Making Lemonade

Another Tropical Storm Ana delay today. But hey- if we have to be stuck somewhere, Charleston is ideal. There is so much to see and do, and we have friends here. Today Glenn and Brenda picked up us as well as Kathy and John on Serenity and Roger and Mary on Ta Ta.  They took us on a city tour. We saw the Battery, various neighborhoods, and the Citadel, the military college. The campus buildings are designed to resemble castles- very impressive! As luck would have it, they were holding commencement ceremonies today, so the campus was unusually crowded.

Next stop was California Dreamin’ , a restaurant on the Ashley River. We had a delicious lunch there- can you say She-Crab Soup??

Then it was on to the Angel Oak tree- one of the largest Live Oaks in the country. This giant is 25.5 feet in circumference and 300-400 years old. Its largest limb is 89 feet long and over 11 feet in circumference! The name Angel comes from the people who owned this property in the 1600-1700’s. It is an amazing tree!

From there we moved on to the Charleston Tea Plantation on Wadmalaw Island, the only tea plantation in North America. The area’s high humidity and frequent 100 degree summer temperatures are ideal for growing tea. The tea is marketed as American Classic, owned by Bigelow Tea. We saw the tea cutting machine and the processing plant. Tea bushes are evergreens, and in a good year, they get up to 5 cuttings of tender new leaves from them.

Kathy and Prince Charming- before the Kiss.

The tea cutting machine

A skink

We heard about a vodka distillery nearby, so we headed in that direction. It was an interesting place- it looked like a moonshine operation recently gone legal. We did not stay long since there was a long line to get into the tasting room.

Truck at the Firefly Distillery

Our next destination was Glenn and Brenda’s home where we relaxed on their screened in porch and shared docktails.

Sailing into the sunset