We drove into Charleston on Monday and took a "free" walking tour. Had an excellent guide and saw a lot of the historic area. It misted, rained softly and then poured down rain like I could not believe. My tennis shoes were soaked. Glad we did have our umbrellas, but it didn't help the lower half.
We toured a cemetery from the old days, visited the only French Huguenot church in the United States. Thousands of the French Huguenots were killed in France and some escaped to the US. and Canada. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huguenots) Had a wonderful lunch and dried off some. Enjoyed a favorite of mine, She Crab Soup.
Next day we visited the Angel Oak tree which was huge. It is on John's Island and estimated to be 400-500 years old. It stands 66.5 ft tall, measures 28 ft in circumference, and produces shade that covers 17,200 square feet. Its longest branch distance is 187 ft in length.
On our way to the conference on Wednesday we stopped at the Charleston Tea Plantation which is the only tea plantation in North America where you see hundreds of thousands of tea bushes stretching out acre after acre for almost as far as the eye can see. We learned how they pick and process the different kinds of tea which was interesting. We enjoyed their wonderful gift shop too and it was so hard to resist buying stuff we wanted, but didn't need.
Spent a few hours in the late afternoon at conference and then we went to dinner. This was my "down fall". Upon leaving the restaurant there were some tools in the area by the door and I tripped on them and fell flat on my face and lost my two front teeth. Got a wonderful black eye, face scrapes and then day after sore ribs, elbow, arm, headaches, but just carried on the best I could. So thankful I had Vicky by my side to help me.
We still had Thursday and half day Friday to attend the conference. It was a good one and I learned a lot. I'm the Membership Chairman and feel the conference was helpful to me for my new position. Made friends and overall our trip was wonderful. We left at 11:00 a.m, drove straight through and I got home at 8:00 p.m. Thank goodness it didn't rain (as it had on the way there in day light hours).
So now to deal with teeth...…..but Vicky and I really enjoyed Charleston and I hope to go back someday and see much more of it. We just ran out of time. Highly recommended city for a 4-5 day mini vacation.
