Tuesday, July 1, 2008

Charleston Day 4

Today was my favorite day. It is best described as "how much can Thamina stuff into one day." We started at Fort Sumter. You take a ferry boat out to the fort. The ride is quite nice. They tell you cool historical things that happened in the area and point out significant landmarks. It is fun to see the Charleston peninsula from the harbor. Fort Sumter is quite amazing to see. The fort functioned up until World War 1. During the Spanish-American War the gunner holes were bricked up and filled with sand and dirt and other debrie to fortify the fort. Not until 1950 did they excavate and find all these Civil War cannons. The grassy knoll you see in the pictures is the non-excavated part. Sonar testing reveals large metal objects (canons) underneath but these will probably be left alone. After Fort Sumter we went to Boone Hall, the place where my fascination began. The grounds are incredible. I love the house and the line of oaks and the slave quarters and the cotton house and the river...basically everything! I just feel like I am in another time. I have decided that if I lived in another time period I would live as a merchants daughter in the deep south prior to the Civil War. It all just fascinates me. After we visited Boone Hall we stopped at a sweetgrass shop and bought some sweetgrass hot plates. My mom has had some of these for as long as I have been alive. I love them! I didn't buy anything else because I wasn't going to play $150+ for a basket. Next we went to Fort Moultrie. We actually didn't get to the fort until after it closed but I was okay with that. We were still able to walk around and view Fort Sumter from Fort Moultrie. Right before the Civil War, Major Anderson moved his troops from Fort Moultrie to Fort Sumter in the middle of the night. This act infuriated the people of Charleston which just added fuel to the fire. That night we ate at Poe's Tavern, named after Edgar Allen Poe. He was stationed at Fort Moultrie for 18 months and the people of Sullivan's Island are quite proud of this fact. We decided to walk along the beach after dinner so we drove to Isle of Palms and just walked along the sand. I love walking on the beach especially when the sun is about to set. Today really was a good day and I was so happy that everyone enjoyed what I planned.

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