South Carolina

Charleston James Island County Park November 12

After a smooth trip down I26 we arrived at James Island County Park. This was our home for the next 5 days after Morrow Mountain. JICP came highly recommended by several of our RVer friends and we were not disappointed. The park is very well maintained, offers numerous activites such as swimming, dog park, bike and walking trails, fishing and this time of year- Winter Wonderland a fabulous display of over 750 Holiday light arrangements and a beautiful Holiday theme sand sculpture made from 50 tons of sand. This years theme was 1960,s cartoon Christmas shows!

Sand sculpture at JICP, other sides include Charley Brown, Frosty and Rudolf

Winter Wonderland lights even on Palmetto trees!

The sites were well spaced and had full hookups. The office/camp store staff were very friendly and helpfull. This will be a definate place to stay if you are in the area and able to get a site. They stay quite full here.

Our first full day had us feeding the history buff in me. We navigated back across the river over the cool Arthur Ravenel Jr Bridge to Patriots Point, home of the WWII aircraft carrier USS Yorktown CV10. Very cool, lots of supporting items as well, anti-aircraft guns, a WWII destroyer and submarine are all available to visit. A Vietnam War museum and a monument to Cold War Submariners are also located at this site.

USS Yorktown CV10 

However, these were not the focus of this visit. Also located at this site is the boat that takes you out to the mouth of the harbor to Fort Sumter, where the opening shots of the Civil War took place in 1861. Having been a student of the Civil War since grade school, I was eager to set foot there and look around.

Fort Sumter - start of the  Civil War

flag that flew during the battle

While there, I was also able to look South across the harbor to the area where Fort Wagner stood during the Civil War. This fort was made of sand and palmetto logs and was washed away by the 1880’s. Made famous a few years ago in the movie ”Glory”, my great-great grandfather Hugh Calvin McKee fought there with the 76th Pa Vol Infantry. The park rangers give a nice talk and the museum has the original flag that flew over the fort during the bombardment.

Life on a journey like this has its days of routine stuff and our second day was just that. I had several maintenance things to do to both the RV and the Jeep and Cindy needed some laundry time. With that in mind and wanting to get the dogs to the dog park, we filled up our day by going to the Holiday Light display.

JICP Dog Park - lots of fun!

This area is quite different from Lancaster County in many ways, palmetto trees, sandy soil, marshes, tidal flats and swamps are abundant. Our third day we drove over to Caw Caw Interpretive Center at Ravenel.

swamp at Caw Caw- those things sticking up are Cyprus knees

This nature center/preserve is on the site of several colonial era rice plantations and today provides habitat for numerous waterfowl, raptors, alligators, otters, deer and others. You may walk the grounds on several designated trails and we chose the combination that took us through the forrest out to the tidal marsh, across the rice field dikes and back along a boardwalk through the swamp and fresh water swamp.

colonial era rice field - now wildlife habitat

Yes, we did see alligators!

young alligator in center

A trip was laid on to spend the day in downtown Charleston. JICP has a shuttle service available that drops you at the visitors center downtown for pretty much what it would cost you to park there. With the traffic in Charleston being rather heavy and the reports of parking being an issue we didn't want to deal with, we opted for this service. The visitor center staff were friendly and informative and we took their advice to tour the historic old city section via horse drawn carriage.

retired Amish farm horse took us through the historic city with a well informed guide - old dungeon ahead

Charleston real estate gets quite pricey as you approach the old town and water front. Here houses start at $1 million and go up in proportion to closeness to the water!! Houses in the historic area must follow strict codes as far as maintenance and outside appearance.

door leads to the veranda!

Rainbow row is a block near the waterfront where all the houses are pastel colors and must stay that way!

We enjoyed touring the  old market, eating at Fleet Landing restaurant where we had delicious She Crab soup, seafood stuffed hush puppies and boiled shrimp - all served to us by our waitress from....Pottsville PA! (this came out when I ordered a Yuengling Lager to go with lunch) We walked cobblestone streets brought over in the late 1600's as ballast, looked at the beautiful architecture and thoroughly enjoyed our day. Cindy's Fitbit showed over 15000 steps and we were very glad when the shuttle driver offered to drop us off at our campsite at the end of the day.

fountain at waterfront

US Customs House

Our last full day in the Charleston area saw us head over to the only tea producing farm in the Northern Hemisphere - Charleston Tea Plantation. There we took a brief factory tour and a half hour trolley ride through the only tea producing fields in the USA. We never knew tea comes off a woody shrub, similar to a boxwood (in appearance only) and they can live for hundreds of years. The climate and soil of the Charleston area is perfect for the Tea plants and the farm is producing and shipping to 17 states as of this time under the name "American Classic Tea" and others.

Tea plants - they get trimmed about 8 -10 times a year by a special machine

Cindy and Waddy

On our way to the Tea Plantation, we stopped to see Angel Oak an enormous 400 yr old oak tree.

look at the people near it for scale!

We have kept quite busy this week, trying to utilize the few days we had in the area to our utmost advantage. Next stop will see a bit more down time, but still things to report on.


Cooper is ready to turn in now.

Good Night

Cooper and CJ