Charleston, South Carolina

We spent the Labor Day weekend in Charleston, South Carolina.  It is pretty close and fin to make our way into South Carolina.  Our first stop was Fort Sumter.  Owen and Milton loved being on the ferry over watching all the huge container ships go by.  Once we made it to the fort it was raining pretty hard but that did not slow Milton down from jumping in all the rather deep puddles.  At least it was warm enough that getting cold in the rain was not an issue.  Then we drove over to Fort Moultrie, another Revolutionary War fort. Owen gave us an excellent tour of all the cannons.  After I got my stamps all collected we went to the aircraft carrier USS Yorktown,  submarine USS Clamagore, and destroyer USS Laffey.  They all had the same scent as the Stennis so Damon was having some time to walk down memory lane.  Not much has changed in aircraft carrier design since WWII, except getting bigger.  Owen wanted to see the engine room for each place.  Milton liked the submarine and crawling through all the doorways.  There was also a Vietnam section where we could see one of the helicopters and jeeps used in the war.  We found a great BBQ place for dinner that was very tasty and then a fancy ice cream shop for dessert.  We were in the downtown so everything was very walkable.  The next day we went to the Charles Pickney plantation just outside Charleston. He was one of the constitution signers and very involved in our early history. The estate also had information about the slavery in the region as South Carolina was one of the most slave-strong states. We spent the rest of the day driving out to the Congaree National Park which took us to inland South Carolina. Congaree has the largest intact expanse of old growth bottomland hardwood forest remaining in the southeastern United States. There was a nice boardwalk through the forest that the boys did great hiking.  The excitement was that there was a hurricane headed for the coast that most of the barrier islands were doing voluntary evacuations so we got stuck in a bit of traffic driving back home. It was a fun weekend.