Weekend at Charleston

We had a change of plans for our weekend. The trip to Richmond VA was dumped due the Henrico County School System’s realisation that about a gazillion people were going to descend upon their 1000 iBooks for $50 each sale! Yah, put that info out to the public and what do you THINK will happen, geniuses? They pulled the sale and made it for Henrico County residents only, as it should have been in the first place, IMO.

So, having the time off and still needing a break, we decided to head to Charleston SC. Nick has never seen the Atlantic and we both enjoy historical and military museums so touring the Yorktown at Patriot’s Point is perfect for us. Plus, Charleston is an easy 5 hour drive from here.

We got into Charleston at around 4 pm Saturday and headed straight downtown to check out the Market and have a bite to eat. As we were walking down Meeting Street, some sales weasel guy grabbed us and talked us into doing one of those “Vacation Club” talks for some free stuff. We signed up for Sunday at Noon and continued on to the Market area where there is the open air market full of vendors of all types (art, cookbooks, jewelry, baskets, clothing, tourist crap) and lots of restaurants. We ended up at the Noisy Oyster for beer and some cold shrimp. We hung out there and were getting ready to head to Bubba Gump’s when the bartender said we’d be better off eating there or Hyman’s Seafood. We looked at the menu and decided to have the seafood boil there at the Noisy Oyster. It was very good and at a great price ($24.95 that feeds 2).

While sitting there at the Noisy Oyster, we were smoking a clove cig (yes, you can still smoke there! yay!) and I noticed it wafting up to the table above us in the dining room, so I asked if it was bothering the couple sitting there. The woman said no and the man said, nah, what I smoke has a strong smell, too, just not like that. With that, we get into a conversation about smoking pot and the reasons why it’s still illegal. We also talked about hemp being the fabulously useful plant that it is and why so many corporations lobby to keep it illegal. He asked if we party and I said yes then we got into another conversation about whose candy was best… The rest of which won’t be published here! LOL We were suppposed to meet them later on to party, but we hadn’t planned on having to spend a couple of hours searching for a room. By the time we found a room (a few exits back up the highway) and got cleaned up, it was almost 11pm, so we gave up going back to Charleston and drank wine in our room. We still had fun, despite the lack of partying!

Sunday we got up and headed to our “Vacation Club” sales pitch. It was actually very fun and we are now seriously thinking of doing this in the future. This concept is NOT a time share deal at all, it’s an actual club that you buy into. You purchase points that are then used to “buy” your vacation lodging at any of their properties PLUS any of the thousands of properties in the RCI exchange program (which is the HUGE company that pools timeshares and coordinates the exchange of one place/time for another by its members). In addition, you are an owner, so it goes towards your assets. The downside is that it’s a large chunk of money that you are investing. It’s like buying a vacation home, really, except that you have the flexibility to go anywhere you want anytime you want. The investment is around $28,000, which sounds HORRIBLE, but when you factor in the longterm bennies, it’s a great deal. You vacation in 5 star resorts for dirt cheap rates (like $150/night all inclusive) and you are an owner of property to boot. It’s definitely an investment and we plan to do it in a few years when we’re more financially stable.

So we passed on the club and got our free stuff:
1. free tix to the Yorktown
2. TWO $25 coupons for any of the good restaurants in town
3. a 3 day, 2 night voucher for lodging at a list of about 2 dozen cities

We are planning to use the voucher to go to Vegas later this year! We wanted to go anyway, now with free lodging, we’re definitely doing it! Clark Howard always advises to do these promotional things for the free stuff and we agree! The free stuff we got saved us $28 for the Yorktown and we had a frou-frou lunch that was half price thanks to one of those coupons. Nice!

After our frou-frou lunch on Sunday we were rushing to get to Patriot’s Point to tour the Yorktown when it occurred to us that we could relax and do it Monday. We were already booked at The Ocean Inn on Isle of Palms for Monday night, so we decided to take our time and tool around Charleston before heading to the beach then do the Yorktown right before we left on Monday.

I just love the Ocean Inn! The rates are good and the rooms all have kitchenettes. I highly recommend staying there if you head to Charleston. We checked in and went to the beach for a bit. We were going to have dinner out, but the restaurant that I called (and was told they stayed open until 10pm) actually closed at 9:30, so we came back and had snacks instead. Nick drank a bunch of wine and got tipsy and I had TWO, yes TWO rolls to see if they’d work. They didn’t. Although we stayed out on the beach until 2am talking and smoking, I did not get anything more than speedy (for about 8 hours). I also did not get any sleep at all thanks to that, which made Monday a bit of a chore.

We got up Monday and hit the beach in the rain. We were so happy that we didn’t have to deal with full sun (since we both already had some sun just from walking around). The surf was HUGE! I’m going to make sure to go to the beach in the rain whenever I can. I’m sore today from wrestling the surf yesterday! We got cleaned up and headed to Patriot’s Point to tour the Yorktown and other military stuff. I was dog tired, but we did almost the whole ship plus aircraft and Nick went thru the submarine. I’ve been there before so I bailed on doing the sub.

Oh, yes, and the new suspension bridge over the Cooper River is fantastic! We got a few daytime shots, but we didn’t have the chance to get any night time shots. It’s the longest “cable stay span” bridge in the US. Cool!

We both enjoy military and other historical sites and if you do, too, then I highly recommend Charleston for a vacation. I mean, it’s perfect: historical downtown, good restaurants, the Yorktown AND the beach! Plus it’s close to Atlanta. It really is becoming my favourite vacation spot since the poor Gulf Coast lost its beaches to the hurricanes.

We had a truly amazing time together. I’m very happy that we went on this trip! It’s true that we didn’t need to spend the money before con, but in this case, it was damn well worth it. Nick and I needed to reconnect and our night on the beach definitely did that for us. It was great!