Charleston, SC - Hanging in the Lowcountry

Next stop - Charleston, South Carolina. In case you are curious, our summer plans were roughly determined by our plans to be in New Hampshire for Labor Day Weekend. So, we are slowly moving north in a not very efficient way. Charleston was in the right direction, sounded very interesting from a historical perspective and also was supposed to have a lot of good local beaches and live music.

We decided to stay in Mount Pleasant, a suburb that is only a 10-15 minute drive from downtown Charleston. We found this cool condo right on a creek - photo above is one of the views from our screened-in porch. A highlight of the stay definitely was sitting on my porch in the morning, enjoying my first cup of coffee. Pro tip: a marsh is defined as an area of low lying land which is flooded in wet seasons or during high tide and typically remains waterlogged (yes, we looked it up - we also looked up the difference between marshes and swamps. Seemed like important info for the area). It was really cool to watch how the creek water level changed over the course of the day as the tides went in and out (you should have CCR’s “doot, doot, doo lookin’ out my back door” playing in the back of your head as you look at the below photos).

View from inside the screened porch.

Side view.

In case you were curious what it looked like from outside.

So pretty. Morning shot.

A kayaker during high tide.

There was a crabbing dock nearby for use by the residents.

Views from the end of the dock at high-ish tide.

Tide is out!

Was shocking every day.

And maybe even higher.

More kayakers.

Another highlight for us was regularly getting our exercise walking on the many local beaches, which were all very different and mostly lovely. I took too many photos, as usual - you can see some of them in this gallery, but in case you are curious, here’s the list:

• Kiawah Island - was the furthest from our area of Charleston, but was a great beach walk. Check out the very smart dog washing station there. Brilliant.

• Sullivans Island - the closest beach to our area with pretty beach walking.

• Folly Beach - this one had regular rock piles/jetties that were not our favorite. But the nearby town was cute for walking and we had a great brunch at the Lost Dog Cafe there.

• Isle of Palms - was our favorite. At one end of the beach was another cute town to wander around, and we had a fantastic brunch at the Acme Lowcountry Kitchen.

While we didn’t do much actual swimming at the beaches, we had fun splashing around the edges and finding unexpected sandbars/pits in the mostly shallow surf.

We really enjoyed sight seeing in Charleston - there was a great variety of stuff to see and do.

• Historic Downtown Charleston - so much history any time you turn around in the South. I loved the architecture most.

One of our sightseeing days, it was raining lightly when we first ventured out. We’ve learned that if we don’t go out in the South just because it’s raining, we’d never get to go anywhere. But, in this case, it started POURING an hour into our wandering. We had to take refuge under the balcony of some famous building. While we were waiting for a break in the rain, one of the walking sightseeing tours stopped in as well. I couldn’t believe they were still doing the walk and talk tour as water flowed off them - especially the guide you can see in the left photo below. When the guide was done with that building, off they went into the downpour 🤷🏻‍♀️. We had an alternate solution.

• Charleston Tea Garden - this is the only large scale commercial tea plantation in North America. According to the tour we took, that means both growing and processing/packaging the tea. It was a gorgeous location and we learned a lot. Plus, it was a very pretty drive to the island where it was located.

Video tour - done really well, explained all the equipment we could see through the windows.

Drying out the leaves - type of tea based on length of drying time (black, green, oolong).

Did you know - Tea plants are naturally bug and disease resistant.

The Bigelow family bought the plantation in 2003.

What?!?!

Here it is!

We were able to wander parts of the plantation.

Here’s one of the paths.

There was a pond, where “See-ya-later” alligator lives!

Craig, still trying to see an alligator live and in person.

Nearest tea plantations….

As I said, so pretty.

• Patriot’s Point Naval and Maritime Museum - the USS Yorktown aircraft carrier was our favorite, but there was “one million square feet of history and adventure.” In addition to the aircraft carrier, there were more ships and aircraft, and an immersive Vietnam experience that was excellently done. Surprise - we took too many photos. Check out the gallery.

• Entertainment - There was also lots of fun to be had in the Charleston area. We went to a farmers market one Sunday afternoon and ended up staying a couple of hours, listening to live music on the outside patio of the Pourhouse (the farmers market is held every Sunday behind this live music venue - who knew). And, for the last few summers, there’s a Friday evening happy hour event held at the Charleston Harbor Resort & Marina right on the ocean with live music. It was a lot of fun and a good way to start the weekend.

When the weather got WAY too hot and humid to spend time outside, we decided it was time to catch up on movies. Conveniently, there was a great independent theater nearby. The individual theaters were not huge, but they had really comfortable seats and the screens were big for the size of the rooms. It was a great opportunity to see the last Mission Impossible movie and Ballerina in person. See my reviews here. I’m thinking we’ll be checking out more indie theaters in other places.

Nicholas Ribcage, greeting us.

OMG, I love this place.

Yeah, that was in the bathroom.