Charlie and I traveled to Charleston, South Carolina at the beginning of January. Instead of doing Christmas presents, our present to each other was a getaway!
We arrived on a Saturday evening and checked into our hotel. That night we parked on Queen Street and walked down King Street to find a place to eat. We ended up eating at the Kickin' Chicken- best chicken I've had in a while! I got chicken nuggets dry rubbed with lemon pepper seasoning. We explored downtown Charleston before heading back to our hotel for the night.
On Sunday, we went to Liberty Square to catch our 11am tour of Fort Sumter. It was definitely worth it. So much history!
After we left Fort Sumter, we drove to Folly Beach where we ate at the Lost Dog Cafe. If you ever get a chance to visit, I highly recommend eating there! It's a restaurant that was created inside a house, filled with pictures of people's dogs. We started off with fried green tomatoes, which were perfectly cooked. I had a mozzarella, tomato, and basil sandwich on an everything bagel. I'm going to try and see if I can re-create it sometime. After lunch, we walked along Folly Beach. It was so foggy you could barely see! Thankfully we made it back to our car just fine.
We went back to downtown Charleston and drove around for a while. It looked like it was going to storm so we headed back to the hotel to rest. We made plans to eat dinner and go on a ghost tour. We ate dinner at the Muse Restaurant and Wine Bar. I felt kind of under-dressed because I was in jeans- I didn't bring fancy clothes. However, our waitress was really nice. The food was outstanding! I had local shrimp over a creamy polenta. Charlie had pan-seared swordfish. After dinner, we walked to the park that's on the corner of Broad and Meeting Street. We met Mike Brown, who is partial owner of Old Charleston Tours. He took us all around Charleston, telling us stories he's collected over the years and showing us where these stories took place.
The next morning, we decided to explore a little more before heading home. We checked out the Charleston Market for some souvenirs. I wish I could've afforded a sweet grass basket, but I settled for some homemade bracelets. We also re-visited St. Philip's Church, which I think was one of my favorite parts of our trip. I have ancestors buried in a graveyard in Charleston, SC! I couldn't believe we found them!
Then, we headed to the Unitarian church that we heard about on our ghost tour. I've never had a paranormal encounter but I think that day was the closest I've ever been. Charlie and I were standing about three feet away from each other when I smelled a rotten egg smell. I said, "Do you smell that?" Charlie said, "Smell what?" I said, "It smells like bad eggs." Now, Charlie has a really sensitive nose. He said, "Have you ever smelled rotten eggs before?" I said, "I'm sure I have because that's what this smells like." He never smelled what I did and I never smelled it again after that. I walked through the whole graveyard trying to find that scent. I was a little creeped out, especially when I googled that smell and found out that ghosts can sometimes smell like sulfur, or rotten eggs.
Since I was thoroughly creeped out, we left and went to eat lunch at a haunted restaurant! We had lunch at Poogan's Porch. Poogan's Porch used to be the home of two sisters, one of whom still haunts this residence. We both had fried green tomato sandwiches, which were way better once we had some sauce on them!
Our last stop was the South Carolina Aquarium. We were hesitant to go because of its price, but were surprised to find that we got $6 off using my AAA discount! I'm glad we went because we actually got to go behind the scenes! One of
the aquarium volunteers stopped to talk to us about Alabaster (the
albino alligator) and asked if we wanted to take a short
behind-the-scenes tour of the upstairs, where they feed the animals in
their giant sea tank. I think that alone made the trip worth it! The aquarium is three stories tall, with a basement. The third story is where the food prep is done and where the top of their 385,000 gallon ocean tank is! The volunteer showed us around and we got to see the very top of the tank, including their sea turtle, Coretta. Apparently she used to live in a bathtub in Canada, until her owners got in trouble for having her because she's a loggerhead sea turtle. That's how she ended up at the South Carolina Aquarium! She's never been in the wild on her own, so she'll live at the aquarium for the rest of her life. They even have her trained to get inside a crate for a treat when it's the shark's feeding time!
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| Alabaster the Albino Alligator |
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| The top of the Great Ocean Tank! |
So long, Charleston! Until next time. <3
