Day 9: Wilmington, NC

Well today is Day 10, but because we didn't have internet yesterday, I'll share with you quickly what we did.

This trip is going so fast!

We drove in the morning to Fort Sumter and took an amazing tour and learned all about the history of the fort and it's significance.

Leah at Fort Sumter!

Our visit to Fort Sumter was on, what our tour guides informed us, was to be the hottest day of the year. The actual temperature was about 96 degrees, reaching up to 100, but with the added humidity, the real temperature feeling was about 116 degrees. After sweating up a storm on Fort Sumter, we headed back to Mount Pleasant (where we took off on our cruise to the island) and had a quick lunch. After that we did a quick driving tour of Charleston because it was too hot to do AAA's self-guided walking tour.

We then drove back to Mount Pleasant where we visited the Boone plantation that's main claim to fame was having still standing slave quarters. The quarters we small and it was a very interesting experience to go from looking at the slave buildings to the master's home (that was actually the fourth building to stand in that place since the beginning of the plantation, the others were destroyed in a fire, a hurricane, and torn down in the 1930s to build the present one). We took a "carriage" ride around the plantation (really just a bus with no sides) and saw parts of the property, then headed back to the car as another thunderstorm continued in the distance.

The next destination for the day was Myrtle Beach, which is really just an over run tourist trap complete with flashing neon lights and over the top mini-golf. The Carolinas sure love their mini golf. We pulled of 17-business north to stick our toes into the Atlantic Ocean and had fun splashing around in the water there for a bit. The main difference we found between our beloved Pacific Ocean and the Atlantic was the temperature. I knew the Atlantic was warmer, but goodness, it was like a warm bath tub. It was almost gross how warm the water was! After that we got back in the car and it began to rain again. We got stuck in Myrtle Beach traffic on our way up to Wilmington, then there was a beautiful thunderstorm where the lightening lit up the sky and snaked its way through the clouds--almost like spider veins! The lightening was rather far away, we never caught up with the storm, and we were never able to hear it crack, but it was still a sight that we rarely get to see at home.

There was also a rainstorm that got quite heavy for a bit, but we took is slowly and carefully and we made is safely to our hotel room without problems.

And that was pretty much Day 9! <3 Al