Charleston, South Carolina (State #18)-Oak Plantation Campground

I have mixed feelings about Charleston...

We stayed in the Johns Island area at Oak Plantation Campground. The Campground itself was nice and amazingly busy. RV after RV drove into this place! You would think THIS is the place to be!

But otherwise, I was often disappointed. The houses in the area were just blah, the water was awful, the traffic was bad and the mall that the kids and I went to was just sad. But I kept hoping....

So one day, the kids and I went to visit the Magnolia Plantation and Gardens. It was really pretty and we enjoyed the history. After strolling through the gardens,

we took a tour of the home

and had fun in the petting zoo

They had many different tours to take part in like the home tour, the swamp tour, and the nature tour but each one cost $8 or more per person in addition to the entrance fee of $15 per person so we did not do it all.

On the weekend, we visited Fort Sumter, where the first battle of the Civil War took place. Visiting this fort was different. While it is free to enter the fort, you must take water transportation to get there. The cost for that is $19 per adult and $12 per child and it is about a 30 minute ride to the fort.

After arriving, the ranger gives a tour (which was really great) and you can choose to do that or just explore on your own. And of course, the tour is not real long but neither is your time at the fort. In fact, you only get an HOUR in total to spend at the fort before you must board the boat again to return!

(rifle canister in the wall)

So there really was not enough time to listen to the ranger talk, enjoy the museum that is there AND explore the fort completely. On the other hand, I was ready to get the heck out of there. The biting gnats were soooooo bad everyone was running for cover! Ha Ha! But my point on this one is that it was really the most expensive fort to visit (except getting to Fort Jefferson in the Dry Tortugas) and we were able to spend the least amount of time exploring it.

It's really hard to see in this picture but it was neat to see on our way to the fort.  It is the naval aircraft carrier, USS Yorktown.  After decommissioning, she became a recovery ship for Apollo 8.  

After the fort, we headed into the historic area of Charleston. At some other time in our travels, someone had recommended that we take Tommy Dew's Walking Tour. It was a fantastic recommendation!

The tour was awesome and the history of the area was so amazing. He offered a very interesting Southern perspective of the Civil War and President Lincoln. Definitely, not the information you get in most textbooks and yet very important.

Several of the buildings were pretty and for sure had a long history to them, mainly due to as Mr. Dew put it, this town went to sleep for MANY years after it's capture.

But overall, I did not have the awe for the beauty that I felt in Savannah. The pictures above are pretty but all of the "pretty" is contained within just a few city blocks.  Again, I really enjoyed the walking tour and highly recommend a visit to Charleston for the history but in my opinion it was lacking in many other ways that would have made this place great for me. But I also think that maybe there were some better areas (perhaps, James Island??) that we did not visit. Maybe one day we will return but it's not the highest on my priority list.

Up next is Advance, North Carolina (not sure what I am going to find there! Ha ha)