Charleston South Carolina Part 2

    On one of our walking tour days we came upon the Moon Pie store. Well we had to try one. It was just ok. Kinda like two soft cookies with a cream filling. Glad we tried it, but won't try another one. On the same day we walked through the old marketplace. Its is several blocks long.  Many craft items and southern treats.  See www.moonpie.com

    Since we had done several house tours in the passed we choose to tour the Magnolia Plantation and Gardens. We had toured other plantations in the passed and this one rate down at the bottom of the list in our opinion. The plantation house was nothing at all like many of the other great homes we toured in the passed. It is one of the top 25 most visited historic houses in America. Don't know why. The house was nothing at all like other plantation homes we saw in the passed. The tour also included a "Nature Train". It was nothing more then a tram ride 45 minutes long, through the marshes and forests on the plantation grounds. Nothing special. Also included  "Nature Boat" ride. The ride was about 45 minutes. We saw a few alligators and some wading birds. But again nothing special. The gardens were not in bloom other them the camellias.  They do have a great advertising program. Just not worth the $68.. It was $78., but we both brought a item for their food drive and save $5. each. This is our opinion, others may have had a better experience. We were expecting a magnificent plantation home, and this it was not.
     The Coastal Carolina Fair was taking place while we were there, so we had to check it out. This was the 56 year for the fair. The day we went it happened to be senior day, so we got in for $4. each. We went because we wanted to see "The Village People".Well hurricane Sandy caused their flight to be canceled. So there was someone else filling in, and we never heard of him. We walked around for a couple of hours looking at all the different displays. It was one of the biggest midways of rides we ever saw. There were 62 different rides. We didn't count them, it was on a sign.
     While at the winery we saw a flyer for "The Angel Oak", the oldest tree on the east coast. Well it sounds like another "we should see that". Unforturnally it is closed at 5 and it was after 5. How do you close a tree. Duh! they close the gates to get to it. So the next day we drive out to see the "tree". It is in about a half mile on a sandy road. Wow is all we can say. You have to see it yourself. So check out the photo's. We did see a number of large Live Oaks, but this is among the biggest and bestest. I know that's not a word.

    While we were at the RV Park a Carri-lite RV very similar to ours pulls in right across from us.
We did strike up a conversation which lead to more conversations. They were also from Pennsylvina, the Lancaster area. We did encourage them to join the Carriage Club. And they did. We did get together one evening and spent a couple of hours talking about both our RVing experiences. They are also full timers. They invited us to go out to dinner one evening to a place their aunt told them about. The place was called Bowens Island Restaurant. The restaurant is only open from 5 to 9 daily. We got there at about 6 and waited about 45 minutes to get to place our order. Then you go and try to fine a seat. We did and in about 10 minutes they were calling our name. Our food arrived. It was a super seafood feast. Linda and I split a "Big Ol' Seafood Platter". It was fish, shrimp and crab cakes. Very very good and we had a hard time finishing the platter. See www.bowensislandrestaurant.com
       Friends we worked with at Dollywood were volunteering at the James Island county Park. We contacted them and they invitied us over for dinner and a chance to view their handy work. They were part of a large crew that put up the Christmas light on over 700 displays in the park. It is one of the top 5 Christmas light displays in the country. On the day they invited us over they were going to do a "hot test" of the lights. That is light up the displays and check for outages etc. What a wonderful treat. The display dosen't open until about a week after we were there. So we got to see the lights without the crowds. It is the 23rd year for the event. I believe there were 18 volunteer couples that help the county enployees. There are millions of lights. Linda's camera battery quit or we would have 700 pictures. See www.ccprc.com

   The fire truck holes shoot "water" with lights. The eagle is flying. many of the displays move in some fashion.

Saw these blocks in a store, very net. Most are not glued together. See www.kaplabus.com

        
    We did quite a bit of driving around the area. We visited many of the coastal comunities in the area .We liked the Edisto Beach area, as well as some of the other. In all we put about 300 miles on our car.