The day after Christmas we went to our Grandparents in Lexington, SC to celebrate Christmas with our family there. The next day we drove down to explore Charleston, because it was a featured chapter in the Picturesque America book. On the roughly 2 hour drive down, we listened to an audiobook called “The Gold Bug”.  It is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe. Now, a note about him. I really do not like most of his books. I have read a few and they are just demented and creepy – like murdering people, cutting them up, and hiding them in the floor. Or cutting out his cat’s eye. Really messed up. However, this book was not like that. The reason we were reading it was because it took place on Sullivan’s Island, one of the places we would be visiting soon. The basic plot, (trying to not spoil anything), is that a man living on Sullivan’s Island discovered a secret code on a piece of parchment. He decoded it and there was a riddle that led to a pirate treasure. Once we arrived at our campsite, we set up camp so we could then drive over to Sullivan’s Island.  There we explored Fort Moultrie, a national historic site. The fort was very thick and solid, with layers of brick and soil to stop cannon balls from invading ships.

Attempting to aim the cannon

There were lots of enormous cannons and mortars.  All the gunpowder storage rooms were heavily protected so they didn’t blow up the whole fort.

A passage in the fort

We had to leave because they were closing, and we left and ate at one of my parents favorite eateries on the island called “Sullivan’s”. We had an amazing appetizer of crab stuffed mushrooms.  Grayson and I split shrimp and grits, which were amazingly creamy and delicious. We went back to the campsite and slept well that night after a warm fire.

Fire under the moonlight