Between family visitors, schoolwork, and work, I was not ready to leave as early as I would have hoped on Friday morning, and I didn't get all my homework done before we left. I tried to do some of it in the car, but the internet on my phone was being really slow, so I had to finish it once we got to the hotel. I also forgot the credit card mom had put the hotel on when I switched wallets back at the house! Aaah! Oh, well. It all worked out. Our hotel was very nice. Through AAA, we got a discount for the room, and when we checked in we got a little packet of maps and Charleston information, as well as two cold water bottles and two little snacks.
At the hotel we looked up and set up a reservation for a Ghost tour for 9:30 that evening, then I did my homework. We spent a little bit relaxing in our room. The whole trip, it was really nice to be able to do whatever we wanted, when we wanted, without having to worry about going to work, getting homework done, or anything of the like. Then we headed downtown and found a place to eat dinner before our ghost tour.
The ghost tour was less than scary. Our tour guide spoke so matter-of-factly about the ghosts that she had seen and the ghosts that were supposedly in these haunted places that the stories weren't really scary. We were somewhat disappointed, although the tour was at least somewhat informative.
Saturday, we slept in until my alarm went off at eight--the curtains in the room kept all the light out so well that we didn't know what time it was until then. We took our time getting breakfast and getting out and about. We went to the mall that was across the street from the hotel and meandered a bit. We splurged on an Auntie Anne pretzel, a smoothie and a julius from DQ. Yum! Then we headed down toward the beach. We stopped at an outlet mall because I wanted to find a hat for the beach, but we never did find one I really liked.
The beach was so much fun, even though it was really busy. We parked, changed, and headed onto the beach. We actually found a place to set up camp rather quickly for the number of people that were there. We lathered up on sunscreen and waited a bit for it to sink in, then grabbed our boogie boards and went out into the water.
At the beach, before we got into the water
We played around in the waves for a good while, then came back to our blanket and towel and relaxed for a while. Peter actually fell asleep, so I read my book.
He woke up about the time I realized we should probably reapply our sunscreen. Although we didn't realize it at first, he got burned pretty bad. He's a nice shade of pink today.
We changed again and went back downtown. We went to my current favorite Charleston seafood restaurant: The Noisy Oyster. We went there during Spring break last year, and their shrimp was so good I had to get some more.
After the beach at the Noisy Oyster
Peter seriously studying the menu.
He doesn't like fish. What can he possibly order? ;-)
After that we just kind of wandered the market area. We got ourselves a magnet for our trip magnet collection we started at Biltmore on our honeymoon (although I don't know if we remembered to get one in San Antonio...we'll have to do that next time). We finished up with ice cream and headed back home.
My ice cream was a salted caramel, and it was tasty!
On the way home, I hear Peter (showing that he's not from the South) say,
"Walls of trees!"
We had lots of fun. It was nice to get away for a bit and just spend time together.
