Charleston SC

SAT July 3

Summertime and the live’n is easy and last night is the first night since May 15 at Hon-Dah RV Park on the Apache Reservation that I didn’t have the AC on in the trailer when I went to sleep. The rain has move out of the area and the weather is great, mid 80’s days to high 60’s nights.

I had been to Charleston just a few years ago in a previous life when I worked for Hyundai Translead and I did similar things on this visit I did then.

I started off my day with a boat ride out to Fort Sumter and enjoyed visiting again, this time I spent about half the time there listening to the Rangers talk and I learned a lot. Fort Sumter was fairly well reduced nearly to total rubble during the Civil War but was cleaned up a bit and back in service with the addition of Battery Huger at the time of the Spanish-American War, 1898.

When I got back I went to see the restoration effort on the Confederate submarine Hunley that sunk the Union warship USS Housatonic in Charleston harbor and became the first submarine to sink a ship. The Hunley was raised in 2000 and they are restoring it to a point TBD; very interesting history and also for the science in restoration.

The Hunley is being restored at the closed Charleston Naval Base and after the visiting there I drove to the quarters where we lived in 1953-1954. The Base had been turned over to the City of Charleston and in turn many shipyard activities have moved in to support Charleston which is the second largest container port on the east-coast. Also the City has sold some of the old quarters to private owners and developed a park along the Cooper River; the Commandant’s old quarters has not been restored and really is in disrepair.

4th OF JULY and a walk along the wall and through Charleston Battery Park; nice and pleasant and wishing I had the where-with-all to live in this area, ah!

Then I was off to the City Market to walk and shop and not buy anything. Ok I lie, I did buy 2 pralines; I know that pralines seem to be a New Orleans thing, and I bought a couple there also, but I bought two more in Charleston from the Savannah Candy Company, um, um, good. And then I topped it off with a delicious lunch of pasta and seafood, bring back half of it for another meal tomorrow.

The swimming pool at this park is nice, a bunch of kids, but nice and refreshing, in fact I went twice today.

There is a fireworks stand immediately outside this campgrounds entrance and I have heard pops the last two nights, wonder what I will hear tonight after the show?