I’m not a
big shopper but seeing the Charleston City Market seemed like a must do thing.
This place
goes on for blocks.
They have a
bit of everything here. I particularly
like the sweetgrass baskets. I picked up
a small one and asked the gentleman at the booth, who was working on weaving
another basket, how many hours he put into one.
His reply was about 19 hours on the one you are holding. That made the $135 price tag understandable
but I still couldn’t justify a purchase.
Charleston
Crab House is right across the street from the market. No fried green tomatoes here but we were
getting hungry.
We ordered a
bacon wrapped shrimp appetizer and shrimp tacos entrée and split them. Both were great. The sauce on the taco was pretty spicy. Greg tasted it first, but did he warn me? No,
he just sat and watched what would happen when I took a bite. It was actually pretty good once you got used
to it.
Also across
the street from the market were the French Quarter Shops. We expected another area with lots of
shops. Nope, the three you see are it.
If you like
patriotic themed clothing you need to check out Nine Line Apparel. Their main store was located just down the
street from the campground we stayed at in Savannah. That location has a new coffee shop addition
that looked pretty busy.
Byrd’s
Famous Cookies has two locations downtown.
They have a
free cookie tasting bar where you can sample all 16 varieties of cookies they
make. All of the cookies are small,
crisp tea cookies and they are great. I
didn’t sample all 16 varieties – I may have had 8 (or 10).
We did make
a purchase here after we checked the sodium count which was really low for a
baked good.
Beautiful
buildings on our way to our next stop.
White Point
Gardens on the Charleston Harbor.
There is a
sidewalk along the harbor. Parking is
available for a two hour period. Spots
are pretty scarce.
Not much
happening on the harbor this morning.
Some of the
sidewalk is made up of what appear to be large slate slabs. Sometimes the slabs wiggle, makes me nervous.
I got a good
picture of us just after the cars around us left.
The
historical homes along the battery are just amazing.
If you have
a spare 7 million laying around, this lovely one could be yours.
Even the
driveways are beautiful.
We will be
leaving Charleston and heading to Gaffney, SC to go to the Freightliner Service
Center for some checks and routine maintenance.
Since we couldn’t get an appointment we will just wait for them to work
us in. Not sure if we will be able to
get out to sightsee so this may be my last post for a little while.
Our original
intent was to stay home today since the weather was still in the “feels like
over 100 degrees” stage. But, instead,
we decided to look into the Deep Water Winery and Firefly Distillery.
Gilligan’s
Seafood restaurant is right down the road and they have fried green tomatoes on
the menu. We are still in search of
fried green tomatoes that are better and closer than the ones we get in
Vicksburg, MS. I’ve suggested to Greg
that we need to start a “fried green tomato trail”. We’ve seen “wine trails”, “chocolate trails”
and “barn quilt trails”.
When we
pulled up we noticed that all of the posts around the deck had a fresh
pineapple, orange and coconut sitting on them.
These fried
green tomatoes were served with a crab cake.
Good, but still not better than Vicksburg.
The road
leading out to the winery is beautiful.
If you reach the sign that says, “not the winery, turn around” you know
you have gone too far like we did.
The gate is
tucked back off the road so you have to be really looking for it.
They grow
their own grapes for some of their wine and supplement with grapes from
California for other wines. The current
owners have been here three years and are making a lot of improvements.
We are
looking for the wine tasting room.
Found it
behind the gift shop. It wasn’t anything
too fancy and there were several people there so no pictures. They had some wines that were labeled
“sweet”, but their version of sweet and ours differ, so no purchases this time.
We didn’t do
any sampling of the moonshine available at the distillery. I noted that their “white lightening
moonshine” was 1006 proof. Some of the
others sounded good, like apple pie moonshine.
We did purchase some moonshine pickles that were low sodium, they are
really good.
A couple of
shaded picnic areas and a kid’s play area are available outside.
Our last day
in Savannah we were watching “Diners, Drive Ins and Dives” and The Early Bird
Diner in Charleston was featured. As it
turned out, it was just down the road from our RV park so we decided to stop
for breakfast before heading in town to Ft. Sumter. I didn’t notice that I was reflected in the
door when I took the picture of the outside.
The inside
is typical diner décor with some local artists featured.
Our
breakfast was very good, but later on Greg’s didn’t settle too well with
him. Usually when we eat out we split
whatever we order, but breakfast is an exception since I don’t eat eggs and
Greg always wants eggs.
This morning I had their pancake special which was corn flake pancakes
with a double berry drizzle. An order
came with 3 pancakes, I asked for only two, should have asked for just one, I
couldn’t eat all of it.
This is our
destination for the day. Ft. Sumter can
be reached only by boat so we will meet our tour boat here. There is a museum to go through while we
wait. Although this is a national
monument our senior pass wasn’t good here.
The fee is for the boat ride, not the entrance to the monument.
In early
1865 Charleston families buried valuables and heirlooms fearing they would be
taken by the Union troops if Charleston fell.
This particular set belonging to Mrs. William Jefford is referred to as
“cabbage patch” porcelain because Mrs. Jefford buried it in the family garden
and planted cabbages over it.
Construction
of Ft. Sumter began in 1829 as part of the series of coastal forts built by the
United States after the War of 1812. It
was designed for 135 guns and a garrison of 650 men.
In December
1860 Ft. Sumter stood 55 feet above the water at low tide and the walls ranged
from 9-25 feet high. However, it was
only 90% complete, standing empty with only 15 cannons mounted and ready.
This is what
the fort would have looked like at the beginning of the Civil War.
If you want
to see a rehabilitated fort that does a good job of depicting life in the fort,
Fort Pulaski is where you should visit.
If you only want to stand where history was made, Ft. Sumter will be of
interest. I’ll try to make the history
summary short.
December
20, 1860 South
Carolina was the 1st state to vote to secede. Four forts defended the port of Charleston at
this time, Ft. Moultrie, Ft. Johnson, Castle Pinkney and Ft. Sumter. Very few
Union soldiers were in any of the forts.
December
26, 1860 Maj. Robert
Anderson who was in charge of 85 Union soldiers at Ft. Moultrie decided that
Ft. Moultrie was indefensible and moved his troops secretly to the unfinished
Ft. Sumter.
December
27, 1860 South
Carolina volunteers took over the other 3 forts and began adding additional
batteries around the harbor.
January,
1861 a merchant
vessel carrying 200 men and supplies for Ft. Sumter was turned back by the
South Carolina volunteers.
April 4,
1861 after one month
in office, President Lincoln sent a relief expedition of merchant ships
protected by ships of war to resupply the Union troops at Ft. Sumter.
April 10,
1861 the Confederate
secretary of war got word of the upcoming resupply and telegraphed Brig. Gen.
Pierce Beauregard who commanded the Confederate forces in Charleston to demand
Ft. Sumter evacuate and if refused to reduce it in whatever manner he chose.
April 11,
1861 Beauregard
demanded surrender, Anderson refused.
April 12,
1861 at 3:20 a.m.
the Confederates informed Anderson that their batteries would open fire in one
hour.
April 12,
1861 at 4:30 a.m. a
signal shot was fired over Ft. Sumter.
Within moments Edmund Ruffin of Virginia touched off a gun in the
battery at Cummins Point headed to Ft. Sumter.
By daybreak all forts and batteries were firing on the fort.
April 13,
1861 Anderson agreed
to a truce and the fort was occupied by Confederate troops. The Civil War had begun.
In 1863, two years after the signal shot
that started the Civil War, Ft. Sumter’s determined Confederate soldiers kept
Federal land and naval forces at bay for 587 days. In the summer of 1863 Federal forces gained
control of Ft. Johnson and began the bombardment of Charleston, which continued
until February 17, 1865, the longest siege in U.S. Military history.
Well, that
wasn’t as short as I anticipated, but history is why we are here.
Waiting on
the deck for our tour boat to come in.
Charleston
Harbor where the Cooper and Ashley Rivers meet is a busy place today.
This group
of barges and a tugboat pulled up looking like they were going to dredge
something – note the huge scoop on the left end of the barge.
All we ever
saw them bring up was water.
They did
dump some of the water in a barge that said “New York, New York” on it. It kind of looked like they were washing off
part of the barge. Greg said the barge
was probably hauling garbage from New York (we don’t know that).
This bird
was watching the action too.
This big guy
coming in is from Panama.
A tugboat is
turning it and pushing it in to dock so it can be loaded with waiting cars and
boats.
A few people
were parasailing. The carrier in the background is the one we toured yesterday.
Our tour
boat has arrived.
As we board,
I check out where the life jackets are loaded, under the tarp above us – safety
first especially when you can’t swim!
Next time
through this area a tour on this tall ship might be in order.
Getting
ready to dock at the fort.
An outside
view of the fort.
Walk around
the outside.
In 1899 the
fort was modernized by the addition of a steel reinforced concrete battery in
the middle of the parade grounds. The
fort was used through World War II and finally decommissioned in 1947. These inside views taken from atop the
battery show the nearly total destruction of the fort.
Back at the
museum.
