Boone Hall Plantation

Boone Hall Plantation is one of the oldest continually running plantations in the United States. Originally, it produced indigo then grew cotton and pecans and now it grows different fruits and vegetables. We loved the tour of the grounds but could have done without the tour of the mansion. The house is not original to the plantation and was built in the 1930s. If you're a crazy person like me, you know that this is Allie's parent's summer house. Our favorite part however, was one of the most photographed streets in the United States, the Avenue of Oaks. The street is almost a mile long, lined with living oaks which are each over 250 years old. I think it's finally official: We're obsessed with trees.

At an estimated 600 years, this is the oldest living tree on the grounds

We were totally fine leaving, but the monkey didn't want to leave and kept taking more pictures ;) but we had to leave on a midnight train to Georgia.

Charleston, South Carolina

We arrived at one of our most anticipated stops, Charleston in usual Larry and the Family Jules fashion: hungry. We decided to go straight to Hominy Grill for some breakfast. Larry ordered the shrimp and grits and I ordered The Big Nasty. Being "Yankees" as we're so lovingly referred to by everyone here, we had never had grits before let alone with shrimp. This dish threw out every preconception of grits, shrimp, bacon AND food we've ever had. It was seriously delicious. The Big Nasty was also really, really good as was my mimosa. 

We planned on going to the Boone Hall Plantation at noon when they opened but had a little time to kill before the time came so we went for a walk along the water.  We saw so many beautiful houses and loved seeing Rainbow Row.  We also stopped by the oldest house in the south, The Pink House. I've been loving seeing all of the old movie theaters in all of the different cities, so I made sure to stop by the American Theater to see where Noah and Allie went on their first date :) It's no longer a movie theater, but is used for weddings and other events.

For lunch we went to Southend Brewery and Smokehouse. We ordered their flight so we could sample all of their beers. Larry thought it was the best beer we've had yet on this trip (but still thought it was nothing too special), while I hated all 6 of the beers we sampled. We shared their nachos which were great! 

On our way out of Charleston, we stopped at the Angel Oak.  Unfortunately, the gate was closed because they close early on Sundays but we still got to see it through the fence. This tree is estimated to be 1,500 years old! Its branches look like normal, huge trees and most of them lay down on the ground from holding up their weight.