Window Box
Charleston is a fun city to visit: historic events took place in buildings that still exist; art galleries, shops, and antique stores; restaurants with inventive menus; historic architecture with beautiful gardens and window boxes; ocean breezes, a lively maritime scene, friendly sales and service people; a nice in-town grocery store; vistas of the Ashley and Cooper rivers; and so compact that it is a great place to walk.
Thomas Bee House
Rainbow Colors
0 Tradd Street
We stayed an extra day so that we could see Margie and Jeff Graham. Margie is Don’s daughter, so she is our niece by marriage. Margie and Jeff are retired and living on their sail boat. We all docked at the City Marina, caught the marina’s shuttle service to the market place and spent a pleasant afternoon ducking into interesting galleries to enjoy the air conditioning and shop a bit. We had drinks and cheese platter aboard their boat, Far Niente then had a deliciously rich dinner at a tiny French Bistro called La Fourchette. Margie and Jeff are enthusiastic “foodies” who love adventurous cooking and eating and it was great fun to seem them.
On Friday Margie and Jeff decided to stay “inside” on the ICW and we decided to sail “outside” on the ocean to land in Wrightville Beach, NC for Memorial Day weekend. The wind was 15 -20 knots with higher gusts. The waves were 3 – 5 feet on and “abaft” of the beam so it was a challenging ride without much sleep. We talked to Margie when we came back inside and they had calmer waters, but the Memorial Day weekend revelers were out in force causing much mayhem. All of the mayhem we faced was nature’s doing. There were no other boats on the ocean during our passage to the inlet at the Cape Fear River. In fact, we have seen very few boats traveling north, or south for that matter, this year. Far fewer than in past years. We wonder if we are early, late, or if the economy has forced many folks to “dock” their boats. We do see a lot of fisherman in boats of all sizes both inside on the waterways and out on the open sea, especially around the many inlets up and down the coast. The economy may be down, but it seems that people still want to get out there and catch the big one.