Surf and ... More Surf

Once again, the desire to get up and hit Charleston was thwarted by the complete lack of any real need to do so. Vay-cay-shun.

Our only real item on the agenda today was the South Carolina Aquarium. We saved it for the one day when rain was a possibility, since it was the only real indoor item we had planned, pretty much all week. It’s not a huge place, but it turned out to be just the right size. We actually got the boys to just sit and watch stuff for awhile, which was great. Everyone had a fun time, after some initial apprehension. The aquarium is arranged to take you from the mountain streams “down” into the lower rivers and lakes and then to the ocean. The first room we walked into was set up like a mountain rain forest, and it was really misty and foggy. Liam freaked out, saying “I can’t do this! I can’t do this!” until we showed him it was just fog. He has a tendency of freaking out like that, and then when you explain it to him, he just utters a matter-of-fact “oh, yeah” and then he’s fine.

The aquarium has what they claim is the tallest (not sure if it’s the largest) seawater tank in North America, holding all manner of really big fish, including the sharks that the boys were so excited about. We also saw an enormous leatherback sea turtle, an enormous puffer fish, a couple of bright green moray eels, and Logan got really excited by a couple of menacing-looking barracudas in the tank.

Down on the lower level they have a touch tank where folks can get up close and personal with some aquatic life. The gentleman running the booth was really good with the animals and gave us some great information on the horseshoe crabs, snails, urchins, and hermit crabs you could touch and pick up. Logan and Liam got a big kick out of playing with the urchins.

After heading out from the aquarium we stopped at Ben & Jerry’s for lunch (say it with me – “va-ca-tion”), which was perfect timing as the weather chose that moment to start dumping rain. Did you know that Ben & Jerry has a yellow cake batter flavor, with real chocolate frosting swirl? My guess is that you either find that completely revolting or heavenly delicious. As it turns out, it was the latter.

After lunch we decided we needed to take the boys back to the beach, so this time we decided to try Sullivan’s Beach on the east side of the bay. It’s a nicer beach, but more isolated. We practically had the place to ourselves. There was an enormous tidal pool from the low tide, and the boys had a blast running around in the 6 inches or so of water. The tide started coming in as the afternoon went on though, so it rapidly started filling up. They had a great time though.

After the beach we cleaned up and hit the town for dinner at the Mellow Mushroom, a local pizza joint. GREAT pizza, just what we needed to round out the day. They make a great flatbread there with grapes, rosemary, honey, salt, cheese – sounds weird, but it’s fantastic.

So tomorrow we’re heading west to Oconee State Park for a couple of days in the great outdoors before heading home. We’ll almost certainly be without internet, so this’ll be the last post until we get back home. Imagine us taking some short hikes to waterfalls, playing some board games, and enjoying the obligatory hot dogs and smores over an open fire.

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Up-to-date vacation note – here are the boys’ favorite parts of vacation so far:

Logan – “playing with toys in the van”
Liam – “riding the elevator”

So apparently we could have taken them on vacation to the mall.