Good times in low country

Last week I had some touristing in my own city, but this week I went a little farther afield. A friend's parents live on a beautiful barrier island near Charleston, South Carolina, and she invited me down with her for a weekend visit. It was a short trip, but so relaxing down there, that I feel quite refreshed. The tiny island where they live seems like one of the calmest places. It's totally quiet at night except for the birds and insects. Deer roam up to the house and dolphins swim by the marsh right by their dock (full disclosure: I didn't actually see any dolphins myself, but I was told about them in great detail). No one locks their doors and when we biked to the beach or the grocery store (both only 10 minutes away!) we just left them unlocked as well. It's a different world and definitely a different pace than Astoria.

At any rate, here's a few pictures from my trip: 

This was taken in their front yard. I like the ambiance of the Spanish moss and the palms. There were also beautiful azaleas and wisteria blooming everywhere (sadly not pictured). 

First day we arrived was absolutely gorgeous and perfect beach weather! This photo may be documenting the process of me getting a weird sunburn on the part of my left thigh that I somehow missed when applying sunblock, but it was worth it. 

We ate dinner the first night by the marina on the island. Unfortunately the place we were going to go was too crowded, so we ended up getting food from a place that wasn't so great. Well my food was good, but apparently nobody else's. At least we could all enjoy the lovely sunset. 

This is the view from her parent's deck during high tide. It was lovely to sit on the deck or down on the dock with a cup of coffee in the morning.

Beautiful egrets on the water! Just capturing some of the fauna of low country on our bike ride to the grocery store. 

We went into Charleston proper for a day. I didn't get that many pictures of  the beautiful old houses because we mostly drove past them, and it didn't seem worth it to photograph. Suffice is to say, Charleston is a very old and charming city though. And also contained this picturesque graveyard.

The oldest Unitarian Church in the South. Or so said the sign. We were told the ceiling inside was magnificent, but alas, it was closed. 

The Angel Oak. A beautiful old tree that is estimated to be somewhere between 400 and 1,400 years old. I guess they won't know for sure until it dies and they can count the rings, but hopefully that doesn't happen for a while. 

Charleston is definitely a very interesting city, and I'd love to spend more time there sometime. There certainly seem to be a lot of good restaurants, and we only had time to sample a couple. Those of my readers who enjoy house tours (and I know there are at least two of you) would also enjoy that aspect of it. So that's a short summary of my weekend jaunt. It was a lovely time, but I'm also happy to be back to Sam and Dinah who Sam claims did make a show of missing me in my absence.