Hobbling along

Today we said goodbye to our new friends as we left Summerville SC. They had been so very nice. Tom had been so helpful with advice about everything to do with Bella. He had some great suggestions for us.

We drove to Charleston SC, less than half an hour away. We went directly to the Camping World there, where Bernie sat in a wheelchair and Mar pushed her around, hobbling on one foot, using the wheelchair as her cane.

Neither one of us could really walk. Bernie's foot was the size of a watermelon and Mar's the size of a grapefruit. It was seriously hard to get around. We took a concoction of painkillers and anti-inflammatory pills, and it helped a little.

We went to Camping World specifically to get the book "Managing 12 Volts" to understand how to improve the electrical system of an RV. Mar is determined to increase and improve our electrical system so that we can use our generator less frequently. We sat in the parking lot and Mar read the book while Bernie took a nap (she has been kind of grumpy lately because of her foot hurting).

After we left the store, we went to check out downtown Charleston and The Battery. After a quick trip down the highway we ended up in a beautiful historic city. It was raining and since we were both limping, we only got to drive along The Battery, but it sure seems like a great place to spend an afternoon.

Later as we drove through downtown Charleston we found Market Street. It was lined with shops and restaurants. Down the middle, separating the streets is an open building with an outdoor market place. We had to check it out, so we found parking and hobbled our way to the market, where we saw the handiwork of many talented artists and crafters. Bernie took the broom handle off the broom to use as a cane/crutch, it helped a little but we had to go slow.

At the corner we noticed a peculiar telephone pole. As we approached we realized it was covered in gum of many different colors (see pic). Yes, those are blobs of chewing gum stuck to the pole ... enough said.

When we got hungry we found a restaurant across the street from the market. The restaurant was a loud, very cool pub in a building that used to be an Episcopal church. The stained glass windows and other artifacts are still there. It called to us and we answered, we went in. The atmosphere was great, fun place. We had the mile high nachos for dinner and the killer queso was excellent!

It was getting late, so we decided to find a Walmart to spend the night. We headed towards Mount Pleasant and to get there, we had to drive over the most magnificent bridge, it was absolutely gorgeous at night. We both love bridges and driving on this one was quite an experience.

We're not sure what happened but somehow we totally missed the Walmart in Mount Pleasant. Since we didn't want to turn around, our handy GPS (her name is Lola – in honor of Robin William’s GPS in the movie “RV”) told us the next Walmart was 36 miles away in Georgetown SC. We drove north on 17 until we found the next Walmart, where we spent the night.