Another trip

I recently took a road trip to South Carolina. The plan was to visit my sister and her two kids whom I had not seen in over a year. So we loaded up our gear and it was off to the Charleston area we went, if I had known all the events that would unfold in the following days I would never have gone.
I was able to pick up my niece and nephew on the morning I arrived in town. I had never been to Charleston before so I knew this was going to be a learning experience. The first place we went to was folly Beach, wow what a beautiful place. It reminded me of some towns in Southern California I had been to while I was stationed at Camp Pendleton. We had the beach all to ourselves; this probably had something to do with the subarctic temperatures and gale force winds, none of which the kids noticed.
After what must have been 48 hours there interest in sandcastle engineering and seashell scavenger hunts started to fade, and hunger was setting in. This was music to my ears, we loaded up, and I checked the car mirror and was relieved to see that all my teeth had not broken down to nubs while they were chattering away during this near hypothermic experience, as for my newly blue skin, well I just hoped that would return to normal.
I was told before heading north that if you go to Charleston, you can’t leave without seeing angle oak, so that was our next destination. Angle oak is said to be the oldest thing, living or man-made, east of the Rockies. The tree is estimated to be 1500 years old, and it is something spectacular to see. There is no charge for parking or visiting angle oak. It was majestic but there is only so long 3 and 4 year olds want to look at a tree, so off we went.
The next stop was a park I found while searching online, thank goodness for smart phones with navigation and internet. James Island county Park was our destination. This is another amazing bargain at around a dollar per person. They have everything from camping and trail hiking to Christmas light shows. But what brought us there was the playground. James Island Park has the best playground I have ever been to. It is huge and has everything from swings to climbing walls, I was jealous that there were no playgrounds like this when I was a kid.
This post was originally going to go in another direction, but I think I will save that for another day, and just keep this one as a continuation of yesterdays search for summer events. So dads send me some more ideas for day trips so we can get them posted. And have fun at any St Patrick’s Day parades’ you might be heading to today.