Fort Sumter and Downtown Charleston

Today we did better and actually made it out of the trailer by around 10:45 am. We ordered our tickets to ride on the boat out to the island where Fort Sumter is located online before we left. When we finally found the parking garage by Liberty Square, we went down to the waterfront and checked out the Fort Sumter National Monument Visitor Center and picked up our tickets for the ferry ride at 2:30.

On the back patio of the Fort Sumter Visitor Center with the 

Arthur Ravenel Bridge in the background.

Fountain Walk by the Aquarium

We headed out on foot from there to see what we could see of downtown before time for our tour.

Humoring Mom in front of cool historic buildings.

There were a couple really cool fountains
along the waterfront.

Just walked by this!

Cool old engine.

Just sitting in the parking bays.

We wandered around town and gaped at all the cool buildings and historical stuff and decided we'd better get some food, but we couldn't figure out where to go eat and everything was looking pretty expensive so we ended up stopping at a Harris Teeter grocery store on our walk back to Liberty Square to catch the ferry and we stocked up on a drink for each person, some bananas, some Cheez Its, mixed nuts and Key Lime and White Chocolate Macadamia Nut cookies (Yumm!). All for about a third of what it would've cost us to eat out. That worked out well.

Castle Pinckney in Charleston Harbor on the boat ride out to Fort Sumter

At Fort Sumter...

Bryn looks down the barrel of a huge cannon to check for rifling.

The big black structure in the background was added
 to the fort for the Spanish-American War in 1899
so really the fort doesn't look much like it
actually looked during the Civil War.

We learned that there used to be two more stories to the fort when it was first built
so it was about as tall as the lower level of flags, but it was reduced pretty much to rubble
over the course of two years of attacks.

They take your pic in front of a green screen on your way onto the boat;
I just snapped a quick pic of it on the way off.

On the boat ride back across the harbor, we saw lots of dolphins playing in the water so that was cool. The sun was going down and I was glad we'd chosen the afternoon tour.

Coming back into Charleston

Once we were docked, we walked back to the parking garage and were glad to climb into the Yukon. We'd done quite a bit of walking today. We had wanted to see a replica of the Hunley, the first submarine, which was used in the Civil War. Here's a snip-it from the Friends of the Hunley webpage:

Best selling author Clive Cussler established the National Underwater Marine Agency and spent fifteen years searching for Hunley. The world's first sub to sink a ship in battle was finally discovered on May 3rd, 1995 by N.U.M.A. archeologists Ralph Wilbanks, Wes Hall, and Harry Pecorelli.

The actual Hunley has been recovered and is undergoing restoration and preservation and it costs money to get to see it, but the replica is outside of the Charleston Museum and is FREE. 

Cute little goof balls.

They would just put the explosive on the end of the wooden protrusion at the front
and then ram their enemy. The actual Hunley was missing and presumed lost for over
100 years! 

We got to see another beautiful sunset on our drive back to the trailer.

Tonight, Brock and I discussed it and I think we've decided to skip Stone Mountain for now at least. The gps says it would be a 6 to 8 hour drive from here. The campground, while it looks very nice, would cost around $50 per night and most of the attractions that are there are not operating right now since it's winter. This also means no World of Coke tour of the Coca Cola Factory in Atlanta. Oh well. We'll see other cool stuff. We're not sure where to head next so we decided to just go a little ways from here to a state park in Beaufort, South Carolina which is on the beach. It's much cheaper per night than Stone Mountain and will give us a few days to get a game plan together. Plus, we hear there is a Kazoo Factory there! :o)