Ha.
The problem with getting up early on vacation is that a) duh, it's vacation, and b) hotel rooms have wonderfully thick curtains that keep the room at a level of darkness I'd roughly describe as "3:00 am". Naturally, it was after 9 this morning before we finally ambled out into the sunshine.
We really lucked out with this hotel - there are so many good places to eat that are literally just down the street. This morning's breakfast choice, Joseph's, was about half a block away. It was apparently featured on Rachael Ray's "$40 a Day", but we ate there anyway. (I mean, seriously - if you can't survive on $40 a day, your standards are too high.)
Joseph's was great. Good food, nice cosmopolitan atmosphere, and the kids got to draw on the tablecloth. Logan drew a caterpillar. Liam asked me to "draw a chinchilla from Diego". Uhh...what? Anyway, I gave it a shot.
Jill had some sweet potato pancakes that were really good - sweet enough to skip the syrup. We also got the boys to try some beignets. It was a good way to start the day.
So today's activity was the Magnolia Plantation, where slaves grew rice here in the Charleston area back before the Civil War. It was founded in 1676, only 6 years after the city of Charleston. It was actually quite a bit more interesting than I expected, we got a lot of information on how plantations operated, what the culture and social climate was like back then, and how the plantation grounds have been kept up over the years.
The big attraction for the boys was the alligators. Magnolia Plantation grew rice, which you may know requires a LOT of water. The grounds of Magnolia Plantation are perfect, because a large portion of them is swamp ground. There are also a number of lakes, a river, and a whole network of canals. Nowadays, all this water is home to over 500 alligators, including several enormous gators that are estimated to be 14-15 feet and over 1000 lbs. We took a train tour of the grounds and ran across a 5-6 foot gator near the front gate.Later in the day, we toured the Audubon swamp garden where we saw several other gators, including several sunning themselves on elevated "gator ramps" built out in the swamp for this express purpose. Keeps them from coming up onto the banks where the guests are, I suppose.
The highlight of this part was that the boys really wanted to see the gators, and you had to be quiet so as not to scare them off. That’s probably the quietest 90 minutes we have had all trip. It was great. If only there hadn’t been the prospect of scaly reptilian death lurking 5 feet away, and all the ginormous orb weaver spiders everywhere (GAH!), it would have been perfect. As it was, it was still pretty enjoyable.
The plantation house itself is enormous, and is surrounded by a huge garden. There's also a long white bridge nearby that is supposedly one of the most photographed views in the country.
During the middle of the day the boys spent most of the time in the petting zoo. We discovered that Logan apparently speaks hawk, he traded words with one of the raptors on display. Jill asked him what the hawk was saying, and Logan's response was "I don't know. I just talk to them, I don't know what they're saying." Later on, one of the sheep nearly bowled Liam over, who immediately freaked out and climbed up practically onto Jill's head. After he was safe and the sheep wandered off, he started taunting it from up high - "Ha ha, you can't get me sheep!" Thankfully, the sheep didn't try to prove him wrong. We'll have to work with Liam on that.
After getting home we were famished and dog-tired, so we headed off to a close (again, thankfully) barbecue place for dinner. (KC still rules that area.) Afterwards we hit a local dessert spot called Kaminsky's that Jill had read about. Quite good, although Jill probably should have had the chocolate torte instead of the Mountain of Chocolate cake. It was indeed a mountain, but it's still cake.
That's it for day 2. We're beat. However, it's only 8:30 and the kids are already bathed and in bed - SUCCESS!
4 comments:
That's a great picture of the kids on the bench under the tree. Awesome!
BTW... have you guys not seen the signs for the hot-boiled peanuts yet!? HELLOOOO!
Looks like you are having a good time and finding lots of Southern food to indulge in! Enjoy!!
I think we've seen two signs for hot boiled peanuts. One was on a big orange bus and had a big photo of some guy named "Timbo". Pass. The second was on the way home from the beach, and we were too sandy. Or something.
What's so great about hot-boiled peanuts, anyway? I can't think of many foods that are better boiled.
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