RT8, Page 3

Road Trip 8, P. 3

We arrived in Charleston on Friday afternoon and checked into our hotel, the Ansonborough Inn. The hotel worked out well since it was in the historic area and we could walk everywhere. They also had a private parking area so parking the van was no problem.

Here we are in front of the hotel followed by a couple shots of our room, which was spacious and nice. It was great to spread out a little after so many nights of sleeping in the van.

Some shots of the hotel exterior.

In the Charleston Bay stands Fort Sumpter upon which the shots that started the Civil War were fired. If you look really hard you can see it in the horizon in these two photos. It's a spec of land with a flag on it.

The King Street Grille, The Market, a Pirate and Tommy Condons. We had drinks at the restaurants. The Market goes on seven days a week and there you can buy Gullah sweet grass woven baskets and watch the mostly older African American women as they weave them. They are intricate, attractive and expensive (the baskets, not the women)

The John C. Calhoun Memorial in Marion Park. JC was was twice elected VP of the US.

The town is littered with what they refer to as "single houses" the most common of which are two stories high, one room wide and two rooms deep. The distinctive feature is the "privacy door" facing the street which opens to an open porch that leads to the rest of the house.

Hymans Half Shell is a famous restaurant. The line was out the door so we passed it by.

There are plenty of horse drawn carriages around town. The beasts all wear horsey diapers and the Equine Sanitatation Patrol rips around in their white trucks cleaning up anything that escapes.

A more elaborate example of a single house.

Rainbow Row is the largest cluster of intact Georgian row houses in the US (Hey, I thought we were in South Carolina!) dating to around 1680.

Another interesting house with Lorri on the street.

Here we're getting closer to the Bay where the houses are larger and more expensive. The two photos on the right are of a house owned by a wealthy businessman and is where Prince Charles stayed when he was in town.

Just a few more architecture photos.

There was a "Meritage" restaurant which of course reminded us of our former Thursday night haunt and our friends back in Encinitas.