Romantic, vibrant, and deeply historic, Charleston, South Carolina, was so much more than we expected. Though I’m a huge New Orleans fan with it’s architecture, culture, and it’s unique character I have to say that Charleston is now a formidable contender for a “unique city to visit” in the U.S.

The Customs House

St. Philip’s Church

If New Orleans is the slightly rowdy, fun loving, center of the party type of kid on the block, then Charleston would be it’s more mature and gentle older brother with a softer Southern accent.

We stayed in Charleston for about 5 days visiting my ever nomadic parents who had recently moved there. Here are the top 5 things we recommend to do while visiting Charleston!

1.) Walk, Walk, and Walk around the historic down town!

On the first day we took a long walk around the old neighborhoods in the downtown area. Spring is the perfect time of year to go, as all of the trees and flowers were in bloom and the meticulously maintained lawns of the giant historic homes glisten. I just love walking around unique neighborhoods and in this regard Charleston does not disappoint. Almost every other house is adorned with a plaque stating it’s role in the history and development of America. For such a young country it’s one of the few places you can go and say “ah, this house is 200 yrs old” “but this one is 348 yrs old” “George Washington slept here after his party at the Exchange Building.” The recent economic downturn might have something to do with the many “for sale” signs we saw out on the lawns. But our fantasy of picking up one of these “charming” ten bedroom historic houses was soon crushed by reality when the second Mazeratti was seen in the driveway…we might have a while to go before we could move into this neighborhood! But getting lost in this old world charm is free, so grab your walking stick and a camera!

A Rather Charming House

Another Rather Charming House

“The Marriage Compromise House” So called due to it’s two different styled front balconies that the each spouse wanted while building their new home

The Unique Charleston Style Homes are facing sideways with large porches in order to maximize getting air flow throughout the house

The best part of walking through the neighborhoods and it’s multitude of architectural styles is that most of the houses are still real homes, with families that maintain the buildings. For those curious to see how the better half lived in the past there are a few house museums you can tour in as well.

Find Out What Else To Do While In Charleston!

2.) Horse Drawn Carriage Ride!

I never thought I’d become a big carriage ridding fan but after taking two rides around town back in Cartagena, John and I both looked forward to taking a spin around in the one horse powered vehicle! There are several horse drawn carriage tour companies in town, and most are located around the market district right down town.

We chose our carriage ride bas es on three important criteria: (but these were just our criteria and I’m sure all the other companies we didn’t end up choosing are just as great)

1) Guieds must be in costume, I mean who doesn’t want their carriage driver in costume.
2.) The best looking horses, though this is not an exact science as all the companies have good looking horses and your placed with a random horse upon arrival. There are a few that offer donkey carriages for those looking to be different!
3.) Offered discount coupons! Pick up a pack of coupons at the visitor’s center before heading out to town and you can save a few bucks, as let’s face it, Charleston is not the cheapest place in the world.

The tour was a great way to see the city and learn about it’s rich history. In a city where every corner has a story and every building begs to be examined, the tranquil pace of a horse drawn carriage is the best way to explore.

3.) Get Nitty Gritty With History

What’s the point of being in a ‘historic’ city if you don’t roll your sleeves up and start exploring through history? The tour guide on the carriage ride should have provided a good starting point so start filling out juicy details. You can get a ride on a ferry to Fort Sumter, where the first shots of the Civil War were fired. Or head over to the Exchange building where Declaration of Independence was read out loud to the citizens, the only other place this was done other than Philadelphia. The basement was used as a prison during the occupation of the Royal forces during the Revolutionary war. Where George Washington came to celebrate while on his tour of the new country after the creating of the United States. We found out that Mr. George Washington was quite a ladies man, having danced with over 200 Charleston ladies during a ball held for his honor! The Exchange Building is just the beginning. There are guides, guidebooks, ipod guides, and everything in between to educate you on the city so take an afternoon to soak up some American history.

Broad Street and The Old Exchange Building

Where The Declaration of Independence Was Read

In the ball room of the Old Exchange Building John and I danced where George Washington danced over 200 years ago. These pics were proved by DJKPhotos, or as I like to call her, Mom. Check out her site for more amazing photos from the Caribbean to the East Coast!

John “Rallying The People”

4.) Get Married!

There Are Many Historic & Beautiful Churches In The City

O.K. before family members and friends start flooding our inbox, NO we did not get married! But Charleston is considered one of the most romantic cities in the South. And while walking around the city we saw many happy couples tie the knot or posing for their wedding album photos. There are many old mansions restored and opened as boutique bed and breakfast inns that would make ideal wedding locations as well. The city is also referred to to as the “City of Churches” with it’s numerous old churches that finding one for any denomination shouldn’t be too difficult. Though I’m sure most are booked well in advance!

5.) End The Night With A Well Deserved Pub Crawl!

You’ve walked the streets, learned more about the happenings of history that you know what to do with, so what now? Charleston is a very hip little city and there are some really good restaurants and bars tucked into every nook and cranny. From BBQ ribs to roof top bistros there are so many places to check out. So do what we like to do in a new city. Go on a pub crawl and find your niche!
In our relationship a good amount of the daily conversation time is taken up with the “So what do you want to eat tonight?” question. This question can literally take us hours to figure out. In many cases the answer is closed and the question needs to be re-examined before we can actually get dinner. Charleston was no exception, we ended up meandering up and down streets looking into every store front (sorry dinner eaters as we stared at your plates debating). The up side to all of this is that by the end of the first night we have a pretty good lay of the land in which to attack the next night.
After having dinner phase two of the evening starts, the pub crawl. Ever on the look out for our “perfect” pub we walked the city having a drink in every type of bar we could find. From dive bars like the Big John to rooftop snazzy at The Library we tried it all. By the end of our stay we had found “our” pub, The Blind Tiger. With friendly bartenders, a funky piano player, to a surprisingly large outdoor patio we ended up making The Blind Tiger our nightcap home in Charleston.

I hope you liked this rambling guide to Charleston! I’m sure I’ve missed several major things to do but please leave a comment and enlighten both John and I and our readers!!

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Roadside attractions and road-trips in America. The concept alone fills one’s imagination with nostalgic images of family road trips in station wagons, Route 66, and a whole assortment of 50s era postcards. I even get this image, and I really can’t be that nostalgic for an era that I was never alive in. But the icons and myths of America’s favorite pass-time is still alive and strong today, even if we mostly just drive on the interstate. John loves the idea of a road-trip, for him a dream trip would involve a classic car, a tear-drop camper and driving across the States stopping at all the classic spots. I love the image of such a trip, especially if we actually had a classic car or a cool camper, but the truth is I hate sitting in the car for more than an hour or two at a time. I don’t know if I’ve just become jaded from seeing so many places but for me the scene out of the car looks the same 99% of the time. Luckily I don’t get car sick so I always try to bring some “toys” with me to keep me occupied. If it’s a long trip my side of the car would feature books, sketch pads, camera, phone, and anything else that might distract me for a period of time.

However, since we are back in the USA for a period of time, I have decided to learn to love the road-trip. Specially since driving is still one of the easiest ways to maneuver around this giant country. In order to have a road-trip you really need a destination. But to have an even better road-trip you need some awesomely corny road-side attractions. These are harder to come by, so a little planning and research will go a long way to making your next road-trip a postcard worthy one. Check this website out for weird and bizarre things to see in your area: Roadside America. This is the site where I learned that in Gibsland LA, there is a museum and marker for where Bonnie and Clyde got ambushed and that in Fort Worth there is a tree full of Bicycles. Random? Yes, but the fun of looking for these odd-ball attractions can keep your road-trip entertaining and comment worthy!

A couple of weeks ago John and I were driving to see some friends who live in Hattiesburg, MS, my old college town. On the way there we had decided to stop just outside of Mobile, AL where years ago we had found the perfect road-side attraction: a backyard zoo! I’ve actually grown up hearing about homemade zoos, as my father’s family ran a road-side zoo from their home in Florida back in the ‘50s and early ‘60s. On our road-trips in Japan, my sister and I would always ask for the “animal farm” stories. That could be one of the reasons I have also always wanted either a monkey or a tiger cub for a pet.

The Mobile Zoo!

This zoo in Mobile, aptly named the Mobile Zoo is down a country road off of Highway 98. The main entry building is a cute barn where you pay $7 to get in and a few extra dollars buys you a big brown bag full of peanuts to feed the animals with. And TRUST me on this when I say DON’T eat the peanuts…

The zoo is much like any other farm in the area, just that instead of just having cows there are also deer, llamas, buffalo, miniature Sicilian donkeys, monkeys, bears, tigers, and lions. The surprising thing about this zoo is the amount and variety of animals it actually has!

Some Animals From Around The Area Are To Be Found As Well, Maybe He Jumped In For The Peanuts

So Graceful

These Sicilian Miniature Donkeys Were As Small As My Dog! (OK The Dog IS Rather Large…)

It’s Pre-Historic!

…And Quite Friendly

John Getting A Little Too Friendly With The Deer

I Just Loved This Guy’s Face, Too Cute To Be A Bull!

Pacing

A Curious Monkey

Snack Time!

There’s No Sign Saying NOT TO Go…

An Abandoned Fake Old West Movie Set???

Where’s Our Dueling Pistols When We Need Them?

Years ago when we first found this place there was also a Renaissance Town set up in one of the fields, though we hiked through several overgrown fields we couldn’t find it anywhere…

I would recommend anyone passing through the area to take the time to stop by Mobile Zoo, there’s just not that many backyard zoos like this anymore. But beware of the uber pissed-off Llama that had his mind set on messing with John. Here’s a video of John trying to give the llama some peanuts, only to be sneezed at, spitted upon and ultimately have the peanut thrown back at his face….Enjoy!

Any funky road-side stops you’d recommend?

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Alyson and I are now in warm, sunny Andalusia, Alabama visiting my family. It is our first stop on our new life. The trip down was crazy. The day we were supposed to move was forecasted to have a terrible blizzard in Nebraska. The snow and cold rain would have made packing and moving miserable. We had two options:

1.) Wait out the blizzard and get a late start.
or 2.) Take what we can and get out early.

We decided on option 2. Early Saturday morning I woke up from my sleeping bag on the floor and went to pick up the U-Haul trailer. The sky was dark and cloudy with winds of 30-40 mph. Not a good day to move, but it was all the time we had. We were going to have to race the weather. The graphic blog “Escape in the Night” I posted previously is based on this quick move. We were trying to sneak out of the midwest before the blizzard caught us.

The U-Haul trailer was small. Only 4′x8′x 4′, but we packed every inch full. We had planned on taking all day Saturday to load the trailer, clean the apartment and take care of some other miscellaneous errands. Somethings never work out the way you plan though, so we had to improvise. Luckily our plans are very flexible now. While Alyson cleaned the apartment and threw away everything that wasn’t worth keeping, I single handedly loaded the U-Haul. Not such an easy task since we live on the 3rd floor of an apartment building with no elevator, automatically locking doors and the closest parking spot for the trailer was 40 feet from the front door. Not to mention the terrible weather. It wasn’t easy, but I guess the excitement of racing against the storm got me through it.

Our friend Azusa came over a little later that day to help. She was the first friend we made in Lincoln, and I think we will miss her the most. She made us some snacks to eat on the road. Azusa is a real sweet heart.

Around 1:30 that afternoon we finally finished. We said our goodbye’s with Azusa, and hit the road. The weather was coming any minute and we needed to get out quick.

Originally we had wanted to make the 1000 mile trip very slowly and stop to see some tourist trap attractions on the way down. The weather really rushed us out so we didn’t get a chance to do all the things we had wanted. We had nearly every kind of weather on our trip. We got out of Lincoln just before the snow. In Nebraska City, we had hail and tornado warnings. It rained on the long drive across Missouri, and extreme winds across the plains of Arkansas. The drive through Mississippi was warm and sunny, and later we had thick fog on a humid Alabama night.

We only made two stops on the trip down. We stayed overnight in Columbia, Missouri and ate our dinner of Onigiri that Azusa had made for us. Thanks again, Azusa.

And we also stopped in Tupelo, Mississippi to have dinner and see Elvis’s birthplace. Its definitely good to be back in the South. I’ve missed the warm weather and all the green and blue landscape. We will be here for a couple of weeks, and then its on to New Orleans.

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