Nomad Feet - A Slightly Messed Up Trip to the Coast

Yesterday I did my routine trip down to Charleston to relax and try to shed some of the stink associated with living in a small suburban town outside of Columbia. Actually, my short escape had more to do with blowing off steam from having to pull the Mr. Mom load while my wife was in Switzerland on business, but it's probably not important to quibble over relatively minor details. So the night before I loaded up my MP3 player with interesting podcasts for the drive down and charged up the battery on my camera since I had a serious urge to play amateur photographer. One problem though, like a dumbass I never put the battery back into the camera so my picture taking was limited to what I could do with my lower end smart phone. While my smart phone camera is fine for some things, it's not good enough for detailed shots so my enthusiasm for picture taking was hugely diminished. This particular picture was taken at the Shem Creek Park in Mount Pleasant.             

One of my objectives on the trip was hitting the USS Yorktown again, something I hadn't done in years. Long story short for those who may not know, way back in the late 1970's the recently decommissioned Yorktown was brought to Charleston to be part of a naval museum called "Patriots Point." Which, if I remember correctly would in turn would be part of a greater development including a golf course, condos, and hotels, all done through private investors. To the best of my knowledge and memory, lets just say the success of this project has fluctuated over the years. Ships have been added and taken away from the naval museum with the cost of their upkeep being the deciding factor. In fact, on one visit to Patriots Point years ago, the gift shop had a newspaper clipping about how the Navy was upset that the Yorktown was falling into disrepair. Back then the possibility was real that the aircraft carrier would be taken away and scrapped if the situation didn't improve. So I was quite happy yesterday to discover that it looks like most of the old girl has received a recent paint job. In this picture, only the superstructure has a faded, bleached look while the lower hull is a dark grey. Due to not having a battery in my real camera, I scrapped the visit to the Yorktown. Tickets to the Yorktown and other ships is rather expensive costing $24.00 for adults and unless it has changed, they even charge a fee to get into their parking lot.                  

Yes, my first visit was to the Waterfront Park and Pier where I got my usual coffee and strolled around taking in the sea breeze and enjoying the water. Totally mundane and unexciting, but call me a grouchy old Lowcountry curmudgeon, but Columbia has absolutely nothing that can compare. Yes, this picture sucks but it's mainly meant to show off the pier.

Despite the issue with the camera throwing me for a loop, what saved the trip for me was stopping at Red's Ice House for lunch. Sitting on Shem Creek in the middle of Mount Pleasant the only problem I had with the place was the fact that I couldn't stay the entire day there drinking beers and listening to the music. Remember, I had to drive back home and the last thing I wanted to do was crash my car on Interstate-26 in the middle of nowhere.

I ordered the Fried Grouper sandwich and chips. All I can say is that was the best sandwich I can ever remember. During these all too brief escapes, I usually just hit some fast food place but someone at work suggested I might like Red's Ice House. If in the area I highly recommend it both for its easy, laid back atmosphere and the great food.