Lake Aire RV Park & Campground- Charleston, SC

 Lake Aire RV Park & Campground- Charleston, SC

One of our first stops was at Patriots Point Naval and Maritime Museum in the Charleston Harbor. This was on our "must see" list for the city.

The above sail is from a 640 Class Ballistic Submarine, the SSBN 644 USS Lewis and Clark. The submarine is supposed to look as if it was surfacing from underwater through the grass.  

 

The Cold War lasted 42 years- from March 1947 to November 1989.  Mark spent 12 years, almost 30% of the Cold War, aboard submarines.  

Starting the tour of Fort Sumter with our Star Model, Lisa-minus her trusty sidekick, Karma.

Fort Sumter is accessible by boat only. This was our first view of the fort as we were approaching. 

Notice the American Flag- it is the style flag that would have flown over Fort Sumter after the Civil War. 

This 15 inch Rodman Cannon with a range of 5500 yards was one of several types of cannons displayed.

This 8" Columbiad cannon has a range of 4800 yards.

The 10" Mortar cannon has a range of 2200 yards.

It is hard to believe that in the mid 1800's, there was the capability to blast shells over 3 miles. 

These rifled style shells penetrated the walls at Fort Sumter.

This repaired cannon would have shot through the cannon ports in the fort walls.

The actual flag that was flown at Fort Sumter when the Civil War started. Notice the difference in the stars from present day flags.

A model of what Fort Sumter would have looked like prior to April 12, 1861.  All of the buildings that are on 3 sides of the fort are completely gone.  The walls that stood 50 feet tall were decimated to an average height of 10 feet.

USS Yorktown, an aircraft carrier, as seen from the water. She is now a museum ship and a National Historic Landmark.

Dolphins playing off the bow of the boat we took to Fort Sumter.

The insignia of the U.S. submarine service is a submarine flanked by two dolphins. Dolphins, attendants to Poseidon, the Greek god of the sea and patron deity to sailors, is sometimes referred to as the sailor's friend. Sailors "get their dolphins" when they qualify in submarines by completing an extensive qualification process that lasts about one year. Both enlisted and officers are required to qualify in their respective programs that cover all the submarine's systems. 

The Bennett Rice Mill façade stands at the enter of the SC Ports Authority’s Union Pier Terminal in downtown Charleston. The mill, which opened in 1845, is considered one of the finest examples of 19th-century American industrial architecture.

An architectural design we found interesting in Charleston was the door on the street side typically opens up into a porch.  Entry into the home is via a door off the porch from the side of the house.  Due to the grid system of Charleston, homes can be laid out east-west or north-south. The porches are always on the south or west sides to protect from the late afternoon sun when Charleston is at its hottest.

The Col. William Rhett House was built in 1712 as the main house for Point Plantation, later known as Rhettsbury, lying outside the walled city's limits. 

The John Cordes Prioleau House is a historic residence built in 1808 in Charleston.

 Construction of the US Custom House began in 1852, but was interrupted in 1859 due to costs and the possibility of South Carolina's secession from the Union. After the Civil War, construction was restarted in 1870 and completed in 1879. 

An architectural mix of townhouses located on Broad St. 

St. Michael's Anglican Church (formerly St. Michael's Episcopal Church) is a historic church and the oldest surviving religious structure in Charleston.  It was built in the 1750s by order of the South Carolina Assembly.

The historic U.S. Post Office and Courthouse, built in 1896, serves as the federal court for South Carolina.

Poyas Mordecai House, circa 1788, is a historical landmark. An interesting fact-Mr. Mordecai brought home the bodies of South Carolina soldiers who fell at Gettysburg at his own expense. He owned a fleet of merchant ships and imported many goods. Many of his ships were used by the Confederate army during the Civil War. He lost his great wealth during the war and had to rebuild his fortune after the war. 

South Carolina Society Hall, designed by Gabriel Manigault, was built between 1799 and 1804. The portico, designed by Frederick Wesner, was added in 1825. It is regarded as one of the most historic and beautiful buildings in the nation.

Washington Square is a park downtown in the historic district of Charleston named in honor of George Washington. The planting beds and red brick walks were installed in April 1881. 

Along the east wall of the park is a monument to Gen. Pierre Beauregard, the Confederate general in charge of the city's defenses from 1862-1864.

In the center of the park is a memorial to the Washington Light Infantry. The memorial is a miniature version of the Washington Monument in Washington, D.C. The memorial is about forty-two feet high and is inscribed with the names of important military battles. It was unveiled on February 23, 1891.

William J. Johnston was a drummer boy in Company D of the 3rd Vermont Infantry during the American Civil War. When his division was routed during the Seven Days Battles during the Peninsula Campaign of June to July 1862, he was the only drummer to come away with his instrument. His superiors considered this a meritorious feat, given that the regiment's other soldiers had thrown away their guns and equipment to lighten their loads as they retreated. As a result, he received the Medal of Honor in 1863; at age 13, he remains the youngest recipient of the award.

Mary Edwards Walker, M.D. was an American abolitionist, prohibitionist, prisoner of war and surgeon. She is the only woman to ever receive the Medal of Honor.

In 1855, she earned her medical degree at Syracuse Medical College in New York, married and started a medical practice. She attempted to join the Union Army at the outbreak of the American Civil War and was denied. She served as a surgeon at a temporary hospital in Washington, D.C. before being hired by Union Forces and assigned to Army of the Cumberland and later the 52nd Ohio Infantry, becoming the first female surgeon in the US Army. She was captured by Confederate forces after crossing enemy lines to treat wounded civilians and arrested as a spy. She was sent as a prisoner of war to Richmond, Virginia until released in a prisoner exchange.

Apollo 8 (December 21–27, 1968) was the first crewed spacecraft to leave low Earth orbit and the first human spaceflight to reach the Moon. The crew orbited the Moon ten times without landing, and then departed safely back to Earth. These three astronauts-Frank Borman, James Lovell, and William Anders-were the first humans to personally witness and photograph the far side of the Moon and an Earthrise.

Apollo 8 launched on December 21, 1968, and was the second crewed spaceflight mission flown in the United States Apollo space program after Apollo 7, which stayed in Earth orbit. Apollo 8 was the third flight and the first crewed launch of the Saturn V rocket, and was the first human spaceflight from the Kennedy Space Center, located adjacent to Cape Kennedy Air Force Station in Florida.

Apollo 8 took 68 hours to travel the distance to the Moon. The crew orbited the Moon ten times over the course of twenty hours, With Apollo 11 in July 1969, the fulfillment of U.S. president John F. Kennedy's goal of landing a man on the Moon before the end of the decade. The Apollo 8 astronauts returned to Earth on December 27, 1968, when their spacecraft splashed down in the northern Pacific Ocean. Apollo 8 Capsule was recovered by the USS Yorktown.

Lisa is investigating 2 different fighter aircraft aboard the USS Yorktown on the flight deck.

Located on Shutes Folly, a small island about one mile off the Charleston shore in the harbor, the fort was built over the ruins of an older fortification called "Fort Pinckney". The original log and earthen fort, named after the Revolutionary War hero Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, was built beginning in 1797 and was intended to protect the city from a possible naval attack when war with France seemed imminent. A replacement brick-and-mortar structure called "Castle Pinckney" was erected in 1809–1810 and was garrisoned throughout the War of 1812.

By the late 1850s, Castle Pinckney was part of a network of defensive positions in the harbor, which included the larger and more strategically placed Forts Sumter and Moultrie, and other, smaller earthworks and fortifications.

On December 27, 1860, one week after South Carolina seceded from the Union, the fort was surrendered to South Carolina militia by its small U.S. Army garrison. Castle Pinckney became the first Federal military installation seized forcefully by a Southern state government.

One hundred and fifty-four Union army prisoners of war (120 enlisted, 34 officers) captured during the First Battle of Bull Run and previously incarcerated at Ligon's were kept at the Charleston City Jail until the lower casemates of Castle Pinckney were converted into cells.

The Angel Oak tree is one of the most visited sites in the area.  Not many trees have their own gift shops and full time staff to protect it. 

Karma was napping at lunch after a long walk on the beach in South Charleston. We found a restaurant on the beach with an outdoor patio so he could sit with us. The town is pretty dog friendly.  He always gets lots of love and attention when he is out with us, which he loves. We call him our attention whore. I think we wore him out today though. He knows he has to be a good boy to go with us. Good boys get special treats and get to go. Bad boys get left at home.  There is absolutely no where he would rather be than with us, so he does amazingly well no matter where we take him. I know we brag on him frequently, but he truly deserves it. The big doofus definitely keeps us entertained.