Tuesday, August 16, 2016

Anniversary Vacation - Part 1

Stephen and I headed down to Charleston, SC on July 29 for a week!  We were there 6 years ago, and loved it so much that we wanted to go back.  And, we did completely different things, which was fun, too!

One thing we were able to do was go see the Hunley, which is the first successful submarine (meaning they sunk a ship).  It was from the Civil War, and wasn't found until 1995, and wasn't brought up until 2000.  They are still working on the ship, which was really cool.  They have another 5-7 years of trying to get the salt out, so that it doesn't rust.

The captain of the boat was known for a tale of him getting this coin from his girlfriend before he went into the war. He was shot in the leg, and it bent the coin and saved his life.  By finding this in his pocket in the Hunley, they were able to verify this tale!


It in kind of hard to see, but here is the sub!  They have to keep it in fresh water in order to pull the salt out of the metal.

Reconstruction of what it would have been like in the sub

Yes, they literally hand cranked it!  I can't imagine!

One of the other things we did on our trip was visit Fort Moultrie, which was only $5 for both of us to get into.  We thought it would be a quick 30/45 minute walk through, but the place was HUGE and we ended up being there for over two hours!!  One thing that made it cool is that it was in several wars, including WWII!  Obviously it wasn't in combat, but it was stationed!  The WWII section was my favorite part of the fort:








Cool flag when there were only 15 stars



This is one of the rarest groupings of cannons because of how many types they had.  That was pretty neat, too!


These are HUGE.  The cannon balls weighed 200 lbs!!!

Here is some perspective for you...

Stephen being funny :)

They brought up the ammunition through this ingenious system up to the top where guys could then loan them into the gun/cannon.

Here are some random shots around Charleston that we took while we were there.  We thought it would rain most of the time, but it ended up not raining hardly at all!  It was cloudy some of the days, but overall we had amazing weather!

Bridge in Charleston

Selfie :)


There are a ton of gorgeous houses in Charleston!













Another shot of the bridge we like.  It connects Charleston to Mt Pleasant.

There were several fountains in the area

(this time with flash)

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