The second portion of the anniversary vacation, South Carolina, began Friday evening upon arrival at the Charleston Harbor Resort and Marina, a small resort hotel across the bay from Charleston proper, near Mt Pleasant. Once checked in, we ventured out for fresh seafood and made our way to the Shem Creek Bar and Grill, as recommended by my mom.
Here, we enjoyed a drink on the back creek bar and listened to a local artist do island influenced renditions of rock and pop hits, including A-ha's Take On Me. Once seated next to an aquarium, we befriended our neighbor fish and got down to the business of eating. The food was delicious and included my first experience "shooting an oyster". I am pretty sure it was also my first experience eating an oyster in any manner...and it was a lot of fun.
After dinner, we checked out the resort a little more in the dark before calling it a night. Friday had been a long day. Saturday morning, we were welcomed with mid-90's temperatures and 110+ degree heat indexes. Seems this is a common theme this summer. To make the best of it, we started the day with breakfast at a local coffee shop, Metto, before catching a water taxi to Charleston.
Once in Charleston, we had to make a hot walk to the market area, where we began our trek through the city. There were plenty of shopping stops, mostly to take advantage of air conditioning. Unfortunately, we didn't take very good advantage of the many opportunities to checkout a museum or historical site...either due to being disoriented by the heat or a lack of planning. We did take a quick walk down Rainbow Row. After burning out, we caught "Ollie", the resort trolley, back to the hotel.
Some much needed relaxation by the pool recharged our batteries for a trip to Sullivan's Island for an early dinner. We must have picked a local favorite (Sullivan's) because it was packed by 6 pm. More delicious seafood was had before we took off to cruise the strip between Sullivan's Island and Isle of Palms. We caught our first glimpse of the actual Atlantic Ocean (instead of the inlets and harbors), which will be the focus of Sunday's activities, before heading back to call it an evening early.
Sunday began with an early morning run in the Charleston heat and humidity. The run involved 2 passes (over & back) of the largest "hill" in the Charleston area, the Arthur Ravanel Bridge (see photo at the bottom of the post). Despite the heat and lack of shade on the bridge the views of both Charleston and Mount Pleasant provided a worthy distraction.
Once business was taken care of, Susan and I headed out for the day, with our late morning activity being bumming on the beach. We hit the Isle of Palms public beach, which was packed with locals and tourists alike. Tide was moving out, so there was plenty of space for everyone. Since we only took books and towels with us, the beach stay mainly consisted of reading, sunbathing, and wading through the surf. I was tempted to steal the buckets of a neighboring beach goer so that I could build a monumental sand castle.
The heat had not come down much from Saturday; thus we only survived until around lunch time at the beach. After grabbing some food at a beach-front dive, we made our way back to the hotel to rinse off the sandiness and prepare for the rest of the day. Since we didn't want to venture immediately back into the heat and still had areas of Charleston I wanted to see, we took a Sunday cruise over to Charleston to check out the historic mansions of Battery St. and the King St shopping district. This also got us out of the hotel room long enough for housekeeping to do their thing. 
We returned late afternoon and took up our places by the pool to relax the remainder of our last day of vacation. Clouds began to roll in, so it cooled considerably. Neither of us were feeling up to getting geared up for a fancy dinner, so we just hit a local pub. The food was a letdown considering the rest of the meals on the trip, but expected considering the establishment. After dinner, we returned to the hotel to pack up and prepare for our 10-hour journey back to Cincinnati.
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