I woke up early to another beautiful day, and I almost wished I wasn’t checking out until Monday. The SMES Awards would be held later in the day, but the whole point of my checking out early was to first of all see Charleston for the first time, and also to not have to drive all the way back to Memphis in one day. So I checked out and drove over to Eggs Up Grill on Highway 17, where I enjoyed a delicious breakfast while all the talk on the TV screens in the restaurant was about the congressional bailout bill to try to rescue the US economy and to prop up failing banks like Wachovia. I drove into Murrells Inlet, which billed itself as the “Seafood Capital of South Carolina”, and found it to be a rather sleepy fishing village except for the elegant waterfront restaurants along the main road.
Further down the highway pulled away from the coast and crossed over a drawbridge into the town of Georgetown, South Carolina. Georgetown was very old, with a number of historic buildings and homes, as well as a charming riverwalk along the harbor behind the downtown buildings. Here too there were a number of restaurants, mostly seafood, and a lot of yachts anchored in the harbor.
The trip from Georgetown to the Charleston area seemed to take forever, but eventually I came to the road that led to the Isle of Palms, so I headed down that way and into the little resort island, which had a hotel, a small downtown village of shops and a few beachfront restaurants. The beach was actually quite crowded, perhaps due to the warm, sunny weather. The island road crossed a small pass onto Sullivan’s Island, and there crowds of people were eating outdoors on decks in front of the restaurants. The main street was named for Edgar Allen Poe, who apparently had been stationed at a fort on the island.
Another causeway took me back onto the mainland and into the town of Mount Pleasant, where there was a beautiful creek called Shem Creek which was lined with restaurants, lounges, boat docks and a hotel. I took a number of photos there, but I resisted the temptation to eat there, and drove on through Mount Pleasant and into the city of Charleston itself.
Many of the restaurants and shops I had seen on my iPhone were on Market Square, so I immediately headed in that direction when I got into Charleston. The city was far more like New Orleans than I had realized, with an old brick market several blocks in length, which reminded me of the French Market in New Orleans. There was a French Quarter in Charleston also, although it was a residential area and not a tourist destination, and many of the Black youths in downtown streets were speaking a patois not unlike the unusual New Orleans accent. (I was later told that this slang/patois in Charleston is called Geechie or Gullah.)
On either side of the market were restaurants and gift shops, but I soon found that parking (at $1 per half hour with no daily maximum) was quite expensive. I knew I would have to pay it to enjoy the city on foot (and that’s about the only way to enjoy Charleston), so I paid and parked my car and then began a walking tour of the area, snapping photos of nearly everything. While trying to snap a picture of the old US Customs House, I nearly backed into to a bellboy of what turned out to be the Market Place Hotel behind me. Seeing that they had a rooftop bar, I decided to ride the elevator up there, and found that the view of the old city from there was beautiful beyond description. The weather was downright hot, but the bar was crowded with people sitting around the rooftop pool, and I took pictures of the city, and of Mount Pleasant’s yacht harbor, visible to the north beyond the amazing bridge that I had crossed into the city over earlier.
I walked down to Meeting Street, noticing a lot of youths in military outfits who were cadets at the Citadel, and then I made my way back to the Charleston Crab House restaurant, where I enjoyed a shrimp dinner. The T-Bonz family of restaurants had a dessert cafe called Kaminsky’s across the market from the Charleston Crab House, so I walked over there foran after-dinner dessert and coffee. I instantly noticed a chocolate-peanut-butter torte, which proved to be moist and delicious, as Kaminsky’s only serves fresh desserts each day. Thoroughly relaxed and contented, I sipped my cappuccino while hearing rousing cheers from the T-Bonz next door where people were apparently watching a pro football game.
As I drove up Meeting Street, I stopped at an Exxon for gasoline, and then continued through some rough and ramshackle ‘hoods into North Charleston and on out Highway 78 into what truly was a primeval wilderness, broken only by the occasional small town. Some of these were a little bigger than others, and Branchville proved to be a rather good-sized place, where I stopped for a cold drink. The town was in a state of excitement due to some sort of fair and street festival, and crowds of young people were everywhere.
It was thoroughly dark by the time I got into Beech Island, and I called V-Tec who agreed to meet me at the T-Bonz on Washington Road in Augusta. I was still heavy from dinner, but I ordered some cheese fries that were quite good, and he and I hung out watching an NFL game, while a jazz group was playing in the restaurant. I considered checking into a hotel there in Augusta, but, wanting to get closer to Memphis, I decided to head on towards Atlanta. Gasoline was still hard to come by in Augusta, but I found some, and headed west, passing through Atlanta into Douglasville. I had picked up a coupon book for hotels in Georgia, and had been heading to a Quality Inn in Douglasville, but when I got there at almost 2 AM, that hotel had rooms whose doors opened to the outside, a security nightmare. So, even though it was slightly more expensive, I opted for the Comfort Inn next door instead, and as soon as I got into my room, I went straight to bed.
