vacation photos: boone hall and the college of charleston

we decided we could just explore charleston without too much of a plan at first so we parked at the visitor's center and began wandering.  sometimes this doesn't turn out well (such as the time we didn't plan dinner and wandered aimlessly around kroger until i had enough food rage to eat the customers) but for our first day of touring it was perfect!

we first noticed the joseph manigault house, which is apparently a museum.  we didn't go inside, but it was pretty so steve got his picture (we also suspect joseph manigault was related to the founder of steve's fraternity, bros for lyfe, y'know).

speaking of food rage, i had a little bit of that when we started walking, but thanks to the fact that we were unknowingly on the campus of the college of charleston, we managed to find a moe's and stuffed our bellies with queso.  fun fact about the south?  they can serve beer at moe's down there!  whaaat?  clearly we had to get some just to prove we weren't imagining it!

(note that steve was given some free sunglasses and a drink koozie by some chick on a street corner promoting the x factor).

after lunch we discovered that we were on the campus of the college of charleston!  the area was too cute and we fantasized a little about what it must be like to hang out on the historic streets, and go to school where you don't need a parka to go bar hopping.  and then i annoyed steve by demanding a photoshoot in the lovely little campus courtyard we stumbled upon!

recognize this cute little family from behind?  i didn't at the time, but after we returned home theeverygirl.com posted a feature article on interior and textile designer caitlin wilson.  that's her in the pink coat, with her darling little family!  i had no idea we were touring boone hall plantation with a famous design blogger, but it was fun that we had a little retroactive celebrity sighting!  check out her blog!

we toured boone hall plantation which is the oldest, still operating plantation in the country!  the house and gardens were absolutely gorgeous, though i imagine the gardens are even more beautiful when the flowers are blooming more.  we spent a big chunk of our day enjoying the plantation and learned some fun facts.  the movie the notebook was filmed at boone hall and it is also where ryan reynolds and blake lively got married. clearly we picked a very romantic spot.

on our way back to the hotel we ran across these mutant chicken ducks.  i scrambled out of the car and stuck out my butt for some serious awkward tourist photos.  upon further investigation they turned out not to be the incredible mutant hybrid beasts i imagined, but instead are just a boring ugly breed of duck known as the muscovy duck.  boo.

we decided to finish up our day with cocktails in the hotel lobby since i found us such a swanky place to stay.  cheers!