dinner) at Bubba Gump's because it was within walking distance of our hotel and they had outdoor seating that was pet-friendly. After dinner, we walked down to the Charleston Market and went to my favorite sweets-place in Charleston, Kilwin's. I got Georgia Peach ice cream that was swoon-worthy, though I also recommend their caramel apples and pretty much any kind of their fudge. Their chocolate-covered strawberries are also good... pretty much: it's all good.
The rest of the evening was spent at the hotel, enjoying the company of family, and then later, the company of cable TV, which we don't have at home. Guess what? There was nothing on worth watching.
Day 2
Up-and-at-em, bright and early! My parents are early risers, since my step-dad gets up at 4am every day work work. We had breakfast at TOAST! (right next door to our hotel) then went back for showers and getting our hotel check-out coordinated. Mom opted to stay at the hotel with the dog, and the rest of us headed off to Patriot's Point. This was my...4th? time visiting Patriot's Point, and I'd go back another 4 times.
And THIS is the USS Yorktown. If you've never been on a WWII aircraft carrier, let me just say, you can visit 4 times and see something new every single time. This ship is MASSIVE. You have access to 5 of her decks, as well as the opportunity to climb up to the captain's deck and wonder how in the world someone could steer something so large.
In the past, there have been WWII veterans that actually served either on the Yorktown or one of her sister ships that you can talk to, but in our case, we talked to some very nice Vietnam veterans who gave us a map of the ship and recommended some of the most notable things to see. They also have a museum inside the ship, on the main level where the entrance is, along with two restaurants and some vending machines. I believe they also have a theater at one end of the ship where they show videos about World War 2.
Oh, also, inside the ship, with all that steel and iron, especially the lower in the decks you go, there is very limited cell phone signal, so if you're with a group that you don't want to lose, stay with them. Micah and I lost my Aunt and Dad pretty quickly and ended up meeting up with them over an hour later.
It was a gorgeous morning, so we started with the flight deck.
They have a few planes you can sit in, (as demonstrated by my husband) but most of them say don't touch or climb on the old planes.
From there, we climbed up into the tower to check out the captain's quarters/observation deck.
The lower decks ranged from soldier sleeping quarters, several kitchens, classrooms for training, navigation rooms, laundry, ammunition and weapons, aircraft working stations, you name it, this ship has everything.
A bonus while we were there, they also had the USS Laffey you could go explore, as it was in dock for repairs of some sort. They had a very cool video playing on the Laffey where you crawl into the aircraft gun room (not for the claustrophobic) and they have a somewhat interactive video running of the day that the USS Laffey was attacked and your job as the anti-aircraft soldier was to, well, get rid of the aircraft that were shooting bombs at you. Unfortunately, a missile hits your station and you and the other 7 in your unit don't make it, but you take out a considerable amount of the aircraft and keep the boat from completely sinking.
You can also walk through the USS Clamagore, an old Submarine. As you can see, my husband enjoyed climbing up the random ladders and trying to see out the sight holes.
If you look closely at the background, you can also see (part) of my step-dad. Everything about the submarine was compact. You can see that his head and his feet are cut off because the door opening was so small. The boys had much more trouble squeezing through them than I did, but then again, they're both taller than me. That said, I still managed to knock my elbow on one of them, which bruised and hurt for a week or so after.
Patriot's point probably isn't for those that can't walk very long or do many sets of (sometimes steep) stairs. Granted, all of the staircases have rails, but be forewarned. There is SOME wheelchair access on the Yorktown, but it's limited from what I remember seeing. But oh, if you love history, you could easily spend an entire day or even a weekend here.
From Patriot's Point, we headed back to the hotel to pick up my mom and walked to Poogan's Porch, another restaurant with outdoor seating and pet-friendly accommodations. There is no shortage of delicious food in Charleston, and the pulled pork sandwich and sweet potato fries at Poogan's Porch were no exception to this statement.
After lunch, we walked back to the hotel, checked out, and drove both vehicles across town to the Charleston Aquarium. After parking in a nearby parking garage, we walked to the tour station outside of the aquarium and booked the harbor tour that was leaving in 10 minutes. (After all, we had spent all morning on boats, why not more boats in the afternoon?!)
The harbor tour is...exactly what it sounds like. We took a pontoon-style passenger boat out on the Charleston Harbor and had a historian telling us about the different parts of the city we could see from the Harbor, as well as some South Carolina history in general.
Since we had already been several times, we opted for the tour that didn't stop at Ft. Sumter, but if you've never been, definitely get the Fort Sumter stop option. South Carolina seceding from the United States was the start of the Civil War, and Ft. Sumter was the battle station where one of the first battles took place. It's a very cool experience to go walk around in history and look out over the city of Charleston from inside the walls of the man-made island you're standing on. If you're lucky, you might just see the ghosts of a few confederate soldiers, still protecting the fort to this day.
Anyways, our slow harbor cruise took us out and around Ft. Sumter, and on our way back, we got the privilege of seeing a few dolphins! Overall I think the cruise lasted 90-or-so minutes and was very relaxing since it was a comfortable sunny day.
Like I mentioned before, there isn't a shortage of things to do in Charleston, and this particular trip was short and sweet. I think the next time we visit, we might have to check out the actual aquarium since the harbor cruise leaves from next to the aquarium and we didn't actually get to go inside. I also know there is so much more delicious food that I need to eat, and the horse-drawn carriage tours are wonderful too, as long as it's not during the blistering summer days, and don't even get me started on the museums, live music, and festivals! I love Charleston and can't wait to visit again soon.
On to the next adventure!
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