Charleston Vacation, Day 3

Tuesday was our non-beach day. We got up and headed first to Fort Moultrie, the first fort on Sullivan's Island. We watched a brief video of the history of the fort, then set out to explore. It was another brilliantly sunny day, and super warm. The fort was really interesting, especially to my military dad.

An unusual ratio of stars and stripes on Old Glory

We then drove over to Folly Beach and the Morris Island lookout and wildlife sanctuary. This was one of my favorite parts of the trip. The sand on the beach was blazing hot, but there were very few people there. We found several cool shells, but the best part was the worn driftwood all over the beach, which made for really neat pictures with the lighthouse. 

After a quick lunch and a brief stop at James Island, where Ben and Dad took a scary tumble on the rocks, we made our way back to downtown Charleston for a horse-and-carriage ride through the city. Our tour guide was quite knowledgeable, but didn't give us a whole lot of confidence in our horse, Yemy. He said Yemy was the slowest and oldest horse in the stable, but Yemy survived our tour of the city nonetheless. We enjoyed seeing the battery and old plantation homes, many of which have been converted to museums or B&B's, numerous churches (there's a reason Charleston is called the Holy City), rainbow row's stretch of colorful row houses, and other historic sites like Customs House and the Old Exchange and Provost Dungeon.  

After the tour, we were all ready for some food and air conditioning. We headed back to Mt. Pleasant and enjoyed a steak dinner before going home to get ready for the next day's adventures.