Continued from Charleston Day 2 Part 1.

Well, there she is, Fort Sumter. Made it here from the terminal in about 30 minutes.

There’s a park ranger giving an info session about the fort. Since we had PL with us, we couldn’t really stay in one spot to listen though.

Part of the fort built after the Civil War.

That’s a big cannon.

Lots of sexual innuendos there.

We all took turns chasing PL around the fort.

That’s a long talk, it’s still going on.

PL is still fascinated by…stairs.

The fort was built on top of a sand bar.

Pretty cool how these cannons were on wheels so could swing in an arc.

Funny proportions.

Tried to take a photo of PL with the giant 15in cannon, but she could not be contained into one spot even for a split second and look at the camera.

Mean while, CL has been a dream baby. Only fusses when she’s hungry, otherwise just happy hanging about. She’s so cute.

Time to eat. I think after this feeding, we’ve had enough of Fort Sumter. And by that, I mean we had enough of chasing PL around the fort and our one hour of free time on the fort is almost up as well.

As promised, the bar did open up for the ride back to Charleston. This is one of the local brews.

Someone had a poopy diaper, and there’s no changing stable inside the restrooms…I guess two chairs pulled together works just as well…

Super good calm baby, in a flash of an eye, clean again. No kicking and screaming while getting changed….unlike someone else…

Decommissioned carrier sitting across from Charleston.

Time to disembark. Now time for a decision. It’s time for PL’s nap, she doesn’t usually fall asleep in her stroller. Should we head back to the hotel and put her down to nap in her crib, or should we just keep her in the stroller and cross all of our fingers and hope that by some miracle she’ll fall asleep instead of just getting more and more irritable…what to do, what to do…

At the end, we elected to chance it and hope that PL will sleep in her stroller. With this decision, we will keep on walking farther away from our hotel and check out City Market.

This is a very Charleston style house. Porches and balcony on every level, with side entry doorway leading to the first floor porch.

Wonder why only the facade of the building was left standing. Loophole in zoning by just keeping the front intact?

Lots of pineapple references here in Charleston.

Love the quaint houses here in Charleston.

Reached City Market.

Meh, not my kind of market. RL says I wouldn’t like any market though, and she’s right.

Sweetgrass baskets, a local handcraft. It’s expensive!!

What a miracle, PL actually fell asleep in her stroller! This means we can now find a place for a late lunch and eat in peace! She’s been super hyper since we left Austin. I hope she’ll calm down a bit as she gets more used to traveling.

Whatever it takes to try to keep her asleep for longer.

This will be lunch spot, right next to the City Market.

Of course, drinks.

I’ve got one hand on my beer and one hand on PL’s stroller moving it back and forth, rocking her to keep sleeping.

She crab soup, basically crab chowder with crab roe. Surprisingly delicious! Would order again, definitely.

Softshell crabs. Yum.

And just as we were all done eating, as we would have it, PL wakes up from her 40 min nap. Must feed her immediately before she gets fussy. Good thing we had planned for this and had ordered food that she could eat.

Loves shrimp and carrots. Yum. We are happy she’s getting a hearty lunch here. Then of course…she poops after eating. I guess we can’t complain too much about that poop timing. At least we are in a place with a bathroom and a changing table.

Meanwhile, still calm and happy.

RL points.

Time for dessert.

Well, that was lame. They had very limited flavors because the ordering manager was out sick so about 2/3 of the flavors were missing. I guess can’t go wrong with strawberry.

The paper wrapping was also ferociously glued onto the cone where it left pieces of paper still glued after peeling it off.

First time for her to see a horse up close. “Neigh!”, she says.

Finally saw one of those free “trolleys” that we were looking to ride around town tomorrow. We kept on expecting to see those trolley style buses, but they were just regular buses.

Loves horses. While we were chatting with the carriage drivers, they were very eager to tell us about how the horses are treated very well, etc. etc. Well, I thought that was odd. Then later we heard a carriage tour going on, and the tour guide was talking about how there were protesters trying to shut them down and it’s because they don’t understand, blah blah blah and how these animals get so much love and rest, etc. Ah, that makes sense now. They also mentioned that there are yellow protest signs around the city, which only made me want to find one and take a photo of it. Now, I’ve got a mission!

This City Market just goes on and on and on. Too bad I am not interested in any of the wares for sale. RL and DH had a good time shopping though.

More expensive sweet grass baskets.

One of the many church spires here in Charleston.

PL points.

This is the “nice” section where it’s enclosed and air conditioned.

Reached the end, finally. It was really only a few city blocks, but just seemed like they sold the same thing booth after booth. That’s how it felt to me at least.

Walked by this super cool store. I guess it’s like a toy store for adults.

That or they hold workshop for kids on building blocks.

Time to refuel.

Somehow, all this clutter makes the place feel warm to me.

Love Frida, and apparently I am not the only one in North America.

Then of course, PL decides to do her business again. There’s no changing table in this coffee shop, so we had to take her out to a nearby park bench to change her. Good thing there weren’t many people around that had to smell her stinky poop.

Now we’ll take a stroll towards the direction of our hotel and see what other cool buildings we can see.

So cute, so calm.

Why are these so expensive?

Remember when American Apparel was everywhere?

Love the new Miata. I want one.

Did not expect to see this here.

Yum. This place is on our list to eat at.

Before showing up in Charleston, I had no idea how big of a college town it was. It’s just crawling with college students and shops that cater to college students.

Arrived back at our hotel and there was a package waiting for us. Well, our hearts sank when at first we were handed a package that had the right last name but the wrong first name. Then we were told that was the only package that had arrived today…Shit. Fortunately, after further search, the correct package was discovered.

Thanks to my sister in law CH, RL now has her phone, id and debit card!! As I later found out, it cost $45 to overnight this…damn. Overnight package is expensive, but better than not having those three items for days.

It was now dinner time. I elected to stay behind with the kids so that I can blog and everyone else can get a good meal in silence. Because the kids sleep so early, we either need to eat dinner at 4pm or eat after they go to bed at around 6ish. I am happy to stay behind and have some alone time sorting through photos and whatnot….though…it’s not fun listening to the kids cry as they fight against sleep in their cribs.

These are RL’s photos.

Prohibition BBQ. RL said it was really good.

RL fell down on her job. She was so eager to eat that she forgot to take a photo of the food before it was all gone!

These guys were learning some kind of salsa group dance. RL wasn’t sure what it was about but a live band was supposed to start at 9:30.

Dessert for all and a Grasshopper for DH.

Irish coffee for BH.

When RL came back from dinner, she brought me dinner to go. Since PL was sleeping in the living room, and CL was sleeping in our bedroom, the only place left for me to eat was in our bathroom. Lucky for me, there was a little table and chair in there for me to sit and eat. I opened up the box and found the world’s smallest portion of monkfish and potatoes. It was like $29 or something like that!! At first we wondered if this was a mistake and I was supposed to get more food, but thinking back RL thought that BH’s monkfish dish was about the same size, but the plate made it look bigger. Oh well, it was at least very delicious.

Now, time to very very quietly take a shower and crawl into bed so neither of the kids wake up…but since CL was out of her routine, she ended up waking up crying multiple times tonight. Sigh, kids.

To be continued at Charleston Day 3 Part 1.