We drove a little over 400 miles today, up early and out of Disney before daylight. It's a strange thing, but the perspective on "long drive" has definitely changed after so many miles on the road. Today was almost 8 hours in the car, and surprisingly, it wasn't that bad. Monday will be just a tad longer, and it'll be the longest day of driving of the entire trip on our way to Williamsburg, VA.

The trip was relatively uneventful, other than a guy in front of us who forgot to tie down the couch in the back of his truck. A little factoid for those of you who don't tow trailers. It's substantially more difficult to avoid a couch in the middle of the highway at 60mph when you're towing 5000 pounds. On a good note, I didn't need to do any cardio today, my heart got all of the workout it needed in the span of about 10 seconds...

At any rate, we're here in Charleston for a couple of days. We'll be visiting a 400 year old plantation tomorrow, and just kind of hanging out. After 10 days in Disney, a little less activity is a nice thing, that place is crazy. With the weakness of the dollar, South America and Europe are well represented tourism-wise, I guessed probably 80% of the people we saw were non-English speaking foreign visitors.

Sunday Update:

We spent the day in Charleston, doing a quick overview of the area. We started at Magnolia Plantation and Gardens, probably the most famous and oldest plantations in South Carolina. It's one of the top historical places on the registry.

It was an interesting place, and at over 350 years old, had some remarkable buildings and history to be seen. We felt like it was considerably overpriced, though, and the house "tour" was too brief to really be useful. I would have preferred a non-guided tour to look around at the house. The furnishings, and especially the 200 year old quilts were really cool. Everything was period authentic.

We also saw a slave house, and the extensive gardens (which the plantation is known for) throughout the 500 acre property. One highlight was the Biblical Garden, which featured all of the plants referenced in the Bible, complete with the reference verse. That was pretty cool.

We then headed downtown to the historic district to see the different buildings there, and also the original cobblestone streets. We saw a church cemetery with tombstones dating back pre-revolutionary war, plus a selection of very old buildings and architecture.

We enjoyed Charleston, despite the short time we were here. We're heading out tomorrow morning for Williamsburg, VA. It's our longest drive of the trip, so it should be interesting.

Faith's blog:
Yesterday we went to Charleston. We got to go to the Magnolia Plantation. It was owned by a family named the Draytons. The Draytons have passed down this plantation for over 350 years and it is still owned by the Draytons today. Since they Draytons were wealthy they owned slaves. And because they were wealthy the slaves got everything they needed except money. They had to get that during their free time. It was cool.

Kenzie's blog:
We went to Magnolia Plantation. It is about 350 years old. There were 3 houses on the property. The first was struck by lightning and was burned. The second was hit by cannonballs and also burned. We got to tour the 3^rd. The rugs in the house were over 100 years old! We also got to see the slave house. It was small with 3 beds. One for the adults and one for the kids and a tiny baby cradle. We saw alligators in the swampy gardens. That was my favorite part!

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Charleston, South Carolina

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