Charleston with the Calladines

We arrived in Charleston at midnight and Mal met us at the airport. Neil had an interesting time getting used to driving our automatic hire car on the other side of the road! During our journey to 'Calladine Castle' in Mount Pleasant there was much evidence of the damage caused by the recent tropical storm Gaston - there had been lots of flooding and one house had a fallen tree right through the middle! The other annoying aspect of hurricane season is the warm & wet weather which is mosquito heaven - 14 million females in one acre! Our legs are still recovering!

Monday was a great day! We sat around the kitchen table and ate breakfast, chatted, the Kelly's arrived so we ate lunch and chatted some more. Then we went swimming and surfing in some incredibly rough yet warm waves just off the Isle of Palms beaches, then we went home, ate some more and sat and watched videos!

The next week was just as chilled and relaxing! We did a few tourist things which included a carriage tour of downtown Charleston (found out lots of interesting facts about rich people and their houses, including internal stained glass windows from Tiffany's worth millions of pounds), a boat trip to Fort Sumter, where the American Civil War began, and a trip to the South Carolina Aquarium. We ate dinner at a Moe's, a Joe's and a Poe's and had one of the best milkshakes ever from a coffee shop in the centre of Charleston. We also visited a few shopping malls but unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your opinion) our luggage from England was already over the weight allowance so purchases were severly limited.

The best part of our holiday in South Carolina was simply spending time with the Calladine Family. We had such fun catching up with them, meeting their friends (and their new cat!), reading Captain Underpants with Jaedan, going to the cinema with the girls, trying to understand the rules of American football (Neil got it, Natalie really didn't!) and eating ice-cream and chocolate sauce.

But all too soon it was time to leave (at some rather ridiculous hour of the morning)on the final leg of our journey...