Land of the Palmettos

Here are a few pictures from the honeymoon. (More are located on my Facebook). We went to Kiawah Island, South Carolina. It's an island about 45 minutes south of Charleston. Apparently the island is one of the best golfing spots on the east coast with courses designed by Jack Nicklaus and other famous golfers. Who knew? Maybe if we cared about golf, we would have known. We saw a lot of the courses while we were biking and they were beautiful. Renting bikes is also a big thing on the island. The paths cover the entire island and we frequently saw people riding on the beach as well.

The beach was fantastic. It was a very wide, very quiet beach. It was the largest beach I've ever been to. At low tide, the distance from the dunes to the water was at least 50 yards. We spent one day in Charleston doing the tourist thing. We took a carriage tour, which is apparently a must by all who visit Charleston, and learned so much about the city's history. It's a beautiful historic town in such amazing condition. Jericho and I were trying to think of a city that is comparable in its historical makeup and we couldn't come up with one. So much of the city is in it's original form (but restored of course). We definitely want to go back and attempt to see more of the sites in and around Charleston. I really fell in love with the city. If it wasn't in South Carolina, I might consider moving there someday.

This is an original house that has been restored and is still used as a residence. A lot of these houses run more than a million dollars. You wouldn't think so when they have a station wagon parked in front.

Rainbow Row. It's very normal for houses to be painted these bright colors.

More beautiful old buildings.

The Battery. You can see Fort Sumter from here. The other side of the street is lined with gorgeous Charleston houses.

Waterfront Park and a really big cannon. The cannons are not in their original place. Some of them were from Fort Sumter.

One of the great places we ate for dinner. I had my first experience with boiled peanuts. We sat outside at almost every restaurant we went to that week since the weather was so great.

The Angel Oak. It's more than 1,500 years old. That's Jericho standing at the base. I couldn't back up far enough to get the whole tree in my camera lens. All the low branches reach out so far that they are resting on the ground and the branches that aren't on the ground, they have propped up with boards and metal poles. I guess after 1,500 years, you get tired of holding your arms up.

One of the waterways on our bike ride. No visible alligators in this one.

Downtown Charleston one night after dinner. Our only pictures of ourselves from the trip are self-portraits so they all look kind of like this.

There's an alligator in there. I promise. This one is on the bike ride. See my Facebook album for the one of Allie, the resident alligator behind our villa.

More from bike riding. Most of the island is covered by trees. I don't think I've ever been on an island with such a dense canopy. Most have giant beach houses towering over everything. At Kiawah, the giant beach houses are hidden in all the trees. It made for very cool bike rides. I understand the phrase, "It's just like riding a bike," but in reality, if you haven't ridden a bike for almost 10 years, it can take some adjusting, especially if there are no hand brakes.