Weekend in Charleston

Lindsey was getting married on 10-10-2010 and she stood in our wedding, so we flew to Charlseton, SC to see her wedding. I would say we don't normally travel to weddings, but this was sort of a last(ish) minute decision and we thought it would be fun to get away for the weekend. So we redeemed airline miles and Pricelined a downtown hotel.

It was a white-knuckle flight for the first jump to DTW. MaryBeth hasn't flown in a couple years and anxiety was running high. But she impressed me and got things turned around and by out 3rd leg it was no big deal, like she'd been flying for years.

We pulled up to our hotel and while MB was enjoying the lobby's fine furniture, the front desk was telling me they were over-booked and had no rooms left. I was upset, tired, and hungry as we got back in the rental to drive across downtown to a Mariott Extended Stay. Not quite a fancy as we hoped, but a room nonetheless. No bar or restaurant was open, just a mini convenience store selling microwave food. So while I promised MB five-star downtown treatment, here we were two-star, outskirts of town, eating microwave pasta.

I can laugh now, but at the time I was fuming. Anyway, 5 minutes on the phone with Priceline and we got a 50% refund. I would definitely book with them again. The next morning we drove back into downtown and shopped all morning. Very neat experience - there was a loooong arts and crafts type market with hand-crafted wares and then just two blocks away was a ritzy rodeo drive-type stretch with Louis Vuiton type stores.

We had lunch at this seafood restaurant with lots of...um...charm!

The wedding was at a tea plantation 20 minutes south of Charleston. I've never seen a tea plantation, so if you haven't either, here you are:

That night the original hotel downtown put us in their 5th floor suite since they felt bad about the previous night's problems. The next morning during breakfast we received a call from Delta Airlines that our 12:00pm flight home was overbooked and they would be willing to give us vouchers if we would wait for the 4:40pm flight that had only two connections instead of three. We took it, and then spent the day seeing some more touristy sites in Charleston. We visited the Old Exchange & Provost Dungeon, which sits upon the old wall that used to fortify Charles Town from attack. It was fascinating to learn about the first colonists signing the first declaration of independence (treason!) right there in that room.

In the afternoon we visited the USS Yorktown, an out-of-service aircraft carrier, and the USS Clamagore, a WWII submarine. I would say the submarine was more impressive - I can't even fathom living onboard. It was strange - the boat was so cramped I had to duck the whole time I was on board, yet it went on for compartment after compartment and felt huge at the same time.

By a stroke of luck, we found a BBQ place "Sticky Fingers" and it reminded me a LOT of our favorite BBQ place back in Toledo "Shorty's." The food was really great and the parking attendant at Patriot's Point gave us coupons for free peach cobbler desert, one of MB's favorites.

It was a packed 3 days but I had a really great time. I'd do it again in a heartbeat with you! -Chris