Babymoon Day 1 & 2

For now, the baby blog has become a travel blog!

Yesterday, Josh and I began our journey to Charleston for our babymoon. We decided it would be more interesting to take back roads than all interstate, so we got off of I-40 onto US 701. This is mostly a two lane road through some very rural parts of North and South Carolina. For the most part, it was a relaxing and scenic drive. I have to say that I was overly excited to spot a Sonic for lunch!

We arrived in Charleston around 6pm and checked in at the Fulton Lane Inn. This is a super cute historical building right in the heart of downtown. Somehow we were lucky enough to get the only standard king room with a jacuzzi tub!

We took a walk through the city market, but almost everything was closed at this time on a Sunday night. We spent some time online trying to find a good restaurants and made reservations for the next two nights, but couldn't find anything available right away. Josh was craving steak, so we looked for a good place for dinner. As it was getting late, we ended up settling for the Southend Smokehouse & Brewery. The ice tea was strange and the service wasn't great, but Josh had some good ribs and my BBQ sandwich was tasty.

This morning we woke up shortly before breakfast was delivered to our room. A standard courtesy at the inn! We were afraid it was going to be a rainy day, but the sun came out around 10am. After much time spent reading tourist books and studying Yelp reviews, we decided we would spend the day as total tourists, and headed off to book harbor and carriage tours. On our way to the tour booth, we wandered through the city market, now bustling with vendors selling everything from homemade sweet grass baskets to knock off sunglasses, and Josh bought me a cute wooden bracelet.

After getting our tickets for the harbor and carriage tour, we grabbed a bite of lunch at the Noisy Oyster. Josh had delicious mahi tacos, and I had a very good salad. The service was a bit spotty and the outdoor atmosphere was marred by construction across the street, but our waiter was contentious of our need to hurry before our tour, which was nice.

From there, we walked a few block to the harbor for our Charleston Harbor Tour. I'm typically somewhat skeptical of things like this that target tourists, but this one had a lot of good reviews and for good reason. It was quite interesting. It was about an hour and a half and we learned all sorts of things about Charleston. The tour included just enough history to be interesting to a history buff like me, but not too much to bore those less interested in history, i.e. Josh. It was also really cool that there were dolphins swimming very close to the boat!

After our Harbor Tour, we walked back into the center of town to catch our Palmetto Carriage tour. I choose this company because they are one of the oldest in Charleston and have the best record of care for their animals. They use a team of mules to pull their carriages instead of horses because they are better suited to the work. Like the harbor tour, this was totally worth the money. It lasted about an hour and was a nice, quiet, way to see many of the interesting and historical sites of the town. Our guide threw in a good mix of history, architecture, and travel tips.

After this busy day of site seeing, we are currently back in the room taking a rest. We have reservations tonight at S.N.O.B. or Slightly North of Broad, which promises to be delicious. More on that to come later.