Mon. 9/17/07 ~ God Bless the Charleston Nine

We decided to take a tour of the Magnolia Plantation and Gardens located fairly close to our campground. We arrived in time for the 9:30 guided tram tour around the plantation showing us old rice fields, lakes and canals for watering the fields, and a row of slave cabins. We saw a couple of alligators, some turtles, and lots of birds. After the tram tour we had a short tour of the rebuilt plantation house that has been owned by the same family for 11 generations. The gardens are billed as the most beautiful gardens in America but when we were there nothing was blooming so it wasn’t that impressive. After the plantation visit we started driving to downtown Charleston and on the way noticed the burned out furniture store where nine Charleston firefighters were killed a couple of months ago. The fire was quite obviously intense as the steel roof beams were melted and collapsed in the rubble. There was a large tribute in the form of fire helmets, crosses, flowers, notes, and photographs. It was a very tragic situation. We continued on downtown and did a self-guided walking tour of the historic district. We stopped for dinner at a local restaurant, Gilligan’s, which was recommended by the campground manager. When we got back home we met the two couples next to us who were traveling together. We sat outside their motor home and visited for a couple of hours. Both of the guys were retired police officers from Mobile, AL. We hooked everything up so that we could leave early in the morning.