Charleston: Fantasy trees

We spent four beautiful days in Charleston over Ted's Spring Break. It was a break he sorely needed, and this time (as opposed to his Fall Break when we went to Hershey), everything was due before the break, so he could actually relax. We went with two other families, stayed in the same hotel, ate at the same joints, toured the same sights and everything. It was such a gas! We had a ball, even though the other couples left a day earlier than we did. On our last day, we visited an outdoor market with vendors who sold much of the same thing (so of course it reminded me of downtown L.A.). Some was kitschy, some was quite pretty, and some of it belonged in the garbage.

We looked through some photographed prints at one stand, and stopped at one incredible image of a tree. We asked the vendor what it was, and he said it was an oak that was 1500 years old, called the "Angel Oak Tree", and it lived on St John's Island, which was about 20 minutes away. After grabbing lunch and driving through the Citadel, we headed over there, not knowing exactly where it was, but hoping our GPS could give us some info. It did, and we found it, and we were SO GLAD we did. It was even more incredible than the pictures showed, because this thing was so huge, there's no way it could be captured in just one shot. The branches actually spanned almost two acres and had to be propped up off the ground. Keep in mind these next four shots are all one tree. By my calculations, the seed must have taken root only one lifetime after Moroni buried the plates in the hillside. So cool! ;)

Our last day together, all three families went to visit the Boone Plantation, made famous by the movie The Notebook. The house, Boone Hall, was grand, but the grounds were what was really impressive. There were fields galore for strawberries, pumpkins, green beans, melons (the kind you eat), eggplant, grapes, and all sorts of other things. They even made their own honey on the plantation. The whole place used to grow indigo, but once cotton became "king", the Boone Plantation (and most others) switched to cotton.


And my favorite, these oak trees that were just dripping with Spanish moss were glorious. On a whim, we popped the kids up into the branches and got them giddy with laughter.

Couldn't you just EAT THEM UP???