Day 16: Charleston

Ahhh, Charleston. We had such high hopes for you.  

We parked at at the end of the peninsula at Battery Park and biked the historical area for about 1.5 hours. It's lovely, but we didn't feel the same thing we felt in Savannah.  Charleston is bigger, of course, and they have more to offer than old houses and good food.  It's the 2nd largest city in South Carolina, the 4th largest port in the US, and they've got a few universities, so it's a bustling metropolis. Savannah seems more relaxed, maybe that's why we liked it more.  'Course if we had money to spend on something besides gasoline it probably would have been different.

The old slave market.  Now a tourist market.

Their gorgeous Customs House, right on the water, started before the Civil War but not completed til 1879.

 Most of our self-guided bike tour was through the historical neighborhood, looking at the 100s of antebellum houses. A lot of them are situated on the street sideways, with the entrances not on the main street.

 Here, I'm experimenting with Microsoft Paint and putting the comments right on the picture.  I don't think I like it very much.

Lots of houses... 

Very big, very pretty houses. It's hard not to think of Scarlett and Rhett! 

Of course Charleston has a huge military history.  It was the site of major battles in both the American Revolution and the Civil War.  In 1780, Charleston fell to the British after holding them off for 4 years.  It the greatest American defeat in that war.  About 100 years later, in 1861, cadets from the Citadel (the Military College of South Carolina) fired on a Union ship entering the harbor. A few months after that, Confederate troops fired on the Union-held Fort Sumter across the harbor, thus starting the Civil War. Union forces bombarded and blockaded the city for 4 years, eventually taking control of it in 1865. The very next year, the city was practically destroyed by a 7.5 earthquake!

It was a beautiful day for a bike ride!

Another experiment...

Our home for the night.  We drove out to the National Forest and found a quiet spot.  We did this a lot in the Western US but this is the first National Forest we've tried in the East.  We love National Forest camping because it's typically really cheap or even free, as this was.

In the last blog, Greg mentioned that Kipper sprained his tail playing on the beach ...

Above: Kipper's tail normally

Below: Kipper's tail...sprained!

We call it "sad wag."   It happens when he exercises too much and then he can't move it at all.  It just hangs there. It's happened once before and is pretty sad. He just kinda mopes around and wants to play, but can't really because he can't use his tail.  It's even hard for him to sit because he can't move his tail out of the way! It goes away after a couple of days.  He's all better now.