Charleston, SC Tour Day #4

Today, we're off to a place called Patriot's Point in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina.  This is home to one of world's largest naval and maritime museums.  The museum started in 1975 when the USS Yorktown, an aircraft carrier from World War II, was brought to town.  A few months later on October 13, the carrier was opened to the public as a museum.  This was to celebrate the 200th birthday of the United States Navy.

Over the course of the next few years, the Patriot's Point mission would grow even larger with the addition of additional vessels for the public to tour as well as a replica base camp from Vietnam that would tell the story of the river patrol boats and the HAL-3 Seawolves helicopter crews.  The additional ships included the Balao class submarine Clamagore, the Treasury Class Coast Guard Cutter Ingham, and the USS Laffey (a destroyer also known as The Ship That Would Not Die).

The aircraft carrier has multiple tours that you can take to see different parts of the ship.  You get to see everything from the brig (the jail), the mess hall, and the flight deck.  There are also 25 different war planes displayed all over the ship.  Each one tells the story of a different war and how courageous our soldiers are.

The brand new Congressional Medal of Honor Museum is located on board the carrier too.  The Medal of Honor is the nation's highest honor for military valor.  It opened to a worldwide audience in 2007.  Brian Williams from NBC News served as the Master of Ceremonies at the opening celebration.  Thousands of medal recipients attended the event.  This is an amazing thing to see inside.  There are stories that will really tug at your heart to hear.

After spending several hours touring all there is to see here, let's head back to downtown Charleston to see some of the historic houses.  Nathaniel Russell was a sea merchant from Rhode Island.  He and his wife lived in the house in the early 1800s.  This house, like all other houses in the downtown area, has a private garden that is spectacular this time of the year.  There is a giant magnolia tree next to the house that was just about ready to bloom.  Tours are given of the house throughout the day, and one of the fascinating things to see is the three story spiral staircase.  You might be asking yourself "Why is a staircase fascinating?"  What would you say if I told you that there isn't anything holding the staircase up?  Well, it's true.  The free-flying staircase doesn't have any support under it or through the wall holding it up.  Each stair supports the weight of the stair above it.  There are only two metal poles attached to the staircase, but they are only there to keep the railing up.  Unfortunately, when a historic house has been "restored" (see previous postings about the differences between restored and preserved), photography of any kind is prohibited.  The pictures below are of the front of the house and the side of the house taken from the garden.

Our last stop for the day is an evening baseball game with the local farm team.  The Charleston RiverDogs are a sub-team of the New York Yankees, and the team is owned, in part, by Bill Murray (Caddyshack, Saturday Night Live).  Murray actually lives on Sullivan's Island, which is the island right next to mine.  It's not his summer home either.  He actually lives there full time and his kids are enrolled in school there.  The stadium was built in 1997 and seats 6,000 people.  There are nearly sell out crowds at every game.  The park is named for the mayor of Charleston, Joseph P. Riley.  He was first elected in 1975, and he's been serving in that capacity every since.  If I'm not mistaken, he holds the title of longest serving mayor in the country.

Enjoy the pictures!



Thanks for checking in...

Zach Brown, Daybreak Meteorologist