Day 5 - Charleston

Saturday June 10, 2023
Posted from: Yemassee Holiday KOA, Yemassee, SC
Miles driven: 126
Total trip miles: 1403

We are headed to Charleston today. We have reservations for a walking tour at 11:00 with Tommy Dew. He came highly recommended from some friends of ours and they were not kidding! This guy was so great. 

One person was missing from our day in Charleston. Sadly, Cameron is under the weather today, so he stayed back at the camper. Don’t worry, the Wi-Fi was good enough for streaming, so he was fine. ;-) But we missed having him with us. 

One thing Tommy mentioned early on was why Charleston had so much history preserved. Bottom line: because they lost the war. When that happened progress stopped and the town sat for almost 100 years untouched. When progress was possible again, there were those who recognized the value of the history and architecture and put laws in place to preserve instead of tear down and replace. 

One of the first stops on our walking tour was St. Philip’s Church on Church Street. This church is Charlestons oldest congregation, though the building itself has been built and rebuilt three times. It also happened to be our tour guide’s church. Which allowed him to show us the churches graveyard.

In this picture, Tommy is holding up the Gadsden Flag, perhaps known better as the Don’t Tread On Me flag. The person who designed the flag, Christopher Gadsden, is buried here. The flag has an interesting story that I recommend taking a look at. 

This church was simply lovely from the outside. The French Huguenot Church also located on Church Street was just stunning to look at from the outside due to its pale pink color.

Charleston used to be a very shaded town with massive live oak trees lining the streets. Unfortunately most of those trees were lost when hurricane Hugo hit in 1989. Instead of replanting live oaks again, most of which were 200-300 years old, they planted these smaller barkless trees. They were interesting to look at, but the loss of shade must have been devastating. 

There is no natural rock in this area, but plenty of pebble stone streets. The stones came from ships that sailed from Britain (carrying pre-made goods) and Africa (carrying slaves). Because the cargo coming to America did not weigh enough, they had to load the ships with rocks for balance. Going back they carried heavy raw goods from America so they needed to unload the stones, which were then used for streets. This gave me an unsettled feeling every time we walked down a pebble stone street. 





As we were walking, someone who lived in one of the many historic homes invited us to come into his side/backyard. It was lovely! The most interesting thing was this Charleston bench on his porch. The tour guide said it was the most Charleston thing you could ever have as a souvenir (a giant souvenir!). It was designed for people with arthritis. It is meant to jiggle and bounce the person sitting on it to loosen their joints. Matt took pictures from enough angles that I’m inclined to believe he may be thinking of building one. 

A young lady was selling lemonade along our walking tour route. Though the weather was pretty mild and perfect today, it was a refreshing stop in the tour. 



Wrought iron was also imported, so the more of it you had the richer you appeared. This is a back gate to an alley where few people would see it, so using it here was considered extra extravagant.

Standard costal house. 



The bay! We were here at high tide. The water rises and lowers 6 feet with the tides. 






Fried green tomatoes…covered in pimento cheese (which they seem to use as a condiment like we use Mayo in the Midwest.)


The pineapple fountain! (not it’s real name…oh wait…that is it’s real name!!!) 


The Pineapple Fountain again (capitalized this time as a proper noun). The fountain was put here when the Waterfront park was created in 1990 after Hurricane Hugo destroyed much of the waterfront. 

Caleb climbed into the pineapple. Playing in and climbing on the pineapple was encouraged.



This is the Waterfront Park fountain. 

With Cameron home sick, Grace had to take over the parking guidance. Not bad, though Cameron had some comments when we got home and showed him this picture. He didn’t seem impressed but was happy to share a few tips for improvement. 



We got back to the campground in time to enjoy the pool. 

Spaghetti and meatballs for dinner. This is where the outside kitchen comes in handy. Cooking outside keeps the heat and humidity out of the camper. 



Cameron still wasn’t feeling great, so Mom and Dad volunteered for dish duty tonight while the kids hung out at the picnic table. 



Caleb documented the moment with Cameron down for the count, Grace dealing with a headache, and him doing just fine. 

They also took a picture of us doing the dishes because it doesn’t happen very often. That is the kids job on vacations. 



And finally, we must close the day on a bit of a sad note. In Matt’s words:

I missed my uncle Lyle’s funeral this weekend because we were 1100 miles away from home. So I honored him buy sinking a piece of chocaolate cake in milk, he taught me to do when I was 4 or 5 at the Cameron farm. It’s still my favorite way to eat cake!





Good night.