Bridges, Berths, Books, Beaches and HOT South Carolina days…

We’ve been to North America’s longest suspension bridge—no, not the Golden Gate Bridge, the Cooper River Bridge in Charleston, SC http://www.cooperriverbridge.org/. Unfortunately my son’s Cub Scout trip to camp on the aircraft carrier USS Yorktown coincided with the bridge’s grand opening. We couldn’t stay at a B&B in historic Charleston because we wouldn’t have been able to get across the bridge in the morning due to the ceremony. Instead we had to settle for the Red Roof Inn in Mount Pleasant.

As cool as that scout trip sounded, I think those boys were roasting! I toured the ship for about 4 hours before I returned to the Red Roof with a pounding headache. My husband and son spent the night in the carrier’s spacious crew quarters (each berth has 14 bunks most stacked 4 bunks high). They had fun, but didn’t get much sleep. The baby and I had a wonderful Greek dinner and turned in early. The next day I made the boys ride across the bridge with me and tour some historic neighborhoods before we left Charleston for our beach vacation at Hilton Head.

We rented a condo at Palmetto Dunes in Hilton Head Island (one of about 100 resorts on the bottom portion of that island.) Although we resented how touristy and developed the island was, we WERE tourists after all and the beaches there are gorgeous. Several times we’ve rented houses on Edisto Island—much less developed, just beaches, books, card games, puzzles and liquor. We had all those things plus the condo pool, tennis, golf, restaurants and a mall. The entire state of South Carolina has had weeks of temperatures in the upper 90s and 100s. We got to suffer through it at an oceanside resort, at least. In addition to playing some heated games of Battleship, Travis and I both read Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. I can’t believe the ending!

Now it’s back to reality—we picked up the dog, the turtle has buried herself to keep cool, our grass is dying and Travis and I are back to work. I do long for the 6 week holidays I hear our European counterparts get to enjoy!