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IT’S UP TO YOU TO GET AWAY!
The Waterfront
Mansions of Historic Charleston, SC
The greatest fun and most fascinating places often come as a complete surprise. That is one of the tremendous advantages of our personal freedom when flying our own aircraft. It provides us an ability to travel without the burden of rigid airline schedules, or the tedious drive from one place to another in an automobile. Amazing and memorable times relayed to me by other pilots, as well as my own experiences, have come as a result of unexpected circumstance. Landing at a strange airport or an unintended town because of weather, simple curiosity, or other factors, may lead us to our next fun adventure!
That happened to us on an otherwise uneventful flight from our Upstate New York home base, to our home in Naples, Florida. We decided we would land in Charleston, South Carolina, on our way down. We would have a quick fuel stop, grab a bite to eat, look around for an hour or two, check the weather and decide what we’d like to do for a short while. Silly thinking! Have you been to Charleston? It’s like eating potato chips. It’s impossible to have just one…and we couldn’t stay in Charleston just a short while!
Charleston’s International Airport (CHS) is a commercial field, shared with a flock of military C-130’s across the airport. Because of that, it’s also known as Charleston Air Force Base. Together with air carrier operations, and a large number of private and corporate aircraft, it’s occasionally a busy place. However, it’s easy to get into. With an ILS (including CAT 2), and two runways (9,000 feet and 7,000 feet), there’s usually no issue with weather. The airport occasionally has fog hanging in the air during early mornings because of it’s proximity to the ocean, but it’s rarely a long lasting problem.
It was springtime (April) when we flew in and, like summertime around the southern states, we tend to try having most of our flying done by noon. That avoids the building early afternoon cumulus. They usually are not a problem, but it’s nice to avoid the bumps that accompany them, and not be obliged to continually deviate on our southerly trek. These fluffy, warm weather clouds can quickly turn gray or black, and top out at over 20,000 feet (on hot humid days with thermal activity, we have observed benign cumulus 30 miles ahead and below our altitude of 10,000 feet, quickly rising to over 25,000 feet before we reached them). Passengers typically don’t like to go bouncing through them, and neither do I!
We found the FBOs at Charleston International pretty efficient. There is a choice of two, Atlantic Aviation and Millionaire. I would recommend checking with AOPA’s on-line site to determine present fuel costs at each. A couple of other airports are close by, including Charleston Executive (JZI), and Mt. Pleasant Regional (LRO). I haven’t flown into them, so can’t relay much information, although they appear convenient. If our readers have had experience at either, please feel free to send us a note.
Rental cars, as well as taxis, are available at CHS, and we took the 15 minute drive into the city. Even though just April, the day was brilliant, with bright sunshine warming our winter weary Yankee shoulders. After a short walk around an attractive downtown, we had lunch on an outside, greenery filled dining patio, at the Bubba Gump Shrimp Company. Charleston must have been just the type of southern, shrimp-eating town that Forest Gump had in mind, when he and his partner decided to do the shrimp thing! The people were hospitable as can be, insisting on telling us all about sites we “just had to do”! The recommendations included visits to museums, forts, and old southern mansions along the waterfront. We decided we had to stay for a day or two, and see as much as possible! Booking a hotel near the airport (It was just 10 minutes away, quite nice, and MUCH less expensive than hotels downtown), we kept our rental car and began our explorations.
Charleston is one of the oldest cities along the Carolina coast and, together with Savannah, grew quickly during the days that “cotton was king.” Most of the large, beautiful, mansions along the waterfront were actually summer homes of large cotton farmers, who lived inland most of the year. In the 1800s, these were the people responsible for production of much of the material that provided clothing for a young, growing nation. In the summertime, these inland farms (“plantations” in the south) became unbearably hot and humid. Rather than spend the summer in the hot countryside, the large cotton farmers and plantation owners would move their families east, to the coast. The Atlantic coastal towns were also the location of transshipment points, where huge numbers of bound bales of cotton were hauled for shipment around the country, or to Europe by sailing ship.
Here, in the Charleston area, where natural ocean breezes kept them cool, the inland plantation owners could preserve soft, genteel southern personalities without the annoyance of the extreme inland heat. It also allowed southern belles to meet friends from previous years, host flamboyant, private parties, and enthrall one another with tales of “just how well we’re doin’ this year, thank ya’ll!” Charleston, together with Savannah, was the hub of the southern social scene. The gorgeous, elegant, antebellum mansions along the crowded Charleston waterfront remain a testament to those glorious days.
We were able to rejoin that glory for a short while by taking a walking tour along the waterfront. The tour not only allows visitors to prowl through the beautiful homes, but provides information and insightful narratives, presented by proud docents from the area. You’ll learn why the large shade covered, cushion and wicker filled porches were always built on a certain side of the home, or what social events took place during the humid summer months before, and after, the men finally showed up from the plantations.
Another must-see, for the historical minded, is a visit to Fort Sumter, where the first shots of the civil war were fired on April 12, 1861. Incidentally, for all you sports fans, that first shot of the war was fired by the second senior officer of the garrison at Fort Sumter…a soldier by the name of Captain Abner Doubleday. That’s right, the same Abner Doubleday that would later become so famous for inventing our national pastime of baseball. Unfortunately, 34 hours after Abner took his best shot, the Confederate forces took Fort Sumter. The fort remained in their hands for the next four years. You may take a ferry boat over to Fort Sumter from the waterfront in Charleston, for a peek at this living history book!
Across the harbor, in the other direction in Mt. Pleasant, is the U. S. S. Yorktown. This famous aircraft carrier, which picked up the Apollo 8 mission capsule, is open for public viewing, with vintage aircraft on the flight deck. It also hosts a memorial to Congressional Medal of Honor winners.
What about dining?! No shortage of great restaurants in this beautiful city! One of the greatest, and most famous, is Magnolia’s, probably the most popular restaurant in Charleston. This well known place is still turning out fabulous meals in the original Charleston Customs House, built about 1739. We were so excited about the amazing dinner we enjoyed; my wife even bought a cookbook, with original Magnolia recipes. The cookbook has occupied a treasured place…somewhere in the back of our pantry, ever since! Maybe that’s one of the things we can pass down to our children in the years to come…unused, of course. I’m certain someone in our family will eat at home more than we do! Purchasing that cookbook was a testament to the terrific meal we had…as well as our sometimes bad habit of being unmitigated impulse buyers!
Oh, and don’t forget…all the Clive Cussler, and Dirk Pitt, adventure novel fans, have the opportunity to actually visit the Civil War submarine, the CSS Hunley. One of the first relatively successful submersibles, this little steel hole in the water actually set the first torpedo against the hull of a Union ship, the Housotanic. The explosive set by the Hunley sank the Union ship in minutes, becoming the very first submersible to sink an enemy ship. The Hunley then backed off, signaled their success to shore, then completely and mysteriously disappeared with all hands. It was never found until novelist Clive Cussler’s group (NUMA) found the wreck in 2000, and raised it, discovering the remains of the crew still inside, along with invaluable artifacts from the Civil War. The intact wreck may be viewed at the Warren Lasch Conservation Center, where archaeological work is still going on inside the first successful military submarine. The 8 member crew was buried, with full military honors, in 2004.
Charleston is an historic treasure, resurrected just a few decades ago from the decline that overtook many of the beautiful southern towns. Much more information is available on their website, at www.charlestoncvb.com/visitors. It’s an amazing, romantic city, but to visit it may mean a drive of many hours, or even days…unless you have the ability to fly your own aircraft there…even on the spur of the moment!
We realize just how fortunate we are to have happened upon this gem of southern hospitality and history by chance. Surely, if we were behind the wheel of a car, fighting traffic, we would never have driven hours out of our way, just to investigate this beautiful city. If we were adhering to a rigid airline schedule, trying to fly from home to Florida, we probably would have been snoring directly overhead, never realizing the beauty, the wonderful people, and the history that lay 35,000 feet below us.
After several days of just “being a tourist’ in Charleston, wending our way through the historic districts of the city, and eating our way through many of the local and nationally known restaurants, we reluctantly drove back to the airport. There, we climbed into our magic carpet, and continued south to our original destination, with our fuel and our minds completely filled; looking forward to whatever may come next.
John Bouck lives in upstate Auburn, N. Y. He is a commercial and industrial real estate broker, licensed in New York and Florida. John flies a Cessna 210, as well as a Cessna 180 on amphibious floats. With over 2,000 hours of flight time, he holds a commercial license, with instrument rating, as well as seaplane rating, and is a CFI. He can be reached at: jcbouck@verizon.net. |
We
knew Charleston was one of the old major cities along the coast of
South Carolina. We didn’t realize, however, the extent of its
Southern history, charm and beauty. After landing at Charleston
International and taking the short ride into downtown, we ended up
staying for a wonderful 3 day unscheduled mini-vacation. A vacation
filled with history, southern hospitality, beautiful homes, and
awesome food! Our unscheduled flight stop led to personal travel
enrichment, and a great appreciation of one of our country’s
beautiful southern cities.