A Charleston Christmas and a Savannah Birthday!

In the past 5 years we have spent Christmases in Salt Lake City Utah, Quartzsite Arizona (x2), San Antonio Texas and now Charleston South Carolina! By far our least favorite Christmas location. Not because of the town, oh that is very charming, it was the RV Park we stayed at. Lake Aire RV Park just on the outskirts of southern Charleston was our top pick for two reasons; 1) they had an opening and 2) they were Passport America members. So at $23 a night (water/electric) we booked 3 nights over Christmas. 

But before arriving there we spent 2 nights at Myrtle Beach State Park exploring that area. This was a nice park ($30/night with W/E/S) and the first area we have been in since leaving Pennsylvania that the campground was crowded.

Site 298 was perfect for us!

Dakota loved chasing the pigeons on the beach!

Myrtle Beach State Park Fishing Pier in the background

We spent two days walking the beach with the dogs. There were more people on the beaches but not enough to make it feel crowded.

The city of Myrtle Beach was really not our kind of area. WAY too touristy! Restaurants, hotels and shops everywhere. I could not imagine that area during peak season. We did partake in one of the many seafood buffets. The Original Benjamins Calabash Seafood Buffet came highly recommended by Jessica and Shane who were ate there a couple of years ago. The normal price is $40 per person but they were running a promotion where you could get $1 off for each canned good brought in and donated up to 30 cans so at $25/person it was definitely a bargain! We did not try all 170 items on the buffet, we pretty much just stuck to crab, shrimp and other seafood delights. We walked out of there stuffed and definitely got our monies worth!

Then it was on to Charleston and Lake Aire RV Park. We had received a call on our way down saying that the office would be closed for the next two days but they were going to post our site number on the door. True to their word, there was a map directing us to our site right on the door. We weaved our way through all the other rigs and turned the corner where we got the first view of our site. They must have thought we were royalty as what we saw was an island of a pad totally surrounded by 2-3 inches of water! We had our own moat around our site! 

We looked around and there were a few other sites open but none were any better. Looks like we will be swamp-camping for the next few days! If you are in the area, I would definitely skip this park and find one on a little higher ground.

We did not have a lot on our list for this area. Our main adventure was exploring the town and taking in the architecture of the buildings. We headed down to the French Quarter which was filled with restaurants, churches and old homes. 

Most of these buildings were built in the mid 1700's. We would pass house after house that said "Built in 1737, built in 1738, built in 1740". Many houses and churches had placards stating they were built in that decade. It really got me wondering what the city must have looked like back then. The entire city must have been under construction as these buildings took a long time to build!

These functioning gas lanterns were pretty cool

The ironwork on this building was incredible

Some of these markers dated back into the 1700's!

Think of the work that went into building these

US Customs Building

USS Yorktown

Whoever owns this did not have a good day

We had hoped to visited Fort Moultrie and Fort Sumter but both were closed due to the government shutdown. Maybe next time. 

We tried two restaurants; Pearlz Oyster Bar and The Oyster House. Pearlz was awesome! The other restaurant, not so much. 

On Christmas Eve we spent a 1/2 hour trying to get a family photo using the camera's delayed shutter setting and a tripod. We must have taken 20 or more pictures but none of them were worthy. The best one we got was my test shot with just Barb and the dogs. For some reason when I entered the picture everything went to pot. 

So then we tried with just the dogs.....

Barb setting up the shot!

This is the best one we got

Christmas morning arrived and the dogs were excited to see what Santa brought! Well, one of the dogs was. Since this was Daisy's 11th Christmas, she knew the drill. Dakota on the other hand was not so sure, although she knew something exciting was going on she would sniff the stocking and run in her crate, sniff and run, sniff and run. Daisy on the other hand tore right into hers (and Dakotas)!

I smell something yummy in there!

Got it!

There was a mixture of treats and toys in each of their stockings. As Daisy would open each of the toys Dakota would emerge from her crate, steal the toy and retreat back into her crate. This scenario played out 4 times until Dakota had all the toys in her crate!

I got all the toys!

Later, once all the toys were evenly distributed they started to play with them.

She's watching Dakota who is waiting to steal her toy

What did Barb and I get for Christmas? All my gifts were house related where I got some tools we needed to work on the house while Barb got a pair of slippers and a food chopper she wanted. 

No spotting scope :(

On the 27th we drove 2 1/2 hours south to Savannah Georgia. Well, actually Hinesville to Happy Campers RV Park that was recommended by Shawn and Kim (Shifting Gears), blogger friends who had stayed here while they were in the area. This is a great park, full hookups, $21/night with Passport America. Most of the sites are filled with fulltime military residents and have really large yards.  

Our Happy Acres site

We had a variety of activities on our list for this area but once again the rain hampered our plans. We made good use of our time sending out bid requests for our lumber, windows, as well as our steel siding and roof. Yikes, looks like we need to both find fulltime jobs again!

The dogs are chill'in while Barb has blueprints spread everywhere.....

We did, however, make it out to walk the Historic District of Savannah one day.

Sherman's headquarters

Georgia Volunteers Monument

Moss and Ivy covered the trees

Of course we had to stop by Leopold's Ice Cream!

Savannah Cotton Exchange

I was expecting it to be a lot like Charleston but it was actually quite a bit different. They both had some unique church and home architecture but Savannah also had a lot of statues, monuments and a nice park to walk around. Both were interesting in their own right.

Our final full day in Savannah was a big day as it is my birthday! We are going to celebrate it watching football and having a crab leg dinner. Life is good!