Good morning from the exclusive parking lot of the Myrtle Beach Wal-Mart... haha. Not a bad night overall, and happy to not have paid $75+ to park elsewhere in an RV park in order to sleep. Although we definitely give Walmart our business with our groceries and halloween decor.
Got up around 8am and had a look at trying to sort out our Orlando plans. Man, we all need a shower. Amelia unfurled our new spider purchase... long legs!! Left the parking lot around 10:15am and headed down Hwy 17 with its TALL pines bordering either side.
Over a bridge through Georgetown (bulldogs)... more like the outskirts of Georgetown. Filled up with diesel at a Shell station ($97). Saw a few leaves changing colour!! Leaf Peepers apparently... that's what the people who come to the east coast (like shenandoah) to see the fall colour changes.
12:15pm we pulled into the TSC (tractor supply company) for a propane fill ($28). Ollie and I went to look around inside. We saw very cute little lizards out front and Jonathan and Meems also saw a cute little lizard out by the rig. The one we saw was climbing up a tree out front of the nursery/garden section and it hopped on Ollie's hand for a brief flash as it tried to climb higher. Very cute.
12:45pm we were in Charleston, SC! drove past the Boone Plantation (lots of plantation sites around here). 27degree Celsius and muggy. Drove over the Arthur Ravnel Bridge and could see a big aircraft carrier on the left hand side.
By 1:30pm we were at the Charleston Visitor Centre where there was designated parking for RV's and oversize vehicles but about half a dozen spaces were taken up by cars, which was SUPER annoying because we cannot fit in the parkade elsewhere. We parked in loading zone and called the visitor centre and waited to see if any of the car people came back to their vehicle. No luck. We ended up moving to a space beside the electric vehicle charging zone and leaving a note explaining our situation and hoped for the best.
Inside the visitor centre we got hooked up with a great little map and information on the free shuttle bus that did circuits around the main part of the city. We hopped on the one from the visitor centre and rode it to Battery Park at the Broad Street/King Street intersection. I had mapped out a basic route of things to see on google maps in order to a loop in the city and get a sense of the architecture, the water front, a playground, and the pineapple fountain (and a historical post office, heehee).
When we were walking along towards the water, they had lots of neat historical signs along the streets and in front of buildings describing concise details about the historical significance of the building/home/street/area. There's no way we would touch on all the historical homes, especially with two kiddos in tow, but it was lovely to walk around and admire the architecture. The waterfront was interesting to walk along and imagine the happenings in 1861 with the battle of Fort Sumter.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Fort_Sumter
While walking along the waterfront, Oliver was describing some kind of engineering idea he had (he often pipes up with some kind of invention that's on his mind) and a lady was walking by and overheard him and had to stop and and comment on how wonderful it sounded and impressed she was with his idea. We saw her again later on our walk around Charleston and she had a big grin, "There's the future engineer again!"
We stopped in at a little playground with the hugest live oak tree in the middle. Oliver showed off his balance skills on the spinning circle. Everyone else tried it (Jonathan and I narrowly escaped injury haha). There was an older gentleman who was walking into the park as we were going to leave and he was commenting on the equipment and admiring how Ollie used the equipment so daringly. He really had a lot to say about how it's all being taken out these days for fear of kids getting hurt and the city being sued... so nothing is as fun or adventurous. He also had a lot to say about a trip he took to the UK a few years back and how wonderful the playgrounds there were, and began scrolling endlessly on his phone trying to find photos to show us. We did wait patiently for a bit, but with hungry tired kiddos, it was not going to last long enough for him to find them. We politely explained our situation and when he heard we were from Vancouver, he lit up... he'd also visited Vancouver and named several key sights he'd seen. Neat.
Carried on past the park to the pineapple fountain not too far down. Kids had a splash and were slightly re-invigorated for it, but we were all pretty hungry and tired by this point. I had looked up some places to grab a bite, but nothing was really in our wheelhouse. The RuRu's mexcian place seemed quite nice, but maybe more of a commitment than we wanted seeing as how we'd booked a Harvest Host at a brewery/pub and wanted to save our main meal and spending for them.
Found another fountain on the way back and Amelia took advantage of it to refresh again before we walked back towards the Visitor Centre and peeked into the Market Halls on the way.
Back at the Visitor Centre, we saw that we didn't have any tickets or issues with our parking, yay! Paid the $7 to exit the parkade and drove about 45 minutes to Tideland Brewing - our Harvest Host for the night.
5:15pm we were at Tideland Brewing and parked in their grassy lot along with a couple other RV's for the night. Hungry and excited for a cool beverage, we went right inside after being greeted by our host. It was a great open space with a cool vibe and not very many people in there at this point. I enjoyed a cider while Jonathan had a recommended lager. Super yummy. Ordered the Tideland platter - fried cheese curds, fried pickles, pimento cheese and other fried goodies. SO GOOD! but oh boy... so fried! haha. We ordered dinner too... kids had fancy mac n'cheese (too fancy for Amelia) and a cheese quesadilla. Jay had a veggie burger and I had a salad. With dinner over, we got to take part in the Musical Bingo that was put on by "Chelsea" who came equipped with paper game cards for anyone to take part (handed out by a cute little eager boy). She'd play a random selection of tunes from her elementary school days and you'd mark off with a crayon when you heard the song or lyric written in the box. Fun for the kids to try and learn some super 90's tunes that we knew well. (Chelsea was much younger than us, haha).
After dinner tucked in to the sound of airforce jets zooming overhead at regular intervals and a thunder and lightening storm!
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