Charleston

Our Gospel Meeting ended Wednesday evening so that gave our family 2 days to do everything we wanted to do together! My Mom had mentioned in January that she would love to go see Charleston, SC which was also on my list of places to visit in our area of the country. So Thursday morning we got up bright and early (okay, not that early) and left for Charleston around 8. Since my Mom and Dad's car is much bigger than ours, Russ, I and Chloe Jo just rode with them all week.

Here are my parents and CJ all ready to go on our little day trip!

Russ and I were also very excited to go!

Grampy and CJ walking out the door. They are BFF's!

To get down there we drove to Myrtle Beach and headed down the coast on Highway 17. We did a little bit of exploring on the way by driving around Pawley's Island. I'm a mid-west girl and I don't have a lot of experience with the coast so I thought this marsh was interesting. There were several docks and some of them had boats tied up. I think it's neat that people just float around the waterways.

I'm terribly obsessed with bridges. I love taking pictures as we are driving over them! Russ took this picture of the Charleston bridge. They closed it down today for a 10K.

We had done some research on the internet before going down to Charleston so that we would know what we wanted to do while there. We all agreed that we wanted to ride the Carolina Belle around Charleston Harbor. When we got into the city, we headed straight to the ticket counter of the Belle. Since we went on a Thursday we had decided not to buy tickets in advance. Here are Grampy, Chloe Jo and G-Jo walking to the building to buy tickets for the boat ride.

I love going to boat docks and seeing all of the different boats docked. The bridge in the background is the one in the picture above.

We bought our tickets and had about an hour to kill before boarding the Carolina Belle. The woman at the ticket counter directed us to a local trendy sandwich shop called The East Bay Deli to get some lunch. The food was yummy!

We had to walk over these railroad tracks to get to the deli so on the way back, I decided to play paparazzi. Everyone needs a picture with railroad tracks, right!?
And then I made my Dad play paparazzi for us! He didn't get the railroad track thing. *sigh*

I, of course, had to get a family picture in front of the palmetto trees. It is our state tree, after all and I am trying oh-so-hard to be a Carolina Girl!

Here is our boat, the Carolina Belle! The lower deck was where we were so Chloe Jo could run around without any risk. There weren't very many people on the boat and we were the only ones on the lower deck for the first half of the boat ride.
This is just an insanely huge ship that was out in the harbor. I can't get over how big seafaring ships are! They are ginormous!!!
There was a cruise ship docked just a little way down from where our boat was! Apparently Charleston just signed on with a new cruise company and now they get cruise ships all of the time.
Before we ever left the dock, we spotted bottlenose dolphins in the harbor! That right there was worth the price of the tickets to me. We ended up seeing quite a few dolphins throughout the ride! I didn't get any pictures because they only stay up for seconds and I was mesmerized with watching them and not thinking about trying to get a picture.

This is the Charleston "skyline". There is a law there than no building can be taller than the tallest steeple on a church house so there aren't any skyscrapers! Sorry about the glare on a few of the pictures. Since we were on the lower deck, these were all taken out of windows.
There were several cranes and loading areas for the container ships that come through. Again, I can't get over the size of some of this equipment!I {heart} my WussyWoo! It's okay to puke. I did a little in my mouth while typing that!
I also {heart} my sweet Chloe Jo! She is such a doll baby and she was so good all day even though she didn't get a nap until the car ride back home.
I loved how these birds followed us the whole time we sailed around the harbor! This is apparently normal, but, again, I am not familiar with sea things. The window I took this picture out of was very dirty!
I have so many pictures, but I can't remember what half of them are! The captain narrated the whole trip so I'm sure there was something significant about this particular area, but I don't know what it was! Maybe it's the people fishing? Whatever, it's still a neat picture!
This is an aircraft carrier that is docked in Charleston Harbor. I can't remember the name of it, but it was really cool! I was amazed by the size of this one, also!
The captain invited Chloe Jo and I into the cockpit (or whatever it's called on a boat) to get a picture! He could tell right off that I'm not a native so I guess I'm not quite a Carolina Girl yet.
And another picture of that same bridge. I'm telling ya, I'm obsessed with bridges, ya'll!
Come on, it's a neat bridge! This is the last one. I promise!
After we got off the boat, we went to a free museum to look around. There really wasn't much to it and I didn't take any pictures. It was neat, but we were in and out in less than 20 minutes. I think Russ and Dad spent most of their time in the gift shop. HA!

There were two more tourist things I wanted to do and then we planned on getting some "real" seafood (as opposed to Red Lobster, which I'm totally not knocking because I love it!). We decided to walk to city market from the museum and I'm so glad we did. I love old parts of town and Charleston did not disappoint! The colors on the homes and the palmetto trees lining the streets made everything look so beachy! I {heart}.
I especially loved all the little things that gave the area so much character like the names of the streets being in the sidewalks.
I didn't take any pictures of city market, but it was 3 long buildings full of local merchants. I did end up buying a gorgeous necklace made by a Charlestonian.

After City Market, we made our way down to Battery Park and walked around for a while.

Chloe Jo thought she was big stuff being able to sit on this tree branch!
The park was lovely and the trees were so neat! They were perfect for climbing!
Chloe Jo and Grampy loved playing on this pile of cannonballs! Silly Grampy!
And then they had to get a picture taken with a mortar. Grampy loves this kind of stuff so he was thrilled that Chloe Jo was willing to take pictures with him.
By the time we were finished exploring, our tummy's were telling us it was time to get some supper. We went to The Charleston Crab House and it did not disappoint! I had flounder and coconut shrimp and I've been talking about getting some more of that shrimp since! We will definitely have to go back sometime!

We had a great time exploring Charleston and I would love to be able to do some of the other touristy things the city has to offer sometime!