All day in Charleston

Whew... we were gone from 10 this morning until about 7 at night. We ended up driving into Charleston in the middle of a big run/walk over the Cooper River bridge. All of the streets were blocked off. It was very difficult but we found a place to park . We walked around a little and then took a pedicab (bicycle cab) to the pier where the boat tour to Fort Sumpter departed. The pedicab was fun and was just about the only thing able to get around in the crazy traffic. We had to wait quite awhile for the tour boat but we found a deli and ate a little picnic lunch along the riverside. We watched the cruise ship that was about to depart and big cargo ships coming and going with their loads. There were some dolphins playing around the boats in the river when we first got there but I didn't see any when we were on our ferry.

The tour out to Fort Sumpter was very interesting. It was much smaller than I expected. It was only a sand bar in the harbor and then the army hauled in all of this granite rock and actually built an island to put the fort on. At one time the walls were 55 feet high (3 stories) with canons on the top but by the end of the Civil War it was practically destroyed. They still had the flag that had been lowered when the Union soldiers surrendered the fort to the Confederacy in 1861, The Union raised the same flag after the Confederate soldier abandoned the fort when Sherman was preparting to march into Charleston.

The town was a lot like Savannah with beautiful old buildings and very narrow streets. Of course, we ate seafood for dinner.