And There Was Some History on Vacation

Because I was such a good sport about all of the time we spent at the beach, the family did reciprocate and spent some time enjoying the history of Charleston with me. I think we would have visited more historical sites if a couple of things weren't a factor. First, the kids were pretty vocal about not wanting to walk around a lot of empty houses or museums or churches. I don't know if you have experienced dissatisfied teen-agers, but they can be a rather unpleasant lot and can ruin a good time. The second factor actually pretty much headed off the disaster of visiting too many historical sites and creating dissatisfied teen-agers.

You see, Charleston is pretty darn proud of their history and they charge you an arm and a leg for every historical site you could possibly want to visit. Well, the churches don't charge an admittance fee, but most of them weren't open to the public any way. That was pretty disappointing and not what I expected since every church in Europe that we wanted to visit was always open. Anyway, I'm cheap and the kids didn't want to see a whole bunch of things so I didn't waste the money.

We did visit two plantations. We visited Magnolia Gardens and Boone Hall plantation. If you are ever in Charleston, go to Boone Hall plantation. You get more bang for your buck. At Magnolia Gardens there is the basic admittance fee of $15/adult and then if you want to see inside the house that's another $8/person. And if you want to take a train ride around the property that's another $8/person. If you want to visit the Audubon Swamp, well pull out your wallet because it is another $8/person. It was insane how they charged you for everything. Boone Hall just had one flat admission fee ($18/person), but with that fee you got a tour of the house. There was also a train ride around the property. There was a presentation about the slaves that we could listen to without paying more money. And there was a presentation about the Gullah people--this was by far our favorite part.

Probably one of the biggest spiders I have ever seen. At the swamp in Magnolia Gardens

 A turtle in the swampy swamp

 Some wood ducks in the swamp

 Dave wanted to see a gator in the worst way. He wasn't disappointed.

 

We also took a ghost tour one evening which was fun as we got to hear a lot of Charleston history without having to walk through "boring museums." No pictures of any ghosts, though.