For over a year now we have been planning our trip to Isle of Palms, South Carolina and when the time finally came to head out on our adventure I could not contain my excitement!!! We traveled with my brother and his family and my mom and we had the best time exploring the city of Charleston. We toured lots of places and took in all the history we could, ate a ton of food, drank sweet tea like it was water and relaxed on the beach; which is the perfect definition of vacation for this "wannabe southerner"!!
Our trip started early at 6:00am on Friday! To get to Isle of Palms (IOP) from Indiana is about a 12 hour drive with stops and we wanted to make it to North Charleston in one day. (Our beach house wasn't available to us for Friday night so we chose to spend our first night in a hotel outside of Charleston so we could have lots of options to explore for Saturday morning.)
"Travel Map" credit goes to my sister in law Amiee.....this helped the kids out so much with knowing how much farther we had to go. They can read the GPS but sometimes have a hard time comprehending where we've been, where we are at and how far we have to go. So, this was perfect!
The boys were too excited to fall back asleep but Mellany didn't have any problem at all
A few hours later, she was up and ready to find some license plates to color in on the map I printed off. The person who had the most fun with this game.....John..... :)
Checking in to our hotel for the night!!
Our first day in Charleston we explored Fort Sumter. Brad and Amiee spent this day traveling and mom's flight didn't get in until the evening so we chose to do something that they didn't want to.
We loved taking the boat out to the Fort and learning about how and where the civil war started.
Our first local lunch was on Sullivan's Island at Poe's. It was hot and the wait was long and the parking was not made for an SUV with a utility box on the back but it was definitely worth it!!
After eating lunch and checking into the beach house, I went to grab mom from the airport. Brad and Amiee got in about 9:30 that night and we were ready for our first official day of exploring together!
Sunday morning we had carriage ride reservations with mom. This was a very "Charleston" thing to do and it didn't disappoint! We learned so much on this tour plus it was really entertaining for the kids.
We learned about why the houses were basically built sideways to the road (to make full use of each piece of land) and that many owners became anxious about the potential of a slave revolt so they started putting iron spikes on the fence, etc.
Looking down the South Battery. These homes are along the edge of the water and would have likely gotten hit during battle.
Group pictures! (One other fun fact we learned is that most of the carriages in Charleston are made right here in northern Indiana!)
Brad and Amiee met us for lunch after the carriage ride at a place called Fleet Landing. The restaurant sits on the water and was delicious! On the way back to our car we walked right by a candy/ice cream shop that we couldn't pass up!
After getting back home we hit the beach!
Monday morning we found The Fractured Prune....a donut place that lets you pick your own toppings and you get to watch them make it. Such a great idea and was delicious!
Up next was Patriots Point where we toured USS Yorktown.....Johnny has been waiting for this for years as he has been very into aircraft carriers for a while now! He was on cloud 9!!! The carrier was incredible! and we all loved it!
Apollo 11 is on display inside the Yorktown and you can climb inside it. Mellany was in awe as she has loved anything space related for as long as we can remember.
Cousin living room slumber party
Wednesday morning we spent some time shopping at the Charleston Market. Again, a ton of history in these buildings and we found some great buys. That evening, we hired a professional photographer and took family pictures on the beach. We are still anxiously waiting to get them back!
Red's Ice House for Dinner where Johnny is trying Snow Crab. He didn't love it but didn't hate it either. I would say that Red's was one of my favorite restaurants. If we went back to Charleston, I would absolutely want to eat there again.
Late night ice cream!
Our next adventure was to Boone Hall Plantation. The plantation was FULLLLL of history and absolutely beautiful. Several movies have been filmed here including the Notebook, which is one of my faves! The day was hot (sooo humid!) but it was so worth it!
We took a wagon ride around the 700+ acre plantation.
.....We explored the butterfly house.....
.....Took pictures in front of the Avenue of Oaks. (Gammy was listening in on an informative session about the history of the plantation owners and we knew the kiddos would never make it through).....
.....Learned some history in the slave quarters.....
.....And walked through and around the main house.....
After Boone Hall, we headed to the beach for an evening swim and made Coyote friend.
We made a crab friend too....right behind my chair
5 tired cousins!
Our final day at IOP was spent packing up and swimming. We soaked up as much of the pool and ocean as we possible could!
We were so sad to leave IOP/Charleston after a full week of adventures and exploring but it was good to get home to our Winston. This is one of those places that we would for sure travel back to sometime in the future as the people were extremely nice, the food was incredible and we left wanting to learn even more history (I may have gotten wrapped up in the history and debate of the South Carolina flag even!). Spending time with my family there too made it even better!
