Trend Magazine Online™
Travel Review Summer 2024
Charleston SC
Page 1 of 2

By Jay Whipple

Trend Magazine Online™

Olde World Charm!

Re-published from a previous edition...

I have been to Charleston, SC, many times in my mind via accounts from guests on our tours @ Queen City Tours^sm and Travel, movies, and various television shows. In real life, I had been there once to attend my family reunion in 1995. I can vividly remember the steamy humidity and historic ambience as I strolled into town early that Friday evening in July. The motel that we stayed was old and quaint and a bit musty from years and years of visitors from probably all over the world. I was paired in a room with my late Uncle Nay who no one else wanted to bunk with because he was very talkative and frugal (cheap). I did not mind the pairing because it gave me a chance to interact with him as an adult. He was quite an interesting guy in that he lived in his own world and did not allow anyone to sway him from what he felt was best for himself as a child of God. We talked about much about nothing that night until he disclosed that he had to arise early the next morning for a mandatory walk because of his heart surgery a few years in the past. Uncle Nay passed away a few years later after refusing to allow his foot to be amputated to save his life. May he rest in peace!

I decided to go at it on my own the next day and explore what Charleston, SC, was all about and to seek out my favorite boiled peanuts that were at the time hard to come by in Charlotte, NC. I remember coming upon this very tall rickety bridge to seemingly nowhere to continue my hunt for boiled peanuts. I had to really psyche myself up to prepare for the crossing which seemed to take forever and a day. I finally made it across, found my boiled peanuts, and made it back safely and excited that I had conquered that beast of a bridge to seemingly nowhere. Fast forward nearly two decades later in 2012 and I find myself heading back to Charleston, SC, during our QCT A Day In Charleston, SC^sm, trip in June. I could not help but to reflect on that reunion and my late Uncle Nay as we entered the city limits on Interstate 26 South on Saturday the 16th of June. I wondered if that old motel was still in existence and that old bridge that I hesitantly drove over in search of boiled peanuts; one of my favorite snacks. This time I was guided by the latest in navigational technology via my Garmin Nuvi GPS (Global Positioning System), the last time was via a good old fashioned Rand McNally Map that I had used to travel half way across the United States and back. I actually had more luck using the map as the GPS took us the wrong way a few times!