Besides that we also had the incredible opportunity to explore Charleston and see my friend in Columbia! In high school I (Nicole) attended an online school as I was homeschooled. My junior year I took a computer programming class and met my friend Andrew. We talked every day on GoogleChat. It was a lot of fun. (Ironically he fell in love with computer programming and proceeded to use it in his career while I ran as far away as I could from it!) I met him in person in 2008 then have not had a chance to make it to where he lives since then! After many attempts to try a find to get together, we finally met up at a cafe in Columbia. I had the opportunity to meet his soon-to-be fiancee. We didn't know it then, but he would propose only a short time later. ;) I'm thankful for the lunch time we spent together in his hometown. Hopefully we won't have to wait 8 years to see each other again!
After seeing friends we stopped at Congaree National Park on our way to Charleston. Wow! It is a wetland hardwood forest (that I'm forgetting the official name of), and one of the few remaining of its kind in the US. We were so intrigued by it! There were no leaves on the trees because it was February, but it had a captivating beauty all the same.
Alyssa and I both LOVED Charleston and agreed that it is one of the few places we would want to actually move in the US if we left our current home area. Because of a generous gift of Alyssa's sister-in-law, we were able to go to both a plantation and Fort Sumpter which was a treat for us.
We hadn't originally planned on going to a plantation, but her sister-in-law insisted that we go since it was such a huge part of the Southern history. There wasn't really a way to argue with that, especially when she was willing to cover the admission costs! We LOVED it! I realized just how ignorant of this part of history I really was. That actually was a theme throughout our trip, especially in the South, as I was not familiar with the history there much at all. The highlight was watching a presentation about the Gullah people (people descended from slaves who came from a certain region in Africa). It was was filled with songs and stories with so much history mixed in. So incredible! We also toured the large plantation house and took a wagon ride around the plantation. Although we couldn't see all of the displays, we also learned a lot from the history inside the slave cabins they had on site. It was such a worthwhile place to spend an afternoon.
Fort Sumpter and Fort Moultrie are two historic fort locations within the same national park. Fort Moultrie was started during the revolutionary war and was used for multiple wars, until I believe WWI when the use of submarines and airplanes made the fort no longer effective. Fort Sumpter is in the middle of the river on a man-made island. It is the location of the start of the Civil War and where the Star-Spangled Banner was inspired. The location was chosen because cannons could only shoot 3 miles but the river was 7 miles wide. So they split the difference. ;) we took a boat out to the fort! I loved being there. And at the end we got to help fold a flag!!!! A huge flag. It ranks as one of the top experiences of the trip!!
*Fort Moultrie
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