Our RV Adventures

Well, we did manage to extract our coach from the soggy mudhole that was masquerading as our RV site in Charleston.  We left earlier than we normally do because today was going be a 260 mile trip.

We headed out about 9 am up I-26 toward Asheville, NC.  We wanted to visit the Biltmore Estate and the surrounding area.

About a hour out of Charleston, we encountered something we hadn’t seen in a good while, in fact, had almost forgotten they existed.

Hills, and then,  mountains!

The last time we drove through any type of hills was last November as we traveled back through Tennessee and north Alabama. Of course, the real downside was my normal 9.5 mpg I get on the flat, dropped to 7.5.

Our only stop on the trip was in Spartanburg, SC for lunch.  We had seen a show on the Food Channel about the The Beacon Drive-in there, and wanted to give it a try.

And it was certainly worth the 3 mile trip off the Interstate.  The Beacon opened in 1946 and has been going strong ever since.

They’re the second largest drive-in the US and serves more iced tea than any other restaurant in America.

Of course, I had to know where the largest drive-in is. 

And it’s The Varsity Drive-in in Atlanta, GA.  (Remember Google is your friend.)  Plus The Varsity is older, opening in 1928.

Jan and I had cheesesburgers with fries and onion rings, and of course, iced tea.  And the cheeseburgers were great!  Your good old-fashioned slightly-greasy cheeseburger.  As I said, well worth the stop.

And the place is huge.  I had checked Google Maps to see if there was a place nearby we could easily park the coach.  And discovered their parking lot was enormous.  It’s the size of 4 football fields.

Here is where we parked at the corner of their lot.

Beacon Parking

And here’s how far it was to the restaurant itself.

The Beacon Drive-in

And there’s another parking area just as big on the far side of the building.  And it’s needed as they regularly serve over 5000 people a day.

About a hour after we left Spartanburg, we pulled into our site at Rutledge Lake RV Resort, and it’s so much better than where we were at in Charleston.

Here’s where we are.

Rutledge Lake RV Resort

As you can see, Mister is already checking things out for us.

More tomorrow…

Today is our last full day in Charleston.

We decided to take a Charleston Harbour Tour to see some more of the history of the place.

It’s been a while since we’ve had a real breakfast so we stopped off at an IHOP on the way to the docks.

While we were waiting for our tour boat, we got a good look at the new (2005) Ravenel cable-stayed bridge. 

The pylons are 575 high, the roadway is 186 feet above the water, and the bridge has a main span of 1,546 feet, the longest among cable-stayed bridges in the Western Hemisphere. And it’s 8 lanes wide plus a walking/bike lane.

It’s a big one.

Ravenel Bridge

Ravenel Bridge Closeup

We also could see the USS Yorktown moored right across the river from us.  It’s now a floating museum, along with a submarine, a destroyer, and a Coast Guard cutter.

Carolina Belle

Heading out from the dock we passed some of the large, expensive houses along the river.

Millionaire's Row

 And everywhere you turn, there are boats and more boats, big ones, little ones, boats everywhere.

3 masted schooner

The far point of our trip took us by historic Fort Sumter, where the first shots of the Civil War were fired.

Fort Sumter

Fort Sumter Closeup

We had thought about taking one of the tours that stops at the Fort, but with temps supposed to hit 97-100 today we decide to just wave as we went by.

So we did.

Heading back around the bay we part Fort Moultrie, another fort involved in the Civil War.

Fort Moultrie

A closeup of the USS Yorktown and a Navy Hawkeye AWACS aircraft.

USS Yorktown with Hawkeye

Next we passed a larger container ship being unloaded.  Charleston is one of the largest container ports in the US and one of these ships can be unloaded at the rate of 40-60 containers per hour.

Container Ship

After our 90 minute tour wrapped up, we headed over the Ravenel Bridge to Mt Pleasant.  We were looking for a Whole Foods Market to pick up some Aunt Gussie’s Organic Sugar-Free Cookies.  We really like them and Whole Foods seems to be the only place we can find them reliably.

By now it was almost 4 pm so we headed back over to Meeting St. to eat at Hyman’s Seafood.  We were told to be sure and eat here before we left and this was our last chance.

And it was certainly worth the visit, although Jan and I both ordered from the Deli menu instead of the seafood menu.

Jan had a fantastic chicken salad sandwich and I had a Reuben on grilled rye.   We both ordered the regular size sandwiches, which was good since we couldn’t have eaten the large ones. 

We also had the potato salad and hushpuppies.

The hushpuppies were a little different.  They were more sweet than I’m used to.  But it all worked out since they made a nice dessert.  This was good since we really too full to order a real dessert.

Hyman’s is another one of those places you seem to find in Charleston where the family and the business have been around for ever.

The family has been in business on this block since 1890 and in the restaurant business here since 1986.  The 5th generation is now involved in running things.

The staff is very friendly and took a lot of pains to be sure we were happy.  We spent several minutes talking to ‘Mr V.’, who seems to be a roving good will ambassador for the place.

And we were lucky.  We got there about 4:30 pm and were seated right away.  However later arrivals were not so lucky.  There was a long line outside when we left  about 6 pm.  Here’s what it can look like when they’re busy.

Hyman's on a wait

Be sure and check out their website at Hyman’s Seafood.  It’s an interesting site.

Well, tomorrow we’re heading for Asheville, NC.  We want to visit the Biltmore Hotel there, and then stop off at my cousin’s in Graham, NC on our way to Virginia Beach and Kill Devil Hill.

More tomorrow from another state…