Folly Beach, South Carolina

Last week we were down in South Carolina on vacation, staying at a lovely 3 bedroom, 3 bath townhouse located at Folly Beach. We had actually planned to go there the first week of October, but when Andy called and said he would be in St. Louis the first weekend we changed our plans so that we could see him. We hadn't been with him and Megan since Christmas, and that was only for one day. The change ended up having consequences as our friends who were coming with us could only come for part of the week at the end of October, my sister fell and broke her shoulder in 3 places and I wasn't here for her surgery, and the Cardinals ended up in the World Series and Jim had a ticket to game 7.

But we didn't know all those things when we made the plans back in August. So Jim and I had the place to ourselves the first few days. The townhouse overlooks a wetlands area and the Folly River. It was a short walk into town for shopping and restaurants, as well as the Atlantic Ocean Beach.

The owner of the townhouse provided bicycles, so the first day we road around the island. On Tuesday we drove down to Savannah, Georgia which is about a 2 hour drive. We took the trolley tour around the old town area since you had on and off privileges. We definitely could have used more time here. On our way back to Folly Beach we stopped at Hilton Head, South Carolina. Neither of us was too impressed with this island. We ate at a restaurant at the western edge of the island so we could see the sunset. The sand fleas were biting so bad that we had to eat indoors.

Our friend Kathy arrived on Wednesday afternoon. We showed her around Folly Beach and had supper in town before heading home to watch the Cardinals play. On Thursday we toured the Magnolia House and Gardens, a beautiful plantation. Then we picked up Kathy's husband Paul at the airport. We went to a sport's bar and, I kid you not, they had skate boarding on all the television sets instead of the World Series. They did begrudgingly change one of the sets for us. Since a really crappy band was setting up, we ate quickly and went back to the townhouse to watch amazing game 6. I have to say that it sucked to be on eastern time for the games! Late nights...

On Friday we took a boat tour of Folly River and Morris Island, which is the closest you can get to the 6th oldest lighthouse in America. The day was sunny but very windy and a little cool. The island was desolate and we were the only ones there. The ride back was pleasant since we were no longer riding into the wind, and the dolphins played around the boat. That was very cool.

Saturday we spent the day looking around Charleston, and we did tour an old mansion as well. Then on Sunday we went back to Charleston and did the tour of Fort Sumter, which is where the first shot of the Civil War was fired. It was interesting, but would have been better had it not been so darn windy.

We came back home Sunday night, though we didn't get back to our house until 12:30 a.m. All in all, it was another fun vacation shared with good friends.