Charleston!

Charleston, SC!

This weekend Seth, Tammy, and I went to Charleston, SC!!! It was kind of a random trip, Tammy really wanted to go and invited a lot of people, and as they one by one dropped out, we realized it would just be the three of us, but we knew fun times were ahead and decided to push forward anyway!

The drive isn't too bad, it's only 7.5 hours-ish, and the scenery is beautiful, even in Dreary Late February!!! The first night we got to the hotel we decided to pretend like we were German (as we had booked the hotel under Frau Tammy Richards with special instructions "I am Germany, and Ok. Please speak slowly"). The hotel personnel totally believed it, and it was so fun to just start out the trip a little silly! We planned out our trip that night, and got all ready for our adventures the next day!

Saturday we woke up early and went to the Magnolia Gardens Plantation, where we took a 45 minute bus tour around the perimeter of the Plantation. This is where we saw the alligators, many of which were over 60 years old and up to 13 feet long! We also went to the petting zoo there, which might have been my favorite part. The geese and the goats felt a special bond with my white poofy coat, and we had a lot of fun playing with them all. Strangely, the pigs seemed to take the best to Seth...hmmm... :) I just loved the little goats because they reminded me of stories of "Nibs" Dad's goat.

After the plantation we went to Fort Sumter, the beginning of the civil war, where 85 union soldiers were attacked by the Confederate Army at Fort Sumter. The official site says that "The island where Fort Sumter stands was constructed with a foundation of over 70,000 tons of granite and other rock. For over a decade ships from as far away as New York and the Boston area dumped this material on a shoal in Charleston Harbor." So basically they got all the rock and built up this little sand shoal until they could build a fort up on it, exactly a mile from Fort Multry, on the other side of the harbor. We took a big ship over there to the Fort, and then toured the island for 40 minutes or so before taking the ship back.

It's CRAZY how big the ships are that sail in the harbor! Seriously, one ship (one of the last pictures) is bigger than Fort Sumter, the island!

Sunday we walked around the harbor and took pictures of all the pretty houses, and then tried to go to the singles branch. It was funny, we got there about 5 minutes early, and walked in to hear the prayer...and seth was like 'they start church EARLY here!' and then we were like 'it must be stake conference, that's crazy that it started at the same time' and then we said 'oh, yeah, that was the CLOSING prayer..." so we missed church (but our church was cancelled so really it was even.

Anyway, so then we drove back in the snow and rain! The end of a fabulous trip!