The Late Great Unpleasantness Begins ...

... at Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor where the first shots of the Civil War were fired 12th April 1861 by Confederate guns around the harbor. Major Anderson surrendered it the next day. The Fort stands on what was originally just a sand bar in the middle of the entrance to Charleston Harbor. Tons of granite were transported from New England to build the sand bar up and build the Fort.

Fort Sumter today

The fort was ruined during the war and for decades was used as an unmanned lighthouse station. In 1897 reconstruction began and a massive concrete blockhouse, Battery Huger, was built in 1898 within the original walls.It was deactivated in 1947 and the fort was turned over to the National Park Service as Fort Sumter National Monument in 1948. The Wikipedia article on Fort Sumter has a number of excellent photographs of the original interior.

 

Ferry similar to the one we took the other direction

Access to Fort Sumter is only by water on a ferry from one of two locations, Liberty Square near downtown Charleston and Patriot Point where it shares wharf facilities with the USS Yorktown. The ferry has handicap access so we took it from Patriot Point.

Early on in the ferry trip there is a great view of the Ravenel Bridge, completed in July of 2005 after four years of construction. This bridge replaced others crossing the Cooper River connecting downtown Charleston with the suburb of Mount Pleasant.

Fort Sumter itself is interesting although at present the museum portion is not accessible unless you walk up two flights of stairs to the top of Battery Huger where both the museum and the store are located. Geoffrey climbed up but I stayed on the ground and investigated the cannons and read the many excellent explanatory plaques around the inside of the fort. The original Civil War era fort was demolished by the bombardment at the beginning of that war but a few bits remain.


While he was up all those stairs Geoffrey went in the store where he got me a Fort Sumter ball cap for my collection and a very nice tote bag with Civil War all over it. The Ships Store back at Patriot Point had also had some excellent books on Fort Sumter of which I had gotten one as well as a nice magnet for my file cabinet but they didn't have the tote bag which I will treasure.

On our return to Patriot Point we went to the nearby Charleston Harbor Fish House which we had noticed signs for the day before. The place is nice and our waiter, Ruel, was very helpful but I think I like yesterday's restaurant a lot better, both the food and the view.

The menu bragged of being the "Best Place to View the Ravenel Bridge" but we had a nice view of the Yorktown instead although the bridge is off in the distance sort of behind the ship. The window is heavy duty and blocked a lot of the view with a major piece of the frame cutting right across at eye level.

We headed back for the RV park and decided to return the rental that afternoon instead of delaying an early departure. After a light dinner we had an early bedtime, something of a habit I think on our trips. At least this night I managed not to fall out of bed again!

Patriots Point

After the digression for the delivery of the rented car from Enterprise, a Dodge Grand Caravan which easily held the Go-Go mobility scooter, we headed for Patriots Point, home of the USS Yorktown aircraft carrier and other ships comprising a naval and maritime museum.

Most levels of the Yorktown,known as the Fighting Lady, were accessible with the mobility scooter including the Hanger Bay, Flight Deck and Quarters. On the Quarters level, models of life size figures and food show the chow line and kitchens and there is an engine room experience with interactive kiosks.

An Avenger with wings folded up

In the Hanger Bay are various planes including a some like the Avenger similar to those my father would have worked on repairing at Iwo Jima and other islands in the South Pacific during World War II, probably what he was doing while I was being born halfway around the world in Connecticut in December of 1944.

The Flight Deck also has several planes, a helicopter, and a great view of Charleston harbor. On the side of the island tower on the flight deck are plaques showing the ship kills of the various air groups on the Yorktown.

Most of the icons were clear but one of a duck was a bit puzzling until we found a plaque giving the legend for the plaques ... it represented "aircraft destroyed on ground" or, in other words, sitting ducks.

This gave me an interesting visual perspective on my father, sitting in a foxhole, trying to sleep, read, or even write a letter to my mom, while Japanese aircraft bombed or shot at the 'sitting duck' airplanes on the ground that my dad as a US Marine Master Technical Sgt and his crew were trying to repair. He spoke of bullet holes in the radios they were fixing or replacing and having to interrupt the work when the air raid sirens went off for incoming enemy planes.

While doing research online about this I found a photo that fits well with the stories my father told me about his time in the South Pacific ... It isn't him but it could have been. He often said he thinks he spent more time in foxholes than anywhere else.

Marine sleeping in a foxhole in WW2 South Pacific

Charleston Harbor viewed from the USS Yorktown

Geoff at Parade Rest at the Yorktown Bell

Also at Patriots Point are a destroyer, the USS Laffey, and a submarine, the USS Clamagore. Neither of these is handicap accessible so we did not see them although I understand that the submarine has an excellent demonstration of what it feels like to be the target of a kamikaze attack.

The exit is of course through the gift shop, named The Ships Store, where I got a ball cap for Patriots Point, of course, as well as a baby Sea Turtle figure which now resides on a book shelf with other memorabilia from our trips.

It is our general habit to have breakfast early at TimmberWolf and then eat a late lunch/early dinner out at a local restaurant avoiding the chains that are available at home. We then have either a light dinner or just a snack back at Wolf in the evening. The Hanger Deck included an information desk staffed by several volunteers. Here we asked for suggestions for a nice sit down restaurant and a very helpful gentleman suggested several. We ended up at R.B.'s Seafood Restaurant on Shems Creek where I had excellent Oysters Rockefeller!

Our table was right at a window looking out on the creek which looks more like a canal actually with another restaurant across the way and parking for various watercraft. There are also kayak tours in the creek. There were dolphins playing in this canal! They seem to know the minute you get a camera out and refuse to show themselves until you put the camera away! So ... no pictures of them but we saw at least three of them playing and jumping.

Oysters Rockefeller

After our sumptuous meal we returned to Wolf and the only eventful thing after that was when I managed to fall out of the bed in the middle of the night bruising and scraping my arms. Not fun but could have been worse I suppose.

Low Country

We must be getting a bit better at doing this as we headed out for South Carolina at about 7 AM as planned. We made the usual stops at rest areas and a Flying J fuel stop where we had a late breakfast at the attached Denny's.

Aside from a huge traffic slow down just before Savannah (for which we never did see a cause) we made it to South Carolina around eleven. Our first planned destination was the Charleston area.

We were accompanied on our journey of course by Wolfie (my favorite footrest) and Pilot  Monkey. Wolfie also catches the drips from the front air conditioning.

 

WOLFIE

PILOT MONKEY

Charleston is in the 'Low Country' area in South Carolina which divides itself into four areas, the Low Country, the Pee Dee, the Midlands, and Upstate. Our plan was to stay in the Charleston area for three nights and then head for York County in the northern part of the Midlands for two nights. After that we would relocate a bit southeast to Lee County on the western edge of the Pee Dee. 

 

We arrived at the Mt Pleasant/Charleston KOA in the mid afternoon and ordered a rental car from Enterprise for first thing the next morning. With an awkward big motor home we do appreciate their delivery option! This KOA is very nice, a bit pricey but probably normal for a metropolitan area near big tourist attractions such as this one is.

We settled in and had a quiet evening with a simple Mountain House dinner and an early bedtime.

Double Trouble?

Well what with other off road adventures and recovery time from the last trips, it's about time to plan some more trips. Back around the end of April we heard that Geoff's sister and her husband were going to be traveling west in the fall headed to visit a son in California.

We had already been talking about going to the Mt Rushmore area since we had to scrub it from the first big trip after the rocks pounded the windshield (blogged about in "What Did I Say About Adventures?") so I embarked upon a fast email exchange with Leslie, Geoff's sister. 

The upshot was that we would meet them in Rapid City in the fall and we made reservations at the Rapid City KOA, not far from their hotel. Crazy Horse, Deadwood and Mt Rushmore By Night were added to the tentative plans.

By now we realized since it had been a while since we had Wolf out and about that it would be a good idea to do a shorter trip beforehand to find any wrinkles or problems. After some discussion we decided on a week in South Carolina and the serious planning began using pretty much the same process as blogged about in "Planning ..." written back in March 2018.

Two folders were set up, 'SC Trip' and 'SD Trip' ... at this point the SD Trip planning was well begun so we looked around for interesting locations to visit in South Carolina. We immediately settled on Patriots Point and Fort Sumter in the Charleston area, giving us our starting point for that trip. A few more points were found in South Carolina giving us a trip lasting about a week. We did decide to eliminate a stop at the BMW Zentrum Museum up in Greer as it was well out of the way of other interesting stops.

In the meantime, Geoffrey found some interesting museums in Cody, Wyoming, and some more emails with Leslie added Cody to both itineraries. From there Leslie and John will head on west and we will head back towards home hitting poor old Pea Ridge on the way.

I say "poor old Pea Ridge" as it keeps getting scrubbed from our itinerary <sigh>. First time was the first big trip when the damage to the windshield cut it out along with Mt Rushmore. Then it got trimmed from the second trip out west in 2017. Maybe we'll make it there this time?

With the itineraries in hand we loaded up our stuff including the Mountain House meals and Dixie cups blogged about in "Traveling On Our Stomachs" and the Keurig ... hmmm, looking back over my blogs I can't see where I ever mentioned our switch to the Keurig and pods although it shows in the shot of the breakfast bar area we created in the kitchen.

I had realized one day that Geoffrey was not always finishing the tea he made in the coffeemaker or was drinking more than he really wanted  just to finish it while I was pretty much not drinking anything hot because I only wanted one. This was true at home as well as on the road in Wolf.

Coincidentally, at the same time I was reading a series of books in which the characters were traveling in RV's and they used the Keurig pods ... hmmm. My (great?) brain seized on this and decided to try it out. We first got an inexpensive pod brewer at WalMart to try out the idea.

It was great, Geoff had as many or as few cups of tea as he wanted and I had peach tea or hot apple whenever I wanted. A win-win ... The inexpensive brewer now lives in Wolf for traveling use and a better one resides at our breakfast bar.

Checked, prepped, and loaded ... time to head out to South Carolina!