Another wonderful opportunity to prove the travel guide is full of crap. I don’t have the good ole AAA book in front of me but I suspect the entry for Patriot’s Point would suggest allowing approximately three hours to tour the ships. I took something like eight. Unbelievable.
In my defense it was some cool stuff. A WWII destroyer, a surprisingly interesting Coast Guard Cutter with pot leaves on the side, a late-WW2 diesel boat that clearly showed the transition to nuclear submarines and the second USS Yorktown aircraft carrier. Too much stuff to absorb in a single day. Even I got burned out on reading signs and exploring the steel depths of warships. And that from a man who spent six hours just on a battleship.
Enough already. Heading south. Pretty cool drive out of Charleston. Finally visited the site of Fort Johnson from which the first shot of the Civil War was fired at 4:30 AM April 12, 1861. There’s only a small building left of the fort and the site of the first shot is about 25 yards out in Charleston Harbor. Pity. Very cool to stand there, though, and know that only the truly mental would bother to seek out this spot and gaze contemplatively out at a surprisingly close Fort Sumter and laugh at how profoundly ignorant the rednecks that pulled that first lanyard were.
Silly Rebels.
Also got to swing by Secessionville – which I know nothing about but which always fascinated me. And even better, drove by a historical marker pointing out the grave of William Washington: a big lad, cousin of famous George, and one of the reasons for our resounding victory at Cowpens.
A partial day of obscure sites that make me happy. I like Charleston.