Vacation Day 4

Today we took a day trip to Charlston, SC. It was a beautiful sunny day for a drive and we enjoyed seeing the countryside (well, Justin enjoyed it more than D as she caught some shut eye on the drive!). Our first stop was Drayton Hall, a plantation. This is the oldest preserved plantation open to the public in the nation. The home has managed to stay intact over the wars and numerous hurricanes and an earthquake. During the civil war, the owner placed yellow flags outside near the river's edge so the northern soldiers would pass by in fear of the small pox. All the other plantations nearby were burned by soldiers. Before the home was donated to the historical society in the late 1960's, it had housed seven generations of the Drayton family. The last inhabitant, a woman who never married, would only return to the home for 4-6 weeks in the spring and referred to it as "camp" as the home was never wired for electricity and has never had running water. Quite the place to "camp"!
Mr. Drayton was wealthy due to his cash crop of rice. The estate today is now 600 acres.
After touring the plantation, we drove into downtown Charlston. What an amazing city! We are happy to report that we have no sprained ankles which was Deedra's fear, simply because we were gauking around at all the amazing homes and churches and the sidewalks were anything but flat! Here's a few favorite pics:

And to end with a little humor...we were hungry for pizza tonight so we took a look at the pizzerias listed in our info on Savannah. We arrived to our selected location: Fat Pat's. We quickly noticed that there was no one eating inside when we stepped in to look at the menu. There was also some pizza already prepared that didn't look so appetizing to us, so we split. I kept feeling bad about Fat Pat being disappointed that we didn't place an order, but I quickly got over that when we arrived to Vinnie Van Go Go's. Not only did they have great pizza, but we got to sit by a couple with a golden retriever named George. Two of Deedra's favorites: golden retrievers and pizza!