Charleston Day Two

Good sleep last night! 

Packed up and checked out of the hotel this morning. Stopped at the gas station for a couple donuts and headed out for the day.

First stop of the day was the Angel Oak. As usual Kurt set the GPS to avoid highways so interesting drive. Angel Oak is a live oak thought to be 300 to 400 year old. It is 65 feet high and circumference of the trunk is 25.5 feet. Area of shade is 17,000 sq feet. It's largest limb circumference is 11.25 feet and length of 89 feet. They had large wooden posts helping to hold up the limbs. Many of the limbs are actually hollow. It was beautiful!!! 

Next stop was Charleston Tea Garden. Out the boonies but another neat stop. The have a cute little gift shop with different hot and cold teas you can sample. We started with a video factory tour on the processing of the tea leaves. They tour was just three different video screens you watched as you went along the windows looking into the factory. Unfortunately, they will not start harvesting for another couple weeks so nothing going on in the factory right now. After the video tour we took a trolly tour around the grounds. Our tour guide Andi was great! Very informative but also very funny. 

Couple fun facts on tea:

• They use acetone to decaffeinate tea. As an alternative you can add hot water and let steep for a minute. Dump this cup and brew a second one to drink. The hot water removes 65% of the tea naturally.
• American Classic Tea made at Charleston Tea Garden is the only tea grown in the United States
• Almost all the taste of the tea actually comes from the ground the tea plants are grown in not the actual plant.
• When a plant dies they leave it where it is as the root system goes down over 5 feet. If you were to pull out a dead plant you would disrupt the roots of healthy plants. As you go along the field you can see patches of dead plants.
• The plants actually bloom in October, at the end of harvest season.
• My favorite tea was actually the Mint.  

Getting pretty hungry by the time we left so time for some lunch. I really wanted to get to a beach while we here so headed for Folly Beach for some lunch. As these places are all on islands while it may only be 15 miles away it takes about 45 minutes to get somewhere as there are only so many roads and bridges between the islands. And the traffic! 

Anyways, the original restaurant I had picked was not on the water so we ended up at Pier 101 which was right on the Folly Beach Pier. I originally was going to be brave and we were going to sit outside but as the hostess was asking which table we wanted I caught sight of a bird and lost the nerve. Back inside we went - literally the ONLY people sitting outside ona gorgeous day. But I don't care as sitting inside I could see the numerous birds out there and I would have been on edge the whole time outside. I had the flounder sandwich and Kurt the Mahi Mahi plate. Both were delicious! After lunch we walked to the end of the pier. Watched the waves roll in, some kids trying to surf, and quite a few fishing. One guy caught a stingray while we were there.

Chase called and was done with classes so we decided to head back and meet up with him. Couldn't quite check in to the Airbnb yet so met him at Holy City Brewing for one before we went to the house. Unloaded and hung at the house for a little bit before we headed out to the Park Circle area. Lots of restaurants and bars less than a half mile down the road.

The long awaited picture of Chase!

We went to the Tattooed Moose for a bite to eat. Chase said he has heard lots of good things about it. Kurt and I weren't super hungry so got aps - Pimento cheese with warm pita bread (yummy!!!) and Kurt got some Nashville hot wings (I guess they were good but VERY HOT!). Chase got the Famous Duck Club and street corn, both which he said were excellent. I tried a little piece of duck which I really didn't expect to like but was actually good.

Just as we were finishing up the wind started to pick up and a quick storm blew through. We were under an awning but the wind was blowing the rain in so we moved inside to finish up our drinks and play a little game of Penny Drop (I won!).

After supper we walked down to Commonhouse Aleworks. They had live music so though we would check it out. Very good beers - she even had me sample a sour which I don't normally like but was quite good. Another game of Penny Drop (I won again!) and a once again a quick storm blew through. I guess this is quite common. 

Walked back to our house and watched some TV, played some trivia and Would You Rather and now everyone is off to bed while I blog. Please excuse any errors as I am tired too but wanted to get this in. There was a party going next door but sounds like they wrapped up which means I should head to be too. USS Yorktown tomorrow!