Friday, June 1, 2007

Fort Sumter

Yesterday Mikah and I went on a sightseeing tour (still in Charleston) and took a boat ride out to Fort Sumter. For those who don't know the whole story of Fort Sumter: It's a Fort. Named after Sumter (I assume). It is where the Civil War started (kind of). For more details you can click here.

We drove down to Mt. Pleasant and bought our tickets for the ride ($28). We stood in line and I thought to myself about how it didn't seem like a lot of people were there. Excellent!!! As we boarded the boat some girl took a picture of us, most likely to sell to us later. The photo was in front of a green screen though. I was hoping they would place us in front of a dragon's lair with my leg up on the dragon's headless corpse. Just in case I raised my leg up like Captain Morgan, assuming they will do all the digital work later and properly arrange everything.

We got on the boat and sat in the best seat, back corner where you could see everything around and still feel the ocean air. It was really nice. Our boat was parked right next to the USS Yorktown, which is a massive Aircraft Carrier. Really quite an impressive site. Here is a picture I took of it from our boat:



As we prepared to leave I heard one of the workers say, "We have to wait...the school field trip isn't here yet." WHAT?!?!? WHAT?!?!? NOOOOOOO. I can't imagine anything worse than a school field trip to accompany us on a cramped boat to a cramped island.

Sure enough, they showed up and chattered and made noise the entire trip. No respect for the history of the place.

We finally took off from port and headed across the harbor. Mikah and I both saw a fin in the water, and a humped back as the fin dove under the water. I can only assume it was a shark. Maybe a dolphin. Mikah made sure to alert the 60 people on boat that maybe there was a shark. "OOOO...A SHARK! ADAM, A SHARK!!," she exclaimed. This, obviously, is not usually great news for most people. A couple people turned around in terror, probably picturing the scene from Jaws where Robert Shaw gets bitten in half. The rest of the people probably couldn't hear because of the stupid loud kids.

We got to Fort Sumter and listened to Tour Guide Brent tell the history of the fort. TGB did a great job. He gave a pretty complete history and kept it entertaining. He made jokes and everything. Also, as an added bonus, I didn't detect any overt racism (although, how hard is it to detect overt anything?). He did make one joke about how they had to build up the island with sand and stone from New Jersey..."so it may be of concern to you people that you are indeed standing on Northern soil. he he he." WOW. Come on people. The Civil War was 300 years ago. LET IT GO. I think I heard someone gasp. Ironically, the South is where all the American support comes from now a days. They should make up their mind.

Anyway - after TGB gave his speech Mikah and I walked around the Fort. It's pretty neat. It's cool to see all the things that are original. That kind of stuff is always really interesting. It's really cool to see the original flag that flew there and to see some original canon shot. We also saw some pictures and quotes from Abner Doubleday, he fired the first shot in defense of the Fort. But who cares...he invented baseball! Yea for baseball!!

Sadly there were no sharks on the way back to port. There were, however, loud kids. When we got back we passed the little place where people were buying pictures of themselves. YES! This is it! This is my dragon conquering picture! But it wasn't. It was just a stupid picture of us in front of For Sumter. For $20. No thanks lady. I'll just go print my own picture of us at Fort Sumter for 15 cents. I would have paid for the dragon picture though.

It was a cool place. I'm glad we went. I'd recommend it for anyone interested in history. Or anyone who is on a honeymoon with someone who is interested in history. Either way.

Labels: Charleston, Fort Sumter, Mikah

Posted by Adam Wilson :: 7:59 PM :: 0 comments

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