Welcome to Charleston, Y’All

Some people would probably say that spending two-thirds of the year in Florida last year constitutes a vacation or at least a trip. Given how stressful those eight months renovating our St. Petersburg condo were, however, I would disagree. It’s really neither here nor there in the scope of this blog except as a way to explain why I have gone so long without any entries. In my reckoning, Mark and I haven’t had a real vacation in about 18 months. Boy have we needed it, so when Dan and Alex asked us to join them and James and Tom in Charleston, South Carolina, we jumped at the chance.

We drove down on Saturday (today is Monday) through an uneventful (though overcast) ten-and- a-half-hour trek along roads that are becoming familiar to me: I-70 to 33 to I-77 to I-26. Somehow, we beat the Florida boys here, so we got the best room. We’re staying at Dan and Alex’s guests at the Lodge Alley Inn, right in the heart of old Charleston.

We have lots of options on the docket for seeing the city, and our schedule is not set yet, but yesterday, we spent much of the day just walking around the area popping in and out of shops and galleries. (Several members in our group were totally bored and peeled off to take a nap.) I expect I’ll be doing a lot more of that since, I’m not really interested in the historical excursions that have been suggested—touring historic homes, visiting Fort Sumter, seeing one (or more!) of the area’s plantations.

We had dinner at a fantastic Mexican restaurant last night, Minero’s, but otherwise, not much to report for our first day. Here, though, are some of the photos I took. (It was overcast for part of the day, so they’re a bit grey.)

[I just realized that I don’t have the cord I need to copy photos from my camera to the iPad, so photos will have to wait until I get home.]