June 8, 2021 The streets of Charleston

 

 

June 8, 2021

 

I like to sit between my humans.  That way, they both get to show me attention so sometimes I have to force it to happen, but I usually get my way.

It is a cloudy morning.  The clouds make the humidity quite tolerable.  Spouse and I walked around the Oak Plantation RV park.  There are some huge spaces, some under the giant live oak trees.  All the sites are a decent size.  For a park of this size, the sites are quite impressive.

                                            

Spouse wanted to try a Waffle House, and since there is one right across the street, why not.  I guess it is time to pop his Waffle House cherry…  All we had to do is cross the busy Savannah Highway.  Bear with me here, this may be hard to follow…  It shouldn’t be but it is!

Being from California, we thought it best to walk to the corner and cross at the light.  Sounds easy, right?  Hmmm… there is no sidewalk or shoulder, so let’s walk along the grass away from the highway.  Ok, there is a creek, and it is just wide enough that it would be too long of a jump.  Look, back there… there is a culvert.  We can cross on that into the parking lot, then cut across to the light.  Now, we are at the light, but the crosswalk across the highway is on the other side of the street, so we have to cross away from our target to get to the crosswalk, that has probably never seen a pedestrian in its life.  But, us naïve Californians have to use the crosswalk, even though there is no crosswalk for us to use to cross the street to get to the crosswalk!  We make it across the first step.  Now, to cross in the crosswalk, where a truck is totally blocking the crosswalk because there is no such thing as pedestrians in this neck of woods, we have to move into traffic to avoid the truck, whose truck driver greeted us good morning (thank you very much you road hog), but we made it to the other side.  Now we have to cross back, with no crosswalk back to our target.  Using the light, we make the crossing, but there is no solid land on which to step.  There is the right turn lane then bushes and weeds.  Ah, we see a couple of footprints so we climbed through the weeds up into a parking lot which once belonged to a Burger King.  The Waffle House is in sight!  Actually it was never out of sight, but we are not there yet.  Now we have the option to walk on the busy highway, or climb through some brush, pass the palm frond, which is what we did.  WE ARE ON CONCRETE AND WE HAVE ACHIEVED OUR TARGET!  Bottom line, to get across the street, we walked a half mile and did heroic stunts… for a Waffle House… the basest of eateries on the planet!

Inside, we ordered our breakfast, which (surprise) included a waffle.  This place is so high end, it doesn’t even serve real butter!  It is a heart clogging spread to help optimize the mediocrity of the food.  Actually, the food is not horrible, but it certainly is not exciting.  And our waitress Jackie was a kick. 

                                        

To get back, we figured it was easier to play Frogger and cross the highway.  Piece of cake!

Then we headed to the Visitor Center in downtown Charleston.  Lady Gagarmin recommended a route, but when my eyes saw a sign that said Visitor Center, I actually got Spouse to follow the signs.  Ha!  Fooled you GPS gods!  We got onto a city tour that took us around the high points of the city.

The city is rich with history, from the revolutionary war and the civil war.  The entry of the harbor holds Fort Sumter, where the Civil War started.  There was a major fire in 1863 that destroyed most of the city, then a 7.3 earthquake in 1888 that destroyed more of the city.   A preservation society has ensured that the historic town maintains its original character on the outside.  So although many changes have happened (such as a sea wall was built and what was a stream is now a street), the original character and charm has been maintained, and it is beautiful.  Some of the homes are built such that they do not face the street.  They have an entrance, but their porches face the side.  There are elaborate Victorian houses, tiny row houses and of course, all the public buildings including the old Customs House where the slave auctions were held. 

We weaved in and out of the streets, along the battery with great views of Fort Sumter off in the distance along with 3 other forts on Sullivan and James Islands.  The tour was definitely worth it.  There are a gazillion tours of individual houses if you want.  We chose to walk down King St. to the market place.  King St. is the Charleston version of State Street in Santa Barbara.  It has a mix of stores and restaurants in heritage buildings. 

The Market Place is a long corridor of artisan stuff.  Hats, cigars, preserves, jewelery, tshirts and all sorts of useless stuff that is fun to look at.  Since Spouse was fearing he was going to have a hunger pang, we had a late lunch at Harrys Jazz place (I think that is the name).  I was drawn in by the crabcakes… that they were out of.  Had to settle for Jambalya, damn it!  It was pretty gosh darn good!

                

We walked back, drove back and kicked back!