The day got off on a disappointing note. "South of the Border", a cheesy tourist trap kind of place that we were looking forward to visiting, wasn't open to us when we arrived at 7:30 AM. In spite of the fact that they claim to be 24 hours, all that's really 24 hours is a restaurant. Everything else fails to open until 9:00 AM or so. We took this picture (before I doctored it) and then left unhappy.
We moved on to Charleston, SC to a warm, but beautiful day. We bought our tickets and took a boat into Charleston Harbor to visit Fort Sumter, where the first shots of the Civil War were shot...which in this case were cannon shots.
Fort Sumter was originally a much taller fort, at least until the Union Army battered it years into the Civil War. While the actions of the Confederecy caused the initial surrender at the start of the war, it was mostly fire in the soldiers quarters and lack of supplies that actually caused the surrender. The Confederate bombardment itself did little damage to the fort.
Here is a shell that's still embedded in one of the walls of the fort.
After our boat ride back from the fort, we visited the South Carolina Aquarium, which was located right next to the docks where out boat returned to. It was a smallish aquarium, but nicely done. Here was a presentation in their large tank that involved divers feeding the fish.
We enjoyed our visit at the aquarium, which ended up being nicer than its understated exterior suggested it might be.
After the aquarium, we headed into the city of Charleston and went to a marketplace where we visited a lot of small shops. After the shops and dinner, we headed to our hotel for the evening.
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