Month: May 2021

James Island County Park is a 643 acre park with a campground, 4.5 miles of  paved bike trails through wooded and open areas, a fishing pier, canoe launch area, and many other day-use amenities.  The park is fairly similar to Stony Creek or Kensington Metroparks. The campground has 124 sites, including some with full hook-ups.  Most of the sites are well-spaced with a decent amount of trees and shrubs in between. This park was a nice, spacious contrast to the campground onTybee Island.

We spent our first afternoon exploring the park and relaxing. The next day we drove into Charleston. We parked where we had in 2017, when we spent a couple of nights at the historic Elliot House.  On that trip we visited Fort Sumter and used the city buses to quickly go to different parts of the city, as well as to cool off (it was about 100 degrees in July of ’17). We were so happy we had seen so much during our last visit, because this time the buses were not running. Even if they had been, we would not have boarded a bus during the pandemic. We didn’t feel a lot of pressure to see everything, since we had already seen so much. We spent 2 – 3 hours walking through the historic district,  along the waterfront area and through some parks.

When we were ready for lunch, we really wanted to return to Amen Street Fish & Raw Bar where we enjoyed a fabulous dinner before (heavenly she-crab soup and crab cakes) , but it was packed full of people. Our back-up plan was to go to The Griffin, a pub which had an outdoor patio, but the patio was too crowded for our comfort. Though this was disappointing, we looked online and discovered another area of Charleston, known as The Brewery District. The area is somewhat similar to Midtown in Detroit, with older homes being refurbished and old warehouse areas becoming restaurants and breweries. We went to a really nice restaurant and microbrewery called Edmund’s Oast. The seating was all outdoors  (due to the pandemic) with a huge patio, many well-spaced tables and very strict mask protocols. The place had a great atmosphere and we were happy to relax and have an awsome lunch and beer, after so much walking. At one point, Dave announced he was on “historical overload”. Considering that, and the fact that Goolge Maps failed us on the way home, we agreed the next day should be more relaxing.

We spent an afternoon at Folly Beach, a small beach town. It is apparent that it’s a weekend or holiday destination for locals. There are  shops and restaurants, while the beach and fishing pier are the main attractions. It was not warm enough for swimming or comfortably sitting on the beach and the fishing pier was under reconstruction. Many businesses in town were still closed for the season.  These were perfect conditions to check it out, without any crowds. We will likely return during a future visit to the area.

 

Beautiful campsite at James Island County Park, Charleston, SC

The Rivers End Campground is located near the north end of Tybee Island. The campground includes full hook-up RV sites, tent sites, laundry facilities, a store and a swimming pool. Campsites are assigned by the campground and we were fortunate to get the site with the most privacy. Overall, it was a nice campground.

We arrived on a chilly, cloudy Friday afternoon, so the island was fairly quiet. We walked several miles around the north end of the island.

On Saturday we  drove to Savannah, about 20 minutes away, and spent several hours walking around the historic district.  Established in 1733, the city is America’s first planned city and was laid out in a grid pattern, allowing for wide streets and public squares. There are 22 squares, which are small parks with trees, monuments, fountains, plants and park benches.  The squares are well-used by locals and visitors, with people doing yoga, sitting on benches and walking. We walked through about half of the squares, checking out the exteriors of historic homes and churches, and then to the historic waterfront. Surprisingly, the area was not at all crowded at noon on a Saturday. The restaurants were fairly empty, so we were able to get a table on a 2nd floor terrace, overlooking the waterfront. It was our first meal at a restaurant since fall of last year. It was a fabulous lunch.

On our way back to the campground we stopped a fish market. The woman behind the counter was from Marine City, MI. We got a nice “local’s discount” on our fish! We also drove through the town on Tybee Island. The restaurants and bars were jam-packed and the sidewalks were crowded with unmasked people, some walking around in swimwear. Needless to say, there would be no visits to town for us, on this trip.

The next day we returned to Savannah to explore the rest of the historic town squares and Forsyth Park and return to the waterfront. We learned that Sundays and very busy there. It appeared that many people were there for brunch, as the restaurants were quite full of people.  We had lunch at a hot dog stand that also sold pretty decent veggie dogs.  It was our anniversary (17 years!), but I was happy with the affordable, outdoor, social-distanced lunch. This was an opportunity to remind Dave of the fact that  l am a low-maintenance wife.

Our last day on Tybee Island, we used the nice laundry facilities, rode our bikes around most of the Island and just relaxed. We would be leaving for Charleston the next day. We really enjoyed Savannah and will likely return soon. Having already walked the entire historic district, we might check out a couple of museums  and restaurants when there is no pandemic (hoping that will actually happen one day…).