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Mt. Pleasant's waterfron park and "the" bridge. We started our second day, after a trip to the local Shell station for coffee, by heading to the Magnolia Plantation and Gardens. It was a fairly long trip from the motel, but well worth it. The entrance is quite a ways from the actual buildings or gardens and parking seemed somewhat limited, but we found a place. The Magnolia Plantation and Gardens seems more gardens then buildings, although we didn't opt for the manor tour, feeling the gardens were large enough to be fulfilling. There were so many different flowers and trees, along with a number of "collection" sections, like camilia, azalea, etc. We spent almost 2 hours just walking along the paths and taking photos. A portion of the gardens border either the Ashley River or the plantation's Big Cypress Lake, adding to the enjoyment.
We left the plantation and headed to our next stop, Historic Charleston, for our carriage ride. We got there around noon, found a parking lot and paid the $10 for two hours. The carriage company is the Old South Carriage Co, with very nice 4-seat carriages pulled by a single horse. You can seat 3 or 4 people in each seat, while the
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A statue in honor of our military, at the waterfront park. driver stands in front to handle the horse and provide endless information along the way. Our horse was named Prince and our guide was Carol. She had so much information and stories to provide, it was amazing and very worthwhile. We spent about an hour moving slowly along the streets and seeing and hearing about so many houses built back in 1800s and even some in the 1700s.
After the tour ended around 2pm, we headed back towards our motel, intending to eat lunch at some fast food place, then go to Patriot's Point for our last tour, of Fort Sumter. We had a very hard time finding any fast food places near the motel, so we ended up going to Trader Joe's for some simple stuff. I had a Turkey and Cheese sandwich and Manoli had a tub of chicken salad. When we came back to the motel to eat, we discovered that the tour schedule on our tickets was outdated, or just wrong. The tickets said the last tour was at 3:30pm, but online and when we called, we were told the last tour had already left at 1:45pm. We weren't planning on leaving Charleston first thing
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The peacock at the main building of Magnolia Plantation. in the morning anyways, so decided we'd take the first tour tomorrow at 10:30am, having to clear our motel room first.
After lunch, since we weren't doing the Fort Sumter tour, Manoli wanted to go back to southern Charleston to walk along the bay between Waterfront Park, where the Pineapple fountain was, and Batter Park along the tip of Charleston. We found the Waterfront Park and a parking space, at $2 and hour, but we only had $1.50, so we put that in the meter and planned on coming back to either refill it or leave. We had just entered Battery Park when the time was about up, so I walked back to get the car while Manoli took more photos. After getting the car, I drove down to pick her up and we headed off to Red Lobster for our anniversary/birthday dinner. My daughter Serena had given me a $50 gift card for my birthday, since she knew I enjoyed Red Lobster. We both felt a bit dirty and unpresentable after all our walking that day, so we opted to get carryout. My wife got Fish and Chips and I got the Bar Harbor Lobster Bake. My wife
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The same peacock at the main building, showing off his plumage. told me she enjoyed her Fish and Chips, and my dish was delicious!
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