John's Island

Nancy and I visited Charleston, South Carolina about fifteen years ago and were impressed with the city - its beauty and its restaurant scene.  But that was in the middle of summer, and the heat and humidity were literally overpowering.  It was hard to imagine ourselves actually living under those conditions.

We're back.  And at this point we realize that it's possible to live anywhere in the south as long as you have really good air conditioning .. and the ability to travel to someplace else when you can't take the heat.  In fact, except for Santa Cruz and certain other areas along the West Coast, every place in the country suffers through a part of the year where the locals dream of fleeing to warmer or cooler weather.

To be more precise, we're not in Charleston itself, we're just in the general area.  All the RV parks anywhere close to the city were full, and so we're set up on John's Island in an equestrian center with RV services about 20 miles or so from downtown.  This is kind of a cool place.  We're the only motorhome here.  Everybody else came here with their horses, most of them in trucks pulling fifth wheelers that have been modfied to house both people and one or more horses.  In other words, the horses are in back, the human living area is in front, including beds for sleeping in the loft that sits over the truck bed.

That brings to mind the obvious question: Do horsey smells migrate into the living area?  A lady told me that the other day it was pretty rank at first, because her husband hadn't done a complete job of washing out the horse patties in back. Once here, the horses are put into stalls so that the humans have exclusive use of their transport vehicles.

Two years ago John and Sandy Bowers, friends of ours from the Santa Cruz Dinner Club, had moved into the Charleston area.  We had dinner at their lovely home in Mount Pleasant, a suburb of Charleston.  Their house overlooks a lake, and sitting on the screened porch in back, we could see and hear geese and other waterfowl flying by.  John and Sandy love it there, and we heard about the local entertainment options and other advantages of living in the area, including low taxes and great real estate prices compared to Santa Cruz.

They are foodies, as are we, and John has compiled a Charleston restaurant guide, which we have since used to eat lunch at a restaurant called S.N.O.B (Slightly North of Broad), which specializes in southern low country cuisine .. and we have made reservations at Zero George, a pricey high-end prix fixe restaurant.  John and Sandy's political views are for the most part similar to ours, so there was plenty to discuss regarding the current state of the country.