We headed into downtown Charleston this morning, after packing up the car, for a horse-drawn carriage tour of the city, since we hadn't seen a whole lot of the actual town. What I found interesting about the whole thing is the fact that apparently these carriage companies get big time flack from the animal rights folks, and have an inordinate amount of information posted everywhere (their barns, the internet, their leaflets) about how little the animals actually work, especially compared with their human counterparts... Couldn't believe how big a deal this must be to get all these companies to post all this info...
The tour was blessedly not stinky at all. We had mules rather than horses (better suited for this sort of thing, evidently), and despite the one mule having gas (yep, mule farts) during the tour, the stinkiest part was when we were passing a garbage truck. The tour was nice, and the guide (a transplant from Baltimore) did a good job.
So after some brief shopping in the market, we hit the road to Savannah, taking U.S. Route 17, a road I've travelled many times in North Carolina. Suffice it to say, the South Carolina part looked very similar. We decided a detour to the beach would be neat, so we drove through the town of Beaufort to reach Hunting Island State Park. As April mentioned, this place could double as Jurassic Park. Very very primeval, and an alligator lurking in a puddle of water outside the visitors' center just added to that atmosphere. I'd never seen a maritime forest like this, so it was a new experience for me. It must have been high tide when we got to the beach, as the forest came down almost all the way to the water, leaving very little beach. We dipped our toes in the water, and went for a bit of a walk. There were pelicans ever-present, which added to the pre-historic nature of the place, as well as the really large jellyfish washed up on the beach--bigger than anything I'd ever seen in North Carolina.
We briefly went to see the lighthouse before heading back to the road to head to Savannah. We got into Savannah around dinnertime, but had eaten a late lunch, so we decided to hold off on dinner until after the ghost tour.
You read that right, we went on a ghost tour. April's choice. Never again. Was so creeped out afterwards, I can't even describe it. The tour guide seemed to be a product of the '70s, as described very accurately by April. The irony being that he was younger than us.... He started out with non-threatening enough material, and even threw in some non-creepy historical info as well. Then the sun went down, and the creepy factor was upped considerably. At one point some smart a$$ drove by our group in a car, rolled down the window, and yelled "whooo-ooo-ooo-ooo!" out the window as he drove by, which was actually quite funny, and cut the creepy tension for a bit. I hate admitting how freaked out I was given that I am a confirmed skeptic regarding everything "paranormal" but with an overactive imagination, fed by an incredibly creepy atmosphere, and it just all seems a little more believable than it does in the daylight. At least I can say that I was not the only one creeped out that night, despite what you may hear from April & Morgan. Suffice it to say, though, I will not be going on any more ghost tours any time soon.
Just one note for my friends who are big fans of the macabre (you know who you are), there were many competing ghost tours in this town, and we were on one of the walking ones. But there was another one that we saw that I got a kick out of--instead of walking, they drive you around town in hearses, which they've opened up the back of and put in seats or benches. I about died when I saw not one, but 2 of these things go zipping by, and immediately thought that you would all enjoy something like that a lot--sorry, didn't get any pics :-(
Did the mules have little poo bags attached to catch any falling road apples? Those always crack me up! As creepy as it would be to be in the back of a hearse, I think walking would be creepier!
ReplyDelete