Clyde Moultrie Dangerfield would be proud

We've been in Charleston, South Carolina for the past 2 days for a wedding on D's side of the family. We have kept busy with family events, but we've been able to see some parts of the city, too.

On Friday morning, I drove out to Charleston's small airport to retrieve my brother-in-law. The airport really is small - almost as small as FAT. Afterwards, we headed down to Patriots Point, overlooking the harbor, which is loaded with various military-themed memorials, including the USS Yorktown and the Cold War Memorial, an interesting replica of a submarine half-submerged into land. Patriots Point is also one of two places on the harbor where you can catch a boat out to Fort Sumter, the starting point of the Civil War. More on Fort Sumter in a bit.

Friday afternoon, we all headed into downtown Charleston. It's a beautiful, historic, well-preserved city bounded on 3 sides by water. We took a 90 minute bus tour of the city courtesy of "Doin' the Charleston" Tours. The tour used a combination of driving around with an on-board TV showing media relevant to each location we visited (mansion, historic site, street scene, etc). The tour guide, Marvin (who is pictured on the homepage) definitely knew his Charleston history; he also wasn't shy to tell you his political/historical/everything agenda and point of view (McCain = good, Gore = P.T. Barnum, Fort Sumter tour = waste of money, tipping Marvin = very good, etc.).

While touring through Charleston, I noticed an unusual obelisk in one of the parks. This was not mentioned on the tour, so I asked Marvin about it. He told us the story of the USS Hobson, which was accidentally sunk during military maneuvers in 1952 with great loss of life.

Saturday, we decided to follow Marvin's advice and skip the Fort Sumter tour (which involves taking a boat out to the tiny fort, now mostly ruins). Instead, we headed down to Sullivan's Island to see Fort Moultrie. The Fort was actively used from pre-Revolutionary time through 1947, undergoing numerous upgrades, and coming under attack twice during it's active life (once during the American Revolution, and once during the Civil War). Today, it's been converted into a museum, with different sections of the fort designed to replicate how it looked in different time periods. From the fort, you also have a great view of the harbor, with Fort Sumter in the distance. You can see it to the right of D here. Overall, Moultrie was a good value -- we learned quite a bit -- and we couldn't help but enjoy the fantastic weather. Afterward, we managed to snag a seat at Poe's Tavern, named for Edgar Allan Poe, who evidently was stationed at Fort Moultrie from 1827-1828.

In the evening, we attended the wedding itself, which was held at Alhambra Hall in Mt. Pleasant. The setting was against the harbor, and in addition to a steady flow of tourist and commercial shipping in the background (and a darkening sky that thankfully did not open up on an outdoor service), we could also see Fort Sumter. In the same way that weddings in Manhattan try to get wedding party photos with either Central Park, assorted iconic buildings, or the Statue of Liberty in the background, I'm guessing that weddings in Charleston try to get Sumter in the background. You can see it just to the left of the wedding party (and to the left of the big ship that moved quickly across the horizon).

While it wasn't our wedding, we couldn't resist a picture of ourselves here, either.

Tomorrow, we're planning to get a few more hours in downtown Charleston, and then it's on to Richmond, Virginia.